“Dominic?” the gravelly voice of his mother broke the quiet of the night.  

She asked hesitantly, not sure what to make of the shadowy outline she was seeing in the darkened living room.  The sparkly multi-colored lights of the Christmas tree cast a warm, red glow into the blackness.

“Nicky? What are you doing?” she asked, as her eyes adjusted and she saw her son sitting in front of the tree, shirtless and holding a wine bottle to his lips.  

“I couldn’t sleep and I was looking for Cid.  Is he with you?” she asked.

He took a drink and lowered it to the floor with a soft thud against the carpet, maintaining his grip on the neck, but turning his face up toward his mother’s softly shrill voice, and patted the dog at his side.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, noticing the little log of a creature with the funny scrunched face.  His pink tongue hanging out as he lay loyally beside her son.

It was her dog, but Nick adored it.  And Cid adored him.  

“The goofball and his goofball,” she would refer to Dominic and her pug.

He had helped her pick him out.  Back when he had just graduated from college.  Nick had chosen him out of the litter of little gray balls with big eyes.  Like furry little aliens.  

The warm belly of the puppy in his hand as it licked and chewed on his fingers.  And that was it.  He was the one.

Cid, he had dubbed him.  After a character in one of his favorite video games.

And he followed Nick around whenever he came home.  Nick wished he could have a dog of his own, but his apartment only allowed cats.  And he wasn’t a dog, but Phoebe’s cat, Birdie, wasn’t so bad.  He kind of missed the purring at the moment.  It was better than the foul odor that Cid was emitting from his backside, befitting his name, Cid Highwind.

“What are you doing up so late? Are you drinking?  Dominic Anthony, are you drunk?!  For God’s sake, at least get a glass!” her questions fired at him without a breath, causing him to chuckle and rub his bearded chin with his free hand.

“Ma,” he said shaking his head.

“…and put some clothes on, you know, you aren’t the only one in this house…”

“Ma!” Nick quietly shouted.  

“Didn’t I raise you to have any manners?” she continued.

“Ma….,” he paused, and took in a breath.

“Ma!” he nearly yelled this time, but stopped himself, but not because Grandma would hear them.  Where she once had ears like a hawk, her ears were now failing her.  

No, he didn’t want to wake his fiancée, who woke up at the drop of a pin, and was only a few rooms over.  Hopefully finally sleeping despite the argument they had had.  

Or were still having.  

He didn’t want to think about it anymore.  Which was why he was trying to drown out his sorrows, now along with his mother’s grating voice.

The wine was at least making him feel mellow.

His mother stopped and looked down at him.

He let the silence hang for just a moment.  He loved the commotion of coming back home, but his head was fuzzy from the wine, and he needed to think.

And he already missed the solitude he had before she arrived.  Going over things in his head that were out of his control.

“What?” she finally said, her tone set to its usual of annoyance, bordering on laughter.

“Shut up,” he commanded as if it were obvious what he wanted, actually happy for the distraction from his thoughts.

“Sit down and have a drink with me, Luciana,” Nick said quietly, patting the floor beside him.

“Dominic, you know I hate that name,” she said, her whisper trailing off as she went to the china cabinet and removed two short wine glasses, careful not to disturb or move her collection of Precious Moments figurines.

“And you’re gonna tell me to shut up?!  I’ll shut you up,” she said, bending over to set the glasses by her son on the floor.  She pulled her pink fluffy robe’s belt around herself tighter and sat beside him, crossing her legs and looking at him and shaking her head, smiling.

“You got some nerve, you know that, Nicky?” she said, eyeing the handsome face of her boy.  The one she had loved before all her others.  He was born first and he never let anyone forget it.

“Yeah, well, where do ya think I got it from?” Nick retorted, resulting in a powerful punch to his bare bicep, causing him to wince.

“Okay, okay.  I deserved that one, Ma.  Okay!” he yelled as she hit him.  She took his face into her right hand and squeezed his chin, shaking it lightly, and ended by ruffling his already messy brown waves, and letting her fingers fall, and linger on his scruffy face.

“Well you didn’t get your good looks from me, that’s for sure, you sexy bastard,” she said, turning his chin toward her, and ending her patting with a firm love tap to his cheek.  

