Chapter 6 - Angelo's Table
Angelo Romano sat at table twelve as if he still owned the restaurant.
Technically, he owned nothing.
Emotionally, half the building still stood up straighter when he entered.
Maya followed Vincent into the dining room wearing her chef jacket.
Angelo's eyes went to her face and stayed there.
For once, the old man had no immediate line prepared.
“Maya Torres,” Vincent said. “This is Angelo Romano.”
“I know who he is,” Maya replied.
Angelo looked at his son. “You brought her out in uniform?”
Maya answered before Vincent could.
“I work here.”
Angelo's gaze returned to her.
“Yes. I heard.”
Vincent pulled out a chair.
“Dad, why are you here?”
Angelo did not sit back.
“I wanted to see her.”
Maya crossed her arms.
“Why?”
“Because I made decisions that affected your life.”
“That is a very clean way to say it.”
Angelo almost smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
Maya's expression changed instantly.
“Don't.”
The word was quiet.
Angelo looked away.
Good, Vincent thought.
Learn.
The dining room around them moved carefully. Servers delivered plates while pretending not to listen.
Vincent sat across from his father.
Maya remained standing.
Angelo gestured to the empty chair beside him. “Please.”
“No.”
Another lesson.
He nodded.
“I came to apologize.”
Maya stared at him.
“To me?”
“To you. And to your mother, though she's beyond hearing it.”
Maya's jaw tightened.
“You don't get points for saying that.”
“I know.”
Vincent watched his father carefully.
Angelo did not often enter rooms without armor.
Maya said, “Why did you hide me?”
Angelo folded his hands.
“Because I thought Vincent would throw away his future.”
“You mean your business.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised everyone.
Angelo continued. “The restaurant was nearly gone. I had debts your father did not know about. The investors wanted him in New York because they believed I was the problem.”
“You were,” Vincent said.
Angelo ignored him.
“I believed if Vincent stayed for Elena and the baby, the company would fail. I also believed he would resent both of you for it.”
Maya's eyes narrowed.
“So you saved us from being resented by making sure he never knew us.”
Angelo looked down.
“When you say it that way, it sounds monstrous.”
“It was monstrous before I said it.”
Vincent almost reached for Maya's arm in pride.
He stopped himself.
Angelo breathed out.
“Your mother refused every offer.”
“What offers?”
“Money. Housing. Tuition later.”
Maya's face hardened. “She told me someone offered to buy her silence. She never told me it was you.”
“I did not think of it as buying silence.”
Vincent said, “That's because you like euphemisms when you're guilty.”
Angelo gave him a tired look. “And you like honesty now that it costs you less than it did at twenty-nine.”
The words hit.
Maya looked between them.
“Stop.”
Both men did.
She stepped closer to the table.
“This is exactly why my mother kept me away from all of you.”
Neither spoke.
“You turn everything into which Romano man was more wrong.”
Her voice shook now.
“I lost my mother five months ago. I found out my father is alive and famous and spent twenty years a thirty-minute drive away. I found out my grandfather read letters meant for him and hid me like I was a threat. And somehow you're both still competing.”
Vincent stood.
“Maya—”
“No.”
She backed away.
“I need air.”
She walked out through the front door.
Vincent started after her.
Marcus appeared from the bar and blocked him with one hand.
“Don't.”
Vincent stared at him.
“She said she needs air.”
“I heard.”
“Then let her have it.”
Vincent looked toward the door.
Every instinct told him to follow.
Fix.
Explain.
Contain.
He sat back down.
Angelo watched him.
“That's new.”
Vincent did not look at him.
“Shut up.”
For ten minutes neither man spoke.
Then Maya returned.
She stood beside the table, eyes red but dry.
“I have one question for each of you.”
Angelo nodded.
Vincent did too.
She looked at Angelo first.
“If my mother had taken your money, would you have told Vincent I existed?”
Angelo's face changed.
“No.”
Maya nodded once.
Then she looked at Vincent.
“If your father had told you the truth when I was born, would you have come for us?”
Vincent opened his mouth.
He wanted to say yes.
He wanted it so badly he could feel the word waiting.
But he remembered the man he had been at twenty-nine.
Ambitious.
Afraid.
Still measuring love against opportunity.
“I don't know,” he said.
Maya's eyes filled.
Vincent kept going because truth was the only gift he had not already cheapened.
“I want to tell you yes. But I don't know if the man I was then would have done the right thing.”
Maya nodded slowly.
“That hurts.”
“I know.”
“But I believe you.”
Angelo looked away.
Maya turned toward him.
“I don't believe you yet.”
The old man accepted it.
She went back to the kitchen.
Vincent sat with his father for another minute.
Then Angelo said, “She is stronger than either of us.”
Vincent looked toward the swinging kitchen door.
“No.”
“What?”
“She shouldn't have had to be.”
That evening, after service, Maya found Vincent waiting near the hostess stand.
Not the kitchen.
Not her station.
Neutral ground.
She held the wooden box against her chest.
Vincent stood.
Maya took out the sealed letter addressed to him.
“You listened today,” she said.
He did not reach for it.
“Is that enough?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Then keep it.”
Maya looked surprised.
“You don't want to read it?”
“More than almost anything.”
“Then why not?”
“Because she made you the judge of when I was ready.”
Maya studied him for a long time.
Then she put the letter back into the box.
“Good answer.”
She turned to leave.
Vincent exhaled.
“Maya?”
She looked back.
“Would you have dinner with me sometime?”
“As what?”
He smiled faintly.
“As two people who both miss Elena.”
Maya considered.
“Maybe.”
It was not yes.
May you like
It was not no.
For Vincent, it felt like the first honest future he had been offered in twenty years.
