“You’re going to be late for the planning meeting.” Bianca tapped the oversize watch face encircling her wrist. Angi had gotten her mom a fitness tracker while she was in the hospital, although Bianca refused to use the complicated gadget for anything other than checking the time.

“I’m not going.” Angi grabbed the hem of her battered sweatshirt as if to prove the point. “I need to be here with you.”

Bianca sniffed. “I feel perfectly fine.”

“Yesterday you could barely sit up without feeling like you were going to faint.”

“That was then,” her mom countered. “You took care of me because you’re a good daughter. My best girl. Now I’m fine.”

Angi counted to ten silently in her head as her mother offered a beatific smile. Had she been played yesterday so that she wouldn’t go to the inn? She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that her mom would sabotage her on purpose. The heart attack and resulting bypass surgery certainly hadn’t been deliberate.

“They don’t need me at the meeting. I texted Carrie and told her I’d help with whatever she needs.”

Bianca sat forward. “A representative from the restaurant needs to be there in person to show that we’re leaders in this town. People think Il Rigatone isn’t the same without your father...” She paused when her voice cracked. “We need to show everyone that we’re honoring his legacy.”

“Oh, Mom.” Angi’s heart ached for her mother. She and Angi’s father, Vinnie, had been childhood sweethearts. His death after a sudden heart attack was a hole in the fabric of their family that could never be stitched, but the loss remained most difficult for Bianca. She put on a brave front, but Angi knew how much her mom missed her husband. “You don’t have anything to prove. Dad would be proud of how you’ve carried on, but he wouldn’t want the stress it’s put on you. He’d want you to take care of yourself the way he took care of you.”

“You will go.” Her mother spoke gently, but there was no mistaking the steel in her tone.

“Yes,” Angi answered with a sigh. “I’ll go.” She crouched down to Andrew’s level and placed a gray brick in line with others that made up one wall of the structure he was building. “Hopefully, I won’t be long,” she promised him. “But if I’m not back by the time you go to bed, I’ll come in and give you a good-night kiss when I get home.”

“Can I stay up late with Nonna?”

“Not on a school night, bud. Nonna can tuck you in after your bath. Don’t forget to wash behind your ears.”

“My ears don’t get dirty,” he argued, pulling at one of them. “I wish the weekend could go on forever.”

“Me, too.”

After a kiss for her son and one dropped on her mother’s forehead, Angi grabbed a jacket from the hook next to the door to the garage and started the quick drive into town. She loved the way the Magnolia community celebrated the season with colorful lights strung around windows or at the edges of gutters on the houses on both sides of the street, along with festive wreaths and cheery yard decorations.