Those big green and darkly lashed eyes of her son.  No wonder he had a different girlfriend every other month from the time he was 14 and got suspended from the 4th grade for giving “kissing lessons”.  He had always been her favorite, and the most like her.  

Feisty and wild.  

They were the same in spirit, if not in their features.  Those, he got from his father.  

Unlike Luci, who had inherited the same face as her mother. 

Jean.

The one they were all quietly worried about, amid the usual holiday bustle.

“Ah, stop it, Ma.  You’re beautiful.  You know that.  I got my good looks from you and dad.  The perfect combination.  You just wasted all your good genes on me.  Didn’t have none left for those other bozos,” he laughed, and lifted the wine bottle toward his lips again.

“Gimme that, you,” his mother said, yanking the bottle from his hand, but careful not to spill it.  

“This carpet is new, ya know?” she scolded, and Nick shrugged apologetically.  

“I didn’t get any on it,” he said, defending himself like a child.

Luci poured two glasses to the midway mark and set the bottle on the end table by the couch, and out of her tipsy son’s reach, and turned back toward him, handing him his glass and raising hers.

“Salute,” she said without any hint of excitement.  She was tired.  And already unable to sleep due to her fretting over her mother.

Nick touched his glass to hers and took a sip as they sat in silence, both staring at the lights of the tree.  Nostalgia hit Luci as she recounted the memories that went along with each ornament.  Some handmade.  Some with photos of her little boys.

And the one that Anthony had gotten her on their first Christmas together.

The Yankees ornament.  

That’s where they met.  At a Yankees game.  And introduced by cousins like any good Italian couple.  

“I wish your father were here,” she whispered hoarsely.  “He’d know what to do,” she said, knowing Nick knew what she meant.  Her own mother was getting older and even though she loved having her living with them for years, it was becoming clear that she needed more help than Luci could give her.  

She wiped her eye with a tissue from her robe’s pocket and Nick moved to put his arm around her.  “Get off’a me, I’m okay,” she said, laughing.  “You and your naked self,” she said, scoffing.  “Do you at least have pants on?” she said, turning her head and looking down.

“Oh my God, Dominic Anthony, put some pants on!” she said, seeing her son’s Santa Claus boxer shorts.

“What?” Nick laughed.  “Ma, you got me these last year,” he said.

“To wear under your pants, pervert,” she said, swatting at him.

“Santa boxers,” she muttered, laughing under her breath and shaking her head.

“You don’t even have the decency to put on your guinea tee,” she said.

Nick cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Your wife-beat’a…,” Luci said, gesturing toward his bare chest.

Nick chuckled.  “Ma, you can’t say that anymore.  It’s not politically correct,” he said, rubbing his chin and laughing.

“Say what?  That you need to put a shirt on in this house?  I can, and I will,” she said, taking a sip from her glass, shooting him a look.

“And I’ll call it whatever the hell I want, too,” she laughed.  “In my own home.”

“You always did run around with no shirt on.  All you boys.  You and your dad.  Him with his big moustache and you little dirty monkeys all half-naked and yelling,” she said wistfully.

“Thank God those years are over!” she said, turning her face to Nick and smiling.  Still unable to believe that all of her sons were now grown men with hairy chests and other women in their lives besides her.

“You know, you’re not as hairy as your brothers,” she said, chuckling, and causing Nick shoot her a curious glance.

He shook his head in disbelief.  He really didn’t want her to elaborate any further.  But he knew that she would.

“What?!  Like I don’t know.  You’ve never been Mister Modesty, you know.  Parading around the house after your showers, fully nude…,” she said, laughing.

“Ma…please,” Nick said, unable to not laugh.

“I still remember the day I first saw you walk down the hallway like that.  High school.  I thought a stranger had broken into the house,” she shook her head.

“I cried, ya know?”  she said, looking away from Nick.

“My baby…my firstborn…with hair…,” she said, looking back at him, and nodding down toward Dominic’s lower half.

“Ma,” Nick said, shaking his head, and turning his face from his mother.  But not blushing.  Nick wasn’t ashamed of his body.  He never had been.

“But not that backside a’ yours.  You’re not hairy like I thought,” she said.

