Page 118 of Let the Light Shine Through

“She did, yes.”

“Did? My goodness. Don’t tell me your mother has passed as well?”

“Mom,” I say in warning.

Gia glances at me briefly, telling my mom, “We lost her three years ago.”

“My sincerest apologizes, Gianna.”

My mom prefers to lengthen everyone’s names, making them, and her, sound more sophisticated. I never minded before, but hearing her do it to Gia makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise, especially because Gia just said she didn’t go by that name.

“Roswell’s been dealing with a loss himself. We all have. Salvatore was a part of our family.” My mom dabs at the corners of her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup in the process.

“Yeah, Roz has told me a lot about him. I’m sorry I couldn’t meet him.”

“Yes, a shame indeed. Similar to your grandmother, correct? You never met her either?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“And how did she die?”

Jesus Christ.

“Mom,” I growl, earning a pair of blank looks from the other side of the table.

This is not the way I saw this going.

“It’s a little curious, Roswell. Wouldn’t you say?” My mom’s eyebrows go as high as her Botox allows. “Two women in the same family not making it to their…fiftieth birthdays?”

Nobody makes a single sound.

“Fortieth?”

The leg farthest from me starts swishing back and forth as Gia bobs her head slowly, neither confirming nor denying anything.

“Mom? Drop it.”

Gia’s head turns my way, then she says, “Cancer. It was cancer.”

A gasp leaves my mother’s lips while my father covers a cough with a napkin.

“Both? Or just—”

“Both.” Gia looks at my mom again. “Same kind. Skin cancer.”

Honestly I’m not even sure how to take this. It took me forever to find out what she just told my mom in minutes, and it wasn’t even Gia’s doing, it was Bryce’s.

“And we celebrated my mom’s thirty-eighth birthday like it was her fortieth. We knew it was her last one, so my friends and I got a bunch of people together to drive by the house. She couldn’t get out of bed, so we brought the party to her. It was a parade of motorcycles, dirt bikes, quads, everything, in one long line. It lasted for hours.”

My father speaks up finally, asking, “Your mother, she enjoyed that?”

“She loved it.” Gia’s lips split into a reminiscent smile, hopefully unaware of the looks being exchanged between my parents.

“Is that what you enjoy, Gianna? You drive those types of off-road vehicles?”

“Gia,” I emphasize her preferred name, “rides four-wheelers and skateboards.”

“If it’s got four wheels, I’m down to try,” she adds with a laugh, reminding me one of her skateboards is currently missing a wheel.