“I’ve been putting this off. I didn’t want to bring it up until we’d had the memorial. Until we’d … gotten here.”

So Adrian sat. “If this is about the house, about Rizzo’s—”

“What? Oh God, no.” Lina nearly laughed. “He knew I wouldn’t want either, wouldn’t know what the hell to do with either. Traveler’s Creek just isn’t my home, Adrian. It’s where I come from, and that’s different. He left me that painting his grandmother did of the sunflower field because I always liked it. It’s not a very good painting, but it speaks to me. He left me his father’s pocket watch because my nonno let me play with it when I was a child. He left me things like that, things he knew would mean something to me.

“I loved him, Adrian.”

“Of course you did.”

“No, no.” Lina shook her head, picked up her wine. “I loved them both, but we lived in different worlds. I chose a different one. They never tried to hold me back.”

She took a deep breath. “When my mother died, it was so abrupt, so immediate. I was so angry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, just a slick road on a dark night. But this, somehow, it’s different. I saw when I was here over the holidays. He looked older, he moved slower. I could see the time he wouldn’t be there, and it scared me. He was always invulnerable. It was forever. There would always be time to make up for not being here enough.”

When her voice broke, she stopped, drank some wine. “I was coming for his birthday, and making plans to stay maybe a week. Then to start visiting every couple of months, a day or two. Just to make up some of that time. And then … you called, and there was no more time.”

“He was proud of you. They both were proud of everything you’ve accomplished.”

“I know that, too. I always felt trapped here, closed in.” She looked around. “This big old house on the hill, the little town down below. It wasn’t for me. I need the crowds, the movement. This isn’t about that.”

Pausing, Lina pressed her fingers to her eyes.

“Justifications are crap.” She dropped her hands to the table. “So is procrastination, which I’m doing now. I’ve been a lousy mother.”

“You … what?”

“You don’t think I know how inadequate I’ve been in that area? I wanted what I wanted, and I pushed for it—whatever it took, whatever it left behind. I left a lot of things behind. The bare fact is, I’m not good with kids.”

“Okay.” At a loss, Adrian lifted her hands. “I never went without anything.”

Lina let out a short laugh. “That’s a poor bar to scale. You didn’t because Mimi and Harry filled the gaps. And more because your grandparents gave you a home. I’ve lost my parents,” Lina said slowly. “I’ve lost them both. And it’s made me face what a bad one I’ve been.”

“You gave me discipline and drive, made me understand the value of working toward my own passion. I wouldn’t have New Gen without you plowing the road.”

“You started down that road on your own, with the friends who’ve just left. You didn’t come to me, because why would you? I saw it then, knew it then, but, well, you know, busy. I’m sorry.”

It surprised Adrian to feel it, so she said it. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m not. You know I’m not, but you feel a little sorry for me right now. I’m going to exploit that and ask for you to give me a chance to do better. You’re a grown woman, I get that, and I’ve lost the time between. But I’d like to try to do better as a parent. As a mother.

“I love you. It’s hard for me to show it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

In her life Adrian couldn’t remember Lina asking her for anything. Regimenting her, directing her, disagreeing with her. But never asking her for anything.

“Would you answer a question for me?”

With something between a smirk and a smile, Lina tipped her glass back and forth. “I’ve had more wine tonight than I generally have in a week, so now would be the time to ask me a question.”

Adrian took her time, drank some wine herself. “Why did you have me? You had a choice.”

“Oh, that one.” Lina drew in, let out a long breath. “I’m not going to lie to you, not going to say I didn’t consider that choice. I was young, not quite through college. I’d discovered the man I thought I loved and loved me was not only sleeping with other women but had a wife he was not divorcing.”

“It was horrible for you.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lina leaned forward. “There’s one of the big differences between us. You see that, understand that. You don’t need anything more to empathize. My empathy level is well below yours. Skipped a generation.”

She leaned back. “It was horrible. Mimi helped so much. She always has. I knew she’d stand by me whatever choice I made, so less horrible. I felt I needed to tell Jon. I’d stopped seeing him, of course. I already told you about that, but I felt an obligation to tell him. I went to his office at the college, and … it didn’t go well.”

Brows drawn, eyes hot, Lina stared down at the table. “He kept a bottle in his desk, and he’d obviously used it before I got there. That should’ve warned me off. But I was there to get this done.”

She looked up. “He called me a liar, then a whore, accused me of trying to ruin his life, of trying to trap him, and so on. I told him I didn’t want anything from him, had no intention of telling anyone, but that didn’t work. He demanded I get rid of it, deal with it, or he’d make me sorry. I was angry enough to tell him I’d decide what to do with my own body, and he had no say in it.

“He came at me. So fast, shoved me against the wall. I remember things falling off the shelves he was so violent. And he hit me, twice, with his fists.”

She pressed a hand to her stomach.

“Hit the beginnings of you, all the while shouting he’d decide. He’d get rid of it right now. I’d seen what he was, Adrian, when I broke things off with him, but then I saw what came into the house in Georgetown all those years later. I saw a killing violence. I’m not sure what might have happened, but the door opened. It was the student I knew he was currently sleeping with. He rounded on her, shouting for her to get the hell out, and I managed to pull away, get away.”

She lifted her glass again. “That made my choice. Maybe it was arbitrary or out of spite, but I kept thinking he’d attacked us. Us. So I chose us. I should have gone to the police, and that I regret, but I just wanted to get away from him. And when I came home, when I sat in this kitchen with Mom and Dad and told them, told them all of it, they were there for me. For us.”

“You must have been so frightened.”

“Not after I came home, not after I went to work. I actually enjoyed pregnancy. It was a challenge, and I had a goal. That’s how I operate, after all.”

“It’s how Rizzos operate,” Adrian corrected.

“To a point, sure.” Lina shook her head again. “In any case, Yoga Baby sprang from that, from us. But it didn’t take me long, after you were born, to realize I’m not very maternal, not particularly good with babies, with children. I could make sure you were healthy, safe, secure, but to do that I needed to build my career and business. That’s how I saw it. And Mimi was there to do the rest. And your grandparents, then Harry. Freed me up to do what I wanted.”