“Your brothers, they’re hairy like apes.  All over.  Like your dad was.  But you…it’s the same as the days I used to change your diapers.  Perky and smooth.  Like a little peach,” she laughed, and heartily, because she knew how it made Dominic’s skin crawl.

He shuddered.

“All I’m sayin’ is that you ain’t all Capello in those jeans…or underwear,” she winked, shaking her head, and taking a drink of her wine.

Luci laughed quietly, and shook her head again.

“That’s great, Ma.  Thank you for the information,” Nick rolled his eyes.

“Hey, don’t blame me, Mister.  If you all didn’t want me to know, you’d keep your clothes on,” she chuckled.

She was right.  The Capello boys ran the house like a fraternity in their younger days.  They never cared who was looking.  His mother and grandmother were just there to maintain order within the brotherhood.  

“What if Santa and his helpers come down that chimney tonight and get an eyeful a’ you?” she scoffed, but was clearly pleased with him.  There was delight in her playful admonition of her son.

He was glad she was changing the subject off of him having a hot ass, but part of him felt comfort in her approval of him.  He had always counted on it.  His brothers were noted for their brains or their brawn, but Dominic stood out for his charisma and his masculine beauty.

The only sure way he could make her proud.

Nick nodded.

She had always praised him most in that regard.  She viewed him as handsome, more so than his brothers.  She never voiced that notion, but she treated him like that.  And he felt perfect in her eyes.  And that made him feel worthy.  The first woman to ever validate his masculinity, and it had stuck with him his entire life.  

Nothing made him feel as good.  The smile or laugh on a pretty face, or the lingering eye of the female persuasion.

He lived for that feminine affirmation.

And that’s just what had gotten him into trouble.

He shook his head, as he thought about it, but chuckled anyway.

“Why do ya think I’m down here, uh?” he jeered, imagining some sexy blonde in a little red velvet dress and shiny black thigh-high boots.  He only wished that were true.  Anything to take his mind off of his real life at the moment.  

…Phoebe.  

And their upcoming wedding.  

And what he had confessed to her that neither of them could ignore.

He exhaled deeply and shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

“Ah, he’d love it,” he said faking a satisfied smirk, but relieved to see his mother smiling.

“Who?” Luci said, lost in her own troubles.

“Jolly ol’ Saint Nick.  He’s probably gonna show up just like this.  Balls out and ready to party,” he said, causing himself to genuinely laugh at his own stupid joke.

“Oh yeah?” she said, raising her eyebrows.  The same face that he pulled when he feigned surprise.

“Yeah.  Santa’s a cool guy,” he said, standing up and grabbing the wine bottle from the end table to take another swig.  He nearly choked as he set it back down and turned to see the look on his mother’s face.  

He loved when he got under her skin.

“I will never know how you got so fuckin’ crude,” his mother said, bracing herself to stand.  Nick reached down a hand to her as she stood to get her bearings.  She wasn’t any spring chicken anymore, she thought to herself.

“Thanks,” she said, turning from him, but he didn’t let go.  Nick pulled her by the hand toward himself, into his embrace and squeezed tightly.

“You’re not gettin’ away that easy,” he said.

He felt his mother instinctively bristle, but as he held her, she let herself melt against him.  Nick knew how much she prided herself on being independent.  She had gotten that from his grandma.  It was in their blood.  They didn’t take any crap from anyone.

“I love you, Ma,” he said, softly against her cheek.  Placing a kiss against her thinning, box-dyed brown hair, and releasing his grip, so that she could take a step back.

Luci was about the same height as her son, and turned her face to look directly at him, so that they were eye to eye.  She knew he wouldn’t end with that sincere of a sentiment and she smirked preemptively, knowing her son.

“Now go make me a sandwich,” he said, unable to suppress a cocky sneer.

“Fuck you, Dominic,” Luci said, as she pulled from his grip and walked toward the kitchen, flicking on the low light above the sink, and opening the fridge.  

The clicking of Cid’s nails trailed after her, pulled from his warm spot by the Christmas tree, by the hope of a handout.

But Nick knew what his mother meant.

I love you, too.

“We got leftover meatballs,” she called as softly.  As soft as she could for being Luci, anyway.

Another “I love you”, in the guise of hunger.

“Atta girl,” Nick said, his bare feet following one of the only women he ever trusted, and the first woman he ever truly loved.