Kate



"You are three days early!"

"I've missed her." He insisted.

"You're making me out to be the bad guy here. If I say no then I'm the asshole keeping a father from his daughter, daughter from loving father, but if I say yes than I'm negligent mother who never sees her daughter and pawns her off every chance she can get!"

"You're reading too much into this. I've just come for a visit."

"Oh I'm so sure."

"I'll bring her back tonight."

"No, you'll watch a movie after dinner and then it'll be so late you figure she might as well just stay!"

"Her uncle is visiting." He sighed.

Finally, some honestly. "Sergio? How long have you known he was coming up for? A week? Two weeks? A month?" I asked and could tell by his expression it had been even longer. "You should have told me. I don't mind altering our agreement for occasions but a heads up would be great!"

I turned around to continue my task of cleaning up toys, I picked up a stuffed animal, a doll Donato had chewed up but Charlie had refused to part with, and a wand and put them in the basket under my arm. "Honestly Alessio sometimes you can be so unfair. How long did you want her for then? Tonight? Until it's your day? Until it's mine again? That's almost a whole week?!"

He took the basket from me and picked up a car and Ken doll and added to it. "You've taken her on vacation before. A whole week without seeing me. I've never had her for more than a few days."

"Yeah but - that's different." Now he was talking about a whole week? I couldn't go a whole week without seeing my daughter! The weekends alone were already torture, when she left, no matter how many times she had left before, no matter what plans we had for the weekend, I always felt myself lost. It was like I sat down and said now what? Only to find no answer.

"The last time they saw her she was barely walking."

I groaned and pulled the basket back as he filled it with the last of the toys. "I never said they couldn't see her, I just don't like the idea of not seeing her for that long." I dropped the basket and gave it a kick so it slid across the floor into its designated corner.

"So come with her. You've always been welcome, you know that."

"That's...that's inappropriate." I countered.

He took a step forward and put and hand through the back of my hair. "You've cut your hair again." He mused. It was so short I could barely muster a pathetic pigtail. "Feeling restless are you Katherine?"

I raised my chin as though his hand running through my hair didn't give me chills. "No."

"It grows and grows and grows as you feel comfortable and when you need a change off it goes."

I swatted his hand away. "It's just hair Alessio."

"You're bored Katherine. You thought you wanted this life but I have taught you more. You've seen passion and danger, felt the adrenaline and power, you can't escape that feeling, you crave more."

"You don't know a thing about me anymore. I've been blessed beyond my means, we are comfortable, financially and emotionally. My daughter is well loved and healthy, everything is as it should be."

"Could be better of course."

"Oh I'm so sure." I rolled my eyes.

"Charlie could have two parents who love each other, one home, she could have all of the people she loved together for the most important days of her life instead of being passed back and forth like a game of hot potato-"

"Fine. We failed our kid. That what you wanted to hear?"

"What I wanted to hear was an acceptance to dinner."

I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot. "I'm assuming this invitation does not extend to my fiancé?" He didn't answer, not as though he needed to. "I am coming only to see Sergio and be with Charlie." And because I had something that needed to be discussed with Charlie's father.



----



The two hour car ride could have been awkward had it not been for Charlie's continual talking. She had a set of lungs and she was over the moon that Mom was going with her to Dad's house. She was excited to show me her room over there, all the toys she had, the battery powered car she was allowed to drive if she wore her helmet. Admittedly, hearing Charlie so excited about having us together, sharing parts of her life with both of us, had me feeling a little guilty that she couldn't have a life like this all the time.

"This is where I get to write on the wall, it's a chalk board see so I'm allowed, just here though-"

"Her bedroom is bigger than my living room." I whispered to Alessio as we stood in the door way and Charlie showed off different aspects of the room. I had thought he had done too much with her room at home with the canopy bed and tree shaped bookcase and a mural on the wall but this room was ridiculous. Her bed was literally a castle, it looked as though it was inside a castle, the two posts on the ends were book cases with tops as though they were towers on a castle, stairs wrapped up one side, leading to a little loft, and a slide came down the other side. The wardrobe was made to match the castle, the wardrobe too had two castle towers on both sides of it and the mural on this wall was made to look like trees and a grassy kingdom etc.

"This is where I sleep, and this is my slide see-" She climbed up the loft and pushed a stuffed animal down the slide to demonstrate.

"Your living room is too small." He shrugged back to me.

"And over here is where we keep my stuffed animals-" She opened a part of the wall that was made to blend in.

"Jesus Christ." I muttered.

"And behind the stuffed animals is the secret passage way to escape incase bad guys ever come-"

"And I think Mommy has seen enough." Alessio chuckled and moved into the room to close the wall.

"Why does she have that? Where does that lead?"

"Relax. It's a precaution in all the ground floor rooms."

"Aren't you worried she'll wander out in the middle of the night? Maybe you shouldn't have showed it to her."

"Relax."

"Stop telling me to relax! Where does that lead to?"

"Out." Charlie said nonchalantly and wandered to the other side of the room to play with some toys.

I gave Alessio a look. "Does that lead out of the house completely? Underground I'm assuming?"

