She's at a party again because it's been a month, right down to the day, and she still can't function.
Her English has gotten much better. She knows now, that there is not really that much of a difference between American boys and Italian ones. She also knows that age is not what makes a man.
Her friends dragged her here, protesting all the while. Her mascara is perpetually smudged because she tears up at the most random of times.
Her baby is dead, and he is not coming back. She never got to hold him. She never got to shower him with all the infinite love she felt while carrying him. She never even got to tell him goodbye.
That's why, when she spots him across the room, she marches straight up to him. There is no little girl left in her. She is all woman now. More than that; a hardened, tired, thoroughly pained woman.
She no longer thinks he is bello. Nothing about this man is beautiful.
But the gift he gave to her was.
This is why she follows him into a bedroom for a second time. Because this should end where it began.
Really short, but I love one-shots from Mack and Fang's mother's POV. (This is the occasion that results in Mack, for those of you sort of lost).