My eyes widened, and my heart rate kicked up several notches. I started running toward her. As soon as I reached her, I pulled her into my arms and ran my hand soothingly up and down her back.
“Mama, are you okay? What’s wrong? What happened?”
Her thin arms wrapped around my waist. She squeezed as she sniffled, then tipped her head back to look up at me.
“You’re finally home.” Her golden-brown eyes filled with tears again. “My Marco. You’re finally home. Don’t do that to me again.”
Both of my brows lifted as realization dawned. “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
Lifting one of her tiny hands, she slapped the back of my head and glared at me. “I haven’t seen you for ten days. That’s not nothing.”
“What’s going on out here?” Aldo stuck his face out of her house and rolled his eyes when he saw us, quickly putting together what was going on. “Oh, I see. You get your very own welcoming party. All I got was a lecture about how I need to learn to do my own laundry.”
Our mother turned her glare on him and parked her hands on her hips. “One of these days, I’m going to get you an old-fashioned washboard. You can break your own back cleaning one of your expensive suits.”
He winked at me before disappearing back into the house. Mom let out a huff and moved to go after him, turning when she reached the door to point a knobby finger at me. “I’m not done with you yet. Next time you disappear on me for that long, you will have to deliver my eulogy upon your return. I will have a heart attack, Marco. A big one.”
With that, she stomped into the house and left the door wide open. Sighing as I wondered how I was the only one in the family without a flair for the dramatic, I picked up the flowers I’d dropped and followed her inside.
My mother was a small woman, barely over five feet tall, but fuck, she was fierce. Streaks of silver had appeared in her black hair years ago, and her face was lined with the evidence of having raised twin boys by herself.
No matter how many times I had bought her new clothing or offered to buy her a different house, she insisted on wearing her same old clothes and staying in the house where she had raised us. Aldo and I did our best to maintain the place, but the carpet beneath my feet was threadbare, and the paint on the walls was chipped in some places.
As I stepped inside, though, none of those things mattered. We had made thousands of memories in this small living space, prepared thousands of meals in the small kitchen, and played thousands of games around the small dining-room table.
I smiled as I watched Mom smacking Aldo upside the head for something he must have said and then went to sling my arm over her narrow shoulders. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry I was away for so long, but you know that I need to travel for my work.”
She sighed and patted my hand. When she turned to face me, she finally saw the flowers in my arms, and a brilliant smile lit her eyes. “For me?”
“Of course.” I held them out to her and bent over to kiss the top of her head. “It’s good to see you, Mama.”
Before accepting the flowers, she raised her hands and placed her warm palms on my cheeks. “It’s good to finally have you home. One day, you’ll see that no matter how old your kids get, they’ll always be your babies.”
Aldo groaned. “I doubt either of us will have any personal experience with that, Mama. Now what about me? Am I not also still your baby?”
There was a mischievous gleam in his eyes when I met them over the top of her head. I shook my head at him, but there was no stopping him from pretending to be disgusted by the attention I was getting.
Mom knew it, too. She pointed at the leather sandals on her feet before jabbing him in the chest. “You’re my problem child. Don’t tempt me to take one of those off. You’re never too old for a hiding.” Turning back to me, she gave a small, playful wink. “Let me get a vase for those. They’re beautiful, darling.”
Aldo waited until she left us before sticking his tongue out at me and mimicking Mom. “They’re beautiful, darling.”
“Thank you.” I smirked. “If I’d known you liked flowers so much, I would have gotten you a bouquet of your very own.”
“Really?” He wagged his brows at me and clutched his heart. “Don’t worry. I’ll get over the hurt that you went all the way to China and brought nothing back for me. At least Mama got flowers.”
“Want one?”
He shrugged but plucked a pink rose out of the arrangement and snapped it in half between his long fingers. “There. I feel better now.”
“Great.” As I was about to roll my eyes at him again, both of us heard Mom closing a cabinet and knew it meant she would be back with us in a second.
Aldo hid the rose behind his back, stashing it in the pocket of his jeans and dropping his shirt over it. I righted the bouquet again and held it out when she entered the room.
“Here you go. A complete arrangement. There’s absolutely not a flower missing.”
She gave me a strange look before shifting her gaze to Aldo’s. He was the picture of innocence as he swept a hand in her direction. “A beautiful, complete bouquet for our beautiful mother.”
She sighed when she realized something was going on, but we weren’t about to tell her what it was. She took the flowers from me and gently placed them in the vase.
