Marco POV
My mother set the table herself that night, which should have been my very first warning.
"Sit, sit." She waved me toward my usual chair, the one at her right hand, the one I'd sat in since I was old enough to hold a fork properly. "I made the osso buco. Rosa's recipe, not mine—don't tell her I said that."
"You never let anyone else cook when you want something."
"Can't a mother simply want to feed her son?" She smiled, and it was warm, easy—the same smile she'd worn throughout my childhood. It was the look that had convinced half of Florence's old families that Carmela Ricci was a woman of no particular consequence, soft-spoken and decorative. I knew better. I'd always known better. I just hadn't always remembered to act on it.
We ate in near silence for the first ten minut