He put a hand on the small of my back and turned me away from the wall. "Let's go back upstairs." He suggested, for the sake of maintaining peace in front of Charlie I followed him back to the main floor and to the kitchen. "It shouldn't be too long before they arrive." He said and got a juice box out.

I gave him a once over, admittedly it was interesting to see the mighty Alessio standing before me with a juice box. He handed the juice box to Charlie and I leaned against the counter. "For the sake of curiosity, how long have you known they were coming?"

"Not too long."

"Over under, six months?" I moved past him to get my own juice box out of the fridge.

"Under."

"Three months."

"Over, come here." He took my hand and I pulled it back to swiftly. He motioned for me to follow him and I did. "Grown up juice." He offered me the wine cellar.

This was something I would never deny missing. There were many, many, exhausting days with Charlie and trying to be civil with Alessio especially in that first year after she was born, when I could have used a cellar of wine. "Hm. What should we bring for dinner? What do they like? What are we having?"

He put his hand on the small of me back to reach past me to retrieve a bottle of red and held it out to me for approval.

"I-I need to talk to you."

"In the wine cellar?"

"In general."

He left his hand on my back. "Very well."

"Well, as you know, Nigel and I are engaged."

He lowered his hand. "I've heard a time or two."

I brought my fingers together and fiddled with them nervously, I twirled the engagement ring around my ring finger as I broached a dangerous subject. "Well, as you may have assumed, I will be taking his last name."

He snorted. "Yes, I am aware you will soon be Mrs. Poots."

I felt my cheeks grow red. "As you are also aware, we agreed that Charlie wouldn't take your last name when she was born because of the dangers."

He slid the wine bottle back to its spot on the shelf. "Actually you agreed, I did no such thing, but yes I am aware of the situation Katherine."

"It doesn't make sense for her to have neither of our last names. So Nigel and I were talking-"

"No."

"Just hear me out."

"No."

"She already has my last name, it should change with mine. Nigel is going to be her step-father and-"

"I am her father Katherine."

"I too am aware of the situation. Yes, you are, but Nigel is too. She calls him Dad, he's there every night and every morning he reads her books and kisses her booboos and-"

"If you want to have the same last name as her have Nigel change his last name, you are the one wearing the pants anyway."

I groaned. "Try to be a little reasonable Alessio, yes you are her father but-"

"You said you wanted to talk to me, we have talked, my answer is no. My name is on her birth certificate Katherine and I will never agree to change her name to anything other than my own. Honestly not giving her mine in the first place was asinine."

"It was not! For safety reasons, to keep her as separated from the Mafia as possible, to keep her safe-"

"Everyone knows I have a daughter Katherine. Everyone. Not giving her name was nothing but a way to spite me and this family. It didn't keep her a secret, it didn't keep her from this home, keep my name from her birth certificate. It was nothing but spite."

"You agreed we would do our best to keep her out too, showing her a freaking secret passage way to escape? What was that about?"

"If the house should ever be raided-"

"This is exactly why I never wanted this in the first place! My daughter should never be in a house that is going to be raided to begin with!"

"So what? Would you have gone back? Changed your mind? Had your fὑcking abortion? I'm sorry I can't be boring and one-dimensional like Nigel but as long as I am still breathing my daughter will never have his, nor any other man's last name."

"I never said any of that!"

"God forbid Katherine doesn't get her way."

"God forbid you don't get your way! You'd rather have her have no one's last name? Feel like an outsider to both sides of the family-"

"He's not her father, he shouldn't even be involved. It should have been us."

But it wasn't. "We've been through this before Alessio."

"Damn it Katherine we could be one family, all have the same last name, share holidays, share a home."

"I'm engaged!"

"So! We've both blown one or two of those before!"

"Oh, very mature. I have to be a parent here, I have to take Charlie into consideration here. Nigel is safe, and stable, and reliable-"

"And about as interesting as the growing grass on my yard."

"I'm not going to rip him away from her because you are feeling threatened, I don't obey your command, not anymore."

"But you'll rip her away from me?"

"Are you kidding? You come and go whenever you damn well please! You have as much of her as I do." Sometimes it felt like more.

"Yes and I have to ask permission or give a heads up to seeing my daughter, tip toe around your feminine melt downs, pretend as though Nigel isn't the fungus on the ocean floor, I didn't kill him, I let you have your power trip, my daughter, but if you think for one second I'll give him anymore of her than he already has you are sorely mistaken Katherine."

"He's not taking more of her Alessio, come on. Does everything have to be so dramatic with you! I just wanted to talk about it, it's important to us as a family, it's important to me, to Charlie."

"Do not test me, not on this Katherine." He warned his index finger coming out.

"Mommyyyyy, Daddyyyyy."

I turned my head away and closed my eyes. After a moment I sighed. "How long have when been screaming at each other in this closet while she got into God knows what out there?"

"It's not a closet." He muttered and grabbed a bottle on his way past me and back into the kitchen.

