Behind Closed Doors

4

“Sure,” I say. “That will be really nice. We hardly know anyone in Long Island.”

Suzette throws her head back and laughs, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. “Oh, Millie…”

I glance over at Enzo, who shrugs. Neither of us seem to know what’s so funny. “What?”

“You don’t know how you sound,” she giggles. “Nobody says ‘in Long Island.’”

“They… they don’t?”

“No!” She shakes her head like I’m just too much. “It’s ‘on Long Island.’ You’re not in an island—that sounds so ignorant. You’re on an island.”

Enzo is scratching at his dark hair. He has zero gray hair on his head, by the way. If not for my bottles of Clairol, I would be pretty much gray and have been ever since Nico was born. All Enzo’s got is a few gray strands in his beard when he grows it out. But when I pointed that out to him, he dug around on his scalp until he found a single gray hair to show off to me, as if that made it any better.

“So I don’t understand,” I say. “Does that mean people should say they live on Hawaii? Or on Staten Island?”

The smile drops off her face. “Well, Staten Island is an entirely different case.”

I try to catch Enzo’s eye, but he just seems amused by the whole thing. “Well, we are happy to be here on Long Island, Suzette. And we look

forward to having dinner with you tomorrow night.” “I can’t wait,” she says.

I have to force my own smile. “Should I bring anything?”

“Oh.” She taps her index finger against her chin. “Why don’t you bring dessert?”

Great. Now I have to figure out what on earth I’m going to bring for dessert that will live up to Suzette’s standards. I’m thinking a box of Oreos won’t cut it. “Sounds good!”

As Suzette walks down the path back to her own much larger house, her heels clicking on the pavement with each step, I feel a twinge of something in the pit of my stomach. I was so excited when we bought this house. We’ve been crammed into tiny apartments for so long, and I finally have my dream house.

But now, for the first time, I wonder if I have made a terrible mistake moving here.

THREE

Tonight, the four of us are having dinner at our kitchen table. Do you know what a kitchen table is? That’s a table that fits inside our kitchen. Yes, our kitchen now has room in it for a whole table. Our last kitchen barely had room in it for a person.

We ordered Chinese food from a restaurant that had sent us a menu in the mail. I’m not very picky about food, and neither is Enzo. The only thing he won’t eat is Italian food. He says that no restaurant does it right, and it’s always a disappointment. But he’ll eat delivery pizza. Because that’s not actually Italian food, in his assessment.

Ada is easygoing in the same way, but Nico is super picky about food. That’s why, while the rest of us are chowing down on lo mein noodles and beef with broccoli, I have prepared a plate of white rice for my son, seasoned with a pat of butter and lots of salt. I’m pretty sure buttered rice is flowing through his veins right now.

“Our first dinner in the new house,” I announce proudly. “We are finally christening our kitchen table.”

“Why do you keep saying that, Mom?” Nico says. “Why do you keep saying we’re christening everything?”

To be fair, I’m not sure he’s ever heard me use the word “christen” before, and I have used it at least five times in the last several hours. When we were sitting on the couch earlier, I said we were christening the living room. Then when he went out in the backyard with his baseball, I said he was christening our yard. And at some point, I might have mentioned that I would be christening the toilet.

“Your mom is just excited about the house.” Enzo reaches for my hand across the kitchen table. “And she is right. Is a very beautiful house.”

“It’s kind of nice,” Nico concedes. “But I wish it were painted red. And had arches on it that were yellow.”

Okay, I’m pretty sure my son is telling me he wants to live at McDonald’s.

I don’t care. We bought this house for the two of them. Back in the Bronx, we were cramped into a tiny apartment, and men were starting to leer at Ada while she walked home. Now we are in an amazing school district, and they will have room to play in the backyard and wander around the neighborhood without worrying about being mugged. Even if they don’t appreciate it, this is the best thing we could have done for them.

“Mom?” Ada pushes some noodles around her plate, and I realize she’s hardly eaten anything. “Are we starting school tomorrow?”

Her dark eyebrows are scrunched together. Both of my kids look so much like their father, to the point where it seems they are both clones of him, and I was merely the incubator who birthed them. Ada is beautiful, with long jet-black hair and brown eyes that take up half her face. Enzo says she looks just like his sister, Antonia. Right now, she is coming to that transition between child and adult, and someday soon, she will be a woman who will turn heads. When that happens, I’m fairly sure Enzo is going to have to walk around with a baseball bat all the time. He won’t admit it, but he is very protective of her.

“Do you feel ready to start school?” I ask her.

“Yes,” she says, even as she’s shaking her head no.

“It’s the end of their spring break,” I point out. “So nobody will have seen each other for about a week. They probably won’t even remember each other.”

Ada does not look even the tiniest bit amused, but Nico giggles.

“I can drive you tomorrow,” Enzo offers. “We could take my truck.”

Her eyes light up because she loves riding in her father’s truck. “Can I sit in the front seat?”

Enzo looks at me with raised eyebrows. He loves to indulge them, but I appreciate that he won’t do it without checking with me.

“Actually, honey,” I say, “you’re still a little too small for the front seat. But soon.”