A second chance at true love

Chapter 3 - Kids

When the groceries are cleaned up, I go to my office in the house to do some work. Something I did immediately when I had to start living again.

Two children at home, my own company, which is now a great success. I regularly work from home and when the children are at school I go to the office.

Lamberti Construction has become a household name, not only in Cliffs, but far beyond. Not for building a house here and there, no.

The government calls us for the construction of roads, the construction of bridges, a new school building, a new office building, or an apartment complex. That’s what I do. Big things, big projects with different developers. Not just one house, no I immediately built an entire residential area of twenty houses. But I love to build offices, and businesses or deal with the roads around the city.

Sofia is already talking about wanting to go to business school, she also wants to work in the company. She thinks women can be at the top just as well as men. I don’t know if I agree with her yet, but I’m willing to see how far she’s going to take it.

And who knows, if she gets her MBA and she comes to work for the company, who knows, maybe I’ll pass the baton to her someday.

She is a strong woman and she looks more like me than her mother on the inside. If there’s one woman strong enough to run a multimillion-dollar business, it’s my daughter.

The front door slams shut hard and I look through my glass door to see who is coming in.

Gino looks guiltily through the door.

“Sorry!” he shouts. He still has his football clothes on, but the big bag next to him is the reason he says sorry. I shut down the computer and go to the hall. Gino is busy taking off his shoes.

“How was training?” I ask him.

“Well, we had practiced shooting on goal. I’m pretty good, but I need to practice more. Dan says I’m still a little bit flurry with my right leg.”

I shake my head laughing when I hear him repeat the words of his trainer Dan.

I grab the big bag. “Hurry up showering, those clothes of yours need to go too.” I shout as I take the bag with me and Gino is already half-undressing when he walks upstairs. There will come a time when I have to miss this, when he goes to Washington again.

Gino has made his choice and nothing has changed, the only thing that has changed is that Paulo sends him to Cliffs once in a while to spend time with the family.

Three years ago, Gino was not allowed to make a choice, he was still too young and that meant that he went to live with Paulo. After Zita’s death, he was homesick, but Paulo didn’t want him completely gone. We found a way for Paulo to be the father he wanted to be to Gino and for Gino to see me. But we all know there’s an expiration date. He is now twelve and has let it be known that after the summer he may not want to go back and forth every two weeks. With that, he also decided that he wanted to stay in Washington. There he has family and friends too.

Here mainly family. Here he does very different things than in Washington, but I think every time he’s here, maybe he’s going to see how nice this life is and that he wants to stay.

More and more I see a little Paulo in him, where I used to be so proud that Gino looked so much like me. Maybe it’s a good thing that Paulo and I are also very similar, in our appearance then. The rest not so much.

In the meantime, Paulo has left to go to his father, my uncle, Otto, and our mother in Washington. He’s expanded his empire there and has come in with a hard bang and it’s clear to everyone there that he’s there to stay. What we once did in New York, he has expanded there, in Washington himself, and is the boss of the city.

The contact between me and Paulo is difficult. We are in contact because of Gino, but I also know, as soon as Gino moves there permanently, that Paulo will no longer call me to discuss the holidays.

“GINO YOU STINK GO AWAY!” I hear Sofia yell and I hear Gino laugh.

Always the same thing. Whenever Gino has practiced and believe me he stinks, he walks into Sofia her room and hugs her. She always screams that he has to leave and that he stinks, but she never tells him not to come in. She always lets herself be hugged by him. This is also difficult for her, but she has adapted well to the situation.

I open the bag and suppress my own gag reflex. Yep, this s**t stinks. I tip the bag over and put everything in the washing machine.

“Here!” Gino comes running and puts his own clothes in the washing machine.

“Where are your clothes?” I shout.

Gino starts laughing. “I still have to shower, but I’m going to show my bare ass to Sofia first. She’s video calling someone.” He laughs.

I shake my head and watch a naked Gino run upstairs. I turn on the washing machine and hear Sofia screaming that he’s filthy and that he needs to leave.

“Dad!! Gino walks around the house naked again!” she scolds.

“Yeah I saw it, he’s going to take a shower! NOW!” I reply. Strict enough that Gino knows he has to go in the shower and that I’m not really angry.

“DAD!!” I hear Donato shout and then a loud bang from the front door that closes. “Sorry!” he shouts after it.

I look at him and he smiles awkwardly.

“What’s up?” I ask him. Then he grins and pulls something out of his bag. Documents.

“Check this out.”

I take the papers from him and look at the document with wide eyes.

“Is this real?” I ask him and he nods.

“Can I register for those games?” he asks. Since Donato moved back here, he also wanted to play sports. Everyone in our family does some sport and Donato couldn’t think of what he really wanted to do. He tried it all. Tennis, hockey, boxing with Nick and Marco, football. But in the end, he chose athletics. High jump, long jump, running... That’s what he does well and what he really likes.

The letter shows that his grades at school are high enough to be allowed to stay at the athletics club next year. That’s a condition they set. Your grades must be good and then you also get a discount on all your training sessions. Donato knows we don’t need the discount, but he also knows that I expect him to do his best in school. School first, sports second.

“Can we join the buddy project again?” he asks. In the meantime, I sign the letter and hear Donato quietly whisper ‘Yes’.

“Have you mentioned that to the club?” I ask him.

The athletics association also has a buddy project, the discount Donato gets, he can also give to someone who has less money, but also good grades. Donato then pays the full contribution and the discount is settled with someone who is less well off.

“No, but I do have the documents with me.” He answers and pulls some more papers out of his bag. I’ll sign off on that too.

“Go take a shower, Gino is already in the shower, we’re going to eat,” I tell him. He nods and runs up the stairs and I go to the kitchen to start dinner. Something I can do reasonably well now, I am no chef, I am certainly not as good as Christina and Valentina in cooking and Zita could also cook well. But if you’re alone and have kids, you can’t do take out every night. Even if my brother Enrico has a restaurant, where he is not in the kitchen, you cannot ask every night if he has food for the family. So, after some secret cooking courses, I dare to say that I can do a thing or two in the kitchen.