"If we are going to do this, even attempt to spend time together Charlie comes first we can fight after she's asleep." I followed so closely behind him that when he stopped and turned around I bumped into his chest, he put each hand to my shoulder one a palm holding me and the other a fist around the wine bottle. "Is this what you want, you and I together? So we can what? Yell and scream at each other? Start another circle of lies? We aren't good for each other Alessio. We never were. We've been through this before"

And we had, I was so firm during my pregnancy, yes we were having a baby, but no we were not together. It was much harder once Charlie was actually born. He'd chosen to sit behind me on the hospital bed with me between his legs while I was in labor, letting me rest against him, brushing hair away from my sweaty head, holding onto me while Charlie was born, I'd told him he was missing his daughters birth and he'd said right now you are the one in pain, she is just fine, when we get you through this we'll never miss another moment of her life. It'd been hard, he'd brought me to his home, to show me the room he'd made for Charlie, while he spoke of the life we could have...to tell him, no, to leave, while battling postpartum, without any sleep, feeling overwhelmed and lonely, while I did and would always love Alessio, to leave had been hard. The first few months were the hardest but we had built a life this way, co-parenting. I had held my ground, refused his advances, offerings, had tried to keep our relationship strictly about Charlie. He was so casual in his advances, a simple running his hand through my hair, an offer to join us for dinner, it was as though speaking to me and being around me was second nature for him.

But it wasn't for me. It was hard. Being around Alessio was hard, telling Alessio no was hard, it wasn't as though I hadn't considered it too. Charlie having one home, never going back and forth, never having to apologize when she had a nightmare and wanted Dad that he wasn't there only Mom and Nigel, how nice it could be for her to wake up on Christmas and be able to spend all day in her pajamas playing with her new toys instead of having to brave the cold and leave her toys behind until after she was done with her other family. But Alessio, while he could offer us unity, and while we had passion, and excitement, and a thrill I would never find with Nigel it just couldn't be.

He opened his mouth but then put his head down to watch the little girl run past us, not our little girl either, she was too tall and her hair far too red, moments later another identical girl ran past us. We exchanged confused glances and a second later Charlie blundered after them, she took a detour to circle twice around us before chasing the girls.

"Girls! Girls come back here and let me introduce you!" Aria yelled. I gave Alessio a little push away, went to tuck hair behind my ear as though it was long enough, and came to greet Sergio and Aria.

Aria sighed heavily and put her hands on her hips.

"Alessio said you'd be here but I didn't honestly believe him." Sergio said and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Funny, he hadn't spoken to anyone since convincing me to come, he must have told him ahead of time. Little shit.

"Oh my God no, put that down!" Aria yelled past us and then groaned. "Emma and Addy." She explained. "We're fostering." After several miscarriages and a failed IVF attempt Aria and Sergio had decided they would not put their plans of having a family aside and had started looking into adoption. "I don't know what we were thinking, trusting me to be responsible for another human life, and two of them at that!" She brought a hand to her head and scratched at the roots thoughtfully.

The girls came back into the room with Charlie a few years their younger excitedly trailing after. Aria bent down and put her hands to her knees.

"Why don't you girls go downstairs and watch a movie in Charlie's room? I'll bet she has some great movies!"

"Which one is which?" I asked as they were identical.

Aria glanced up to me and gave the slightest headshake. She had no idea which was which. We watched the girls run off before speaking of it again. "Oh my God Aria! You don't know which is which?"

"Well, see they keep switching on us! When the social worker introduced us I was so overwhelmed with everything I just nodded and said yes. I mean we'd agreed to foster like six hours before, we thought it would be weeks and all of the sudden they were there, not one but two foster kids, we were sort of flabbergasted we just sort of nodded and signed papers, Christ I don't even know what was signed. I asked them later and one said she was Addy, and I was like okay, Addy has a mole on the inside of her left wrist, Emma's hair curls a little more tightly, got it. But then ten minutes later they said I was wrong, Emma had the mole. They do it on purpose. They switch clothing and head bands, they're in different classes in school and switch classes, I one time marked them E and A on their hand with a marker, they washed the marker off and wrote the opposite letter on themselves. They do it on purpose. I've just kind of been calling them girls instead of isolating which is which."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"I can totally tell them apart!" She defended and then shrugged. "I just don't know which one is actually which."

"Yes, yes, very comical. Thanks for the heads up." Alessio muttered and went back into the kitchen.

"Thank God." Sergio said watching him. "When I was told you would be here I was worried he wouldn't be the same ray of sunshine we are so accustomed to."

"We're, erm, having a disagreement or sorts."

"Shocking."

"It's a good thing he handles those so well." Aria snorted and followed him into the kitchen.

I kept my eyes trained to Sergio as he watched her go. He looked so content to look at her, like at all moments of the day he was proud. Finally he turned away from her and to me and ruffled my hair. "Short hair, looks nice on you. I haven't heard your name in a while, you and Alessio-?"

"No, no, I'm still with Nigel Alessio is just...he's being difficult. Which yeah, total shocker." I crossed my arms and half turned to the kitchen. "It's fine, we'll be fine." When it came to Charlie we always found a way of working things out. "We'll be fine."