The Clock Comes Back to St. Cecilia
Chapter 13 - The Clock Comes Back to St. Cecilia
A year after the clock went on display, St. Cecilia held a fundraiser for the restored workers’ relief program.
No chandeliers.
Folding tables.
Bad coffee.
Children running between chairs.
Perfect.
The recovered fund had become independent.
No Conti control.
No family board majority.
Widows, retired workers, and community representatives held the votes.
Alessandro sat in the third row.
Not on stage.
He liked that less than he claimed.
I liked it exactly as much as I claimed.
Open Door had twenty-one employees now.
We cleaned offices, senior apartments, and three small hotels.
I finished the business certificate I abandoned years earlier.
Night classes.
Mia did homework beside me at the kitchen table.
Sometimes she corrected my spelling.
Usually incorrectly.
Greta came to the fundraiser.
First time I saw her in two years.
She had finished probation.
Worked part time at a community pantry.
She looked older.
Less formal.
No black uniform.
She approached carefully.
“Hello, Nora.”
“Hello.”
“Mia?”
“Getting cookies.”
Greta nodded.
“I won’t bother her.”
That mattered.
She did not assume access because time had passed.
I said:
“She remembers you.”
“I’m sure.”
Not self-pity.
Just fact.
Then:
“Your company is doing well.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
I believed her.
There was no reconciliation scene.
No invitation to work for me.
Some relationships heal into distance.
That is still healing.
Later, Alessandro joined me near the clock.
His mother’s photograph stood beside it.
Ruth’s too.
Two women in ordinary clothes.
No halos.
The display included the audit’s uncomfortable parts.
Elena delayed speaking publicly.
Ruth bypassed procedures.
Greta helped hide evidence, then later failed Elena’s instructions.
Accuracy over worship.
Miriam insisted.
I agreed.
Alessandro looked at his mother’s picture.
“She would hate that the plaque says she waited too long.”
“Probably.”
“Good.”
He smiled.
Progress.
Mia ran toward us with two cookies and the rabbit tucked beneath one arm.
She was six now.
The yellow bow era had ended.
Apparently bows were “baby.”
She handed Alessandro half a cookie.
Not me.
Betrayal.
He accepted solemnly.
Then Mia asked:
“Are you family?”
The question came from nowhere.
Alessandro looked at me.
Good.
He did not answer for her.
I asked:
“What do you think?”
Mia chewed.
“You come to dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Nero sleeps at our house sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“You kiss Mommy when you think I’m not looking.”
I nearly died.
Alessandro coughed.
Mia continued.
“So probably.”
There.
Six-year-old legal doctrine.
Alessandro crouched.
“I’d like to be family, if you want.”
Mia nodded.
“Okay.”
Then ran away.
No ceremony.
No title.
Enough.
That evening, Alessandro drove us home.
At my apartment door, he said:
“She makes major decisions quickly.”
“She’s six.”
“Terrifying.”
I laughed.
Then he became serious.
“I have a question too.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“If that is a ring, I’m closing the door.”
He looked offended.
“It is not.”
“Good.”
“Would you ever want to marry me?”
Not proposal.
Question.
I thought.
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“Eventually.”
“Right.”
“Not because Mia thinks we’re family.”
“Right.”
“Not because you served time.”
“I know.”
“Not because you’re better now.”
He frowned.
“What’s wrong with better?”
“Nothing. But marriage is not a medal for improvement.”
He laughed softly.
“Fair.”
I touched his hand.
“When we do it, I want it boring.”
“How boring?”
“No federal agents.”
“Ambitious.”
“No hidden compartments.”
“Reasonable.”
“No family crest.”
He smiled.
“That one might hurt Dom.”
“Especially no Dom choosing jewelry.”
We stood in the hall laughing.
Then he kissed me.
And inside my apartment, Mia shouted:
“I CAN HEAR YOU.”
Romance rarely survives children with dignity.
That was probably healthy.
The next eight months were intentionally uneventful.
That sentence would have horrified the younger Alessandro.
He learned to like it.
Tuesday dinners.
Saturday grocery runs.
Mia’s school play where she forgot one line and invented three better ones.
A weekend when Alessandro caught the flu and discovered I had no sympathy for men who claimed thirty-eight degrees Celsius was “near death.”
He argued.
Nero abandoned him for Mia’s room.
Justice.
We spoke about marriage before jewelry.
Money.
Parenting.
My company.
His criminal history.
Whether Mia would ever want him legally connected to her.
We agreed that question belonged partly to a future version of Mia, not to our impatience.
That may have been the least romantic and most loving conversation we ever had.
Then Alessandro stopped mentioning marriage entirely.
I assumed I had frightened him.
I was wrong.
He was waiting until he could make the proposal as boring as I had requested.
May you like
He almost succeeded.
Nero complicated it.
