“I did miss you, yes, but also—” Olivia waved her left hand.
June squinted at her daughter’s fingers moving back and forth. There was a diamond ring on the important one.
June’s mouth fell open. She’d figured the call might be about something man related, but a fiancé? No, that couldn’t be what this was. Olivia wasn’t dating anyone. If she was, June would know. A week or so after Olivia arrived in Italy, once she’d picked up a few more Italian words and found the confidence to go out for a glass of wine alone, she’d had a fling with a local—a short but well-built waiter whose name escaped June now. Verenzio? Vindonio?
“Is that—”
A coy smile clung to Olivia’s lips.
June kept her face still, but her stomach roiled. Maybe, just maybe, it was a gift Olivia had given herself.
“It is! I’m engaged!”
June couldn’t find her voice and grabbed for the tumbler of water, remembering that it was on the floor. How was her daughter engaged? She didn’t have a boyfriend.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Olivia said. “You didn’t even know I was dating someone.”
June moved her head up and down robotically. She wanted to dig into that. To ask why Olivia hadn’t mentioned him. But she didn’t trust herself to say it without sounding judgmental and, if she was being honest, hurt. She had naïvely believed Olivia told her everything. That they were that mother and daughter. She’d bragged about it to her book club while drinking sauvignon blanc!
Was Olivia pregnant? Is that why she hadn’t mentioned him? No, she couldn’t be. After Olivia told June about the one-night stand with the waiter, June had immediately shipped off a Costco-size package of condoms. Another not-so-subtle gesture.
Was this the part where Olivia revealed that the condom had broken, and her fiancé was the Italian waiter? That she and Vincenzo—that was his name—would raise the baby on the Amalfi Coast? June fought her rising panic as she imagined seeing her daughter and future grandchild once a year. She made her voice sound as neutral as possible. “I am a little surprised.” June’s throat constricted as she eyed the puddle of water on the floor that Meowsers was now licking.
“I know. I am too.”
“Oh?”
“We’d discussed the future, but not marriage.” Olivia looked at her ring. “I hoped he wanted all the same things I did. But I didn’t think he’d ask this soon. But I’m so happy he did!”
June rolled the word we’d over in her mind. Her daughter was now one half of a we. Her stomach rolled again at the thought of Olivia sharing her life with someone else. She wanted her daughter to be happy. To find someone. But June had figured she’d have plenty of time to get used to the idea while Olivia narrowed down her choices to the right man. This felt sudden. And very unlike her daughter.
“We’d said I love you—pretty early on, in fact, I told him first!” Olivia giggled and watched her mom’s face for a response.
June pushed a sound out of her throat that she hoped was in the ballpark of a laugh.
“He said he’d never wanted to spend another day without me. And I felt the same way. I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t think I’ve been in love before now. I thought I had. Remember Jason?” she scoffed.
June half nodded as she struggled to conjure an image of Jason. It was years ago, and the relationship hadn’t lasted long, but June remembered a head of thick black hair and that he had a tall, lanky frame.
“Now I know what love is supposed to feel like.” Olivia grinned. “He just asked me—a couple of hours ago. On a boat! That he drove! I had no idea he could do that.”
June bit her lip. Boats are one of about a thousand things you probably don’t know about him.
“It was so romantic, Mom. Like right out of one of the romance novels you and I love.”
June agreed. She and Olivia talked multiple times a week. Her daughter constantly updated her on her life. June wondered again why Olivia had left out the most important thing of all.
“Then he called out, ‘She said yes!’ To everyone we saw. In multiple languages. It was so cute.” Olivia’s eyes sparkled. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
June smiled brightly but felt dizzy. Her daughter’s words had come at her fast, with shallow breaths in between, reminding June of when Olivia was a child. When the twangy music from the ice cream truck would ring through the neighborhood and an eight-year-old Olivia would fling open the front door, eyes wild, and say, in one long run-on statement, MomtheicecreamtruckishereIneedyourwallethurryfastbeforeImissit.
“Mom?” Olivia said, looking intently at June.
June looked away, wishing they weren’t on FaceTime so she could hide. Her feelings. Her face. All of it.
“I know it’s a lot of information, but I’m happy,” Olivia said. “Oh, and I didn’t tell you the best part. He lives in Pasadena! Insane coincidence, right?”
June exhaled. Pasadena wasn’t far from where June lived in Long Beach. Only a jaunt up the 710 freeway to the 110. June finally made her mouth work. “What are the odds of that?” What were the chances that two people who met in a tiny seaside village in Italy lived only thirty miles apart in California? One in a thousand? A million? Had they been fated to meet?
Olivia mimicked June’s thought. “It’s like we are meant to be.”
June thought of her ex-husband, William—Olivia’s dad. Their argument over Olivia’s college graduation gift came crashing back. It had been June who’d pushed for Positano, who’d said that the cost she and William would incur would be worth it. That it would be good for Olivia to have an adventure. Their daughter had worked as a tutor through college, not because she had to pay for her tuition but because she wanted to build her savings. She’d made the dean’s list every semester. She’d graduated early with honors, only to immediately throw herself into studying for the LSAT. She’d passed and been accepted to UCLA School of Law, where she was enrolled this fall.
June prayed that was still the plan.
June couldn’t remember Olivia taking a real break in the last four years and had felt the Amalfi Coast would be the perfect reprieve for her daughter. But William had pushed back, countering that Olivia was practical, like him. She’d want money. She’d prefer the option of how to spend it—if she chose to spend it at all. Maybe she’d invest! He’d accused June of trying to live vicariously through Olivia. Because June had never taken the trip to Italy she’d always talked about. June had bitten back at that. But inside, she knew her ex-husband wasn’t entirely wrong.
June had won the argument in the end—like she did most times with William. But she wondered now if she had prevailed. What would William say to June when he found out that their level-headed daughter was engaged to a man she’d known for five minutes? A man Olivia had met because June wouldn’t relent about wanting Olivia to immerse herself in a different culture? To experience luxurious beaches! To marvel at the charming harbors! When June had been perusing guidebooks on Naples and the Amalfi Coast, she’d imagined the way the Mediterranean sun would feel against her own cheeks. But now she could see that her selfish motives might have led to this three AM FaceTime.