She looked down at the table again. “I did what I wanted,” she murmured. “And you were healthy, well-groomed, well-mannered. You had a good education, travel, talent—oh, you had such talent. And didn’t I make sure you had others to fill those gaps? There’d be plenty of time, later, for whatever. I didn’t have that time to coddle and cuddle, or the inclination.”

She lifted her hands. “So I lost all of that time.”

Before Lina could drop her hands again, Adrian reached out, gripped one.

“Do you know one of my most vivid memories, one of my deepest and strongest memories of you? Of my mother?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“He hurt Mimi. I was so shocked and scared, and I ran for you, ran, screaming for you. And he caught me, he hurt me. He was hurting me. You came out, and you were so calm, so strong.”

“I wasn’t. I wasn’t.”

“You were. You tried to talk him into letting me go. You kept talking, trying to get him to let me go. That was your focus. I was your focus.

“And when he threw me, when he tried to throw me down the stairs, it hurt. It was this white-hot pain, but I saw you. I saw you through it, the rage on your face, the fury, the way you leaped at him. For me. To save me. He hit you, he hurt you, but you didn’t stop. You were bleeding, but you didn’t stop. He would have killed you, killed all of us, but you wouldn’t let him. And when he fell, you ran to me. To me. You held me, with blood and tears on your face.”

Adrian reached out again, taking her mother’s other hand so they linked across the table. “I know you loved me. In the day-to-day routine of things, you’re crap at showing it.”

Lina’s surprised laugh ended on a half sob. “I really am.”

“But when it’s the hard stuff, the ugly stuff, you’re right there. I’ve always known it. And I didn’t know or understand then that by leaving me here for that summer, you took all the heat, all the fallout, all the ugliness, and left me where I could just be.”

“That was most of it, I’ll take credit for that being most of it. But there was calculation, too. I needed to use what had happened to boost, and not let what had happened take down what I’d started.”

“You have had a lot of wine tonight.”

“I’m so sorry, Adrian. I wish I could say I’ll be better, do better. I want to try, and that’s the goal. I’m hoping this isn’t the first goal I set I miss making. You have too much of them in you not to give me a chance. I’m using that, too.”

Adrian released her mother’s hand to pick up her glass. “Keep drinking,” she said, and made Lina laugh again.

“Okay, I’m going to lay it out. I enjoy my life. I’m proud of what I’ve built, and I think—I know—I’ve changed some lives for the better with my work. I like the spotlight. I like the financial advantages, the travel, all of it. I like the freedom, which is one of the reasons I’ve never married. But at the end of the day, I know I’m smart enough, organized enough, clever enough to have made more time for you, for my parents. I’ll never get that time back with them.

“Meanwhile …” She lifted her glass in turn. “You’re better than I ever was. You’re more approachable, more personable, more balanced in that way. You’ve got a good head for business—I beat you there, but you’ve got a good head for it—and you surround yourself with talented people, people you like, who like you. More balance. And you’ve got more natural talent than I did. I’m going to take credit again for giving you the foundation, but you’ve built your own on it. And I respect that.”

Lina sipped, studied her daughter. “I thought you were wasting yourself coming back here. I was wrong. It only helped you expand that talent and appeal. It would have smothered me, but it just opened you.”

She sipped again, looked around the room. “What are you going to do in this big, old house?”

“Live, to start. Work. Figure it out as I go.”

“I’d like to stay a few more days if you’re okay with that.”

“I’d like that, too. I’ll take you for a tour of the youth center in progress. You might have some ideas.”

“Would you take them?”

“Might.” Adrian smiled. “If they work for me. And I’d like you to come back in May—first week of May.” She calculated. “Possibly the second week of May for the joint project. I’ve got most of the arrangements in place.”

“We haven’t even … What arrangements? I’d assumed we’d do the production in New York.”

“I’ve got a different angle.” Lina Rizzo, Adrian thought, wasn’t the only one who knew how to exploit the moment. “Traveler’s Creek High School gym. We’ll have students, teachers—I’ve cleared all that. Double-disk set.”

“In a high school gym—more a small town high school? With kids?”

“Graduating seniors with parental and medical approval. Six of those, six teachers. We put them through the paces. Thirty- to thirty-five-minute routines—cardio, strength training, mat work, yoga, and a combo of all. We provide wardrobe—maybe Yoga Baby for the teachers, New Gen for the students.”

“A competition?”

“Ahh, friendly.”

“Fitness 101.”

Adrian frowned. “Damn it, that’s better than my working title.”

“Which is?”

“Never mind. We use the town where I live and you grew up—and give it some nice play. We use the school where you graduated, adds some sweet nostalgia.”

“Let’s not mention the year I graduated.”

A woman-to-woman smile now. “As if.”

“You were going to do this with or without me.”

“Yes. But if you don’t like it, I’ll do the project you want with you at some point. I just think this would generate a lot of interest, and a lot of sales.”

“I want to see the routines.”

“I haven’t perfected all of them.”

“Good. I have some ideas of my own. If we come together on those, we have a deal.”

Lina held out a hand to shake. Then squeezed Adrian’s. “I’m going to do better.”

“You already are.”

Adrian had a full sack of sympathy mail to go through. She wanted to try to answer as many as possible, as quickly as possible. Some had sent condolences to the house, others to the restaurant.

She took an early run with Sadie to give her mother use of her gym. With a breakfast smoothie, she sat down at the kitchen counter to begin to sort. Many she could just put in a memorial box, as she’d already spoken in person to the sender. But others had come in from all over, all those people whose lives her grandfather had touched in some way.

Once she opened all, sorted all, she’d try to compose notes.

A man in Chicago sent sympathies, and mentioned that Dom had given him his first job. A woman in Memphis wrote that she’d gotten engaged in Rizzo’s, and Dom had personally brought a bottle of sparkling wine to the table.

Others spoke of having a birthday party at Rizzo’s, or coming there with their sports team after a win or a loss.