Free After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed) by Jewel Moore Page A

my father fired and sent back to his village, my mother packed a bag and ran behind him.   My grandfather’s a powerful man in Italy and my father said that even sending my mother return home wouldn’t have guaranteed his safety.   They had to leave the country.”
    “Aw, that’s such a sweet story.”   Natalie was a sucker for stories of couple surviving against the odds.
    “It wasn’t sweet when they arrived here with nothing and my mother already pregnant with me!”
    “They obviously made it work.”
    Antoinette’s was cozy, with six tables each seating a maximum four people.   His mother had said that she was always fully booked, but she didn’t want to larger premises because she like cooking or personally overseeing all the meals herself.   She’d said that she   also liked being able to have the time to mingle with the diners and ensure that they were all happy with their meals.   On Sundays she entertained her special group of regulars, some of whom had been patrons of hers for almost twenty-five years.
    “It took them almost five years to get on their feet.   My father had to keep a low profile, so they had to avoid the Italian community over here.   They didn’t even have enough to pay the large deposits the landlords demanded because my father had just arrived and didn’t have a job yet.”   They had a arrived at the Thai restaurant but Stephano parked the car and continued, seeing Natalie’s look of rapt attention.   “My mother says if they hadn’t met Shirley Jones she didn’t know how she would have survived.   She and my father had been house hunting all day,   carrying their belongings with them.   She said that she suddenly felt tired and cold and hungry and started to cry.   Shirley was coming from the shops with her daughters, Cheryl and Faye, and one of them said, ‘Mummy, that lady’s crying!’.   Shirley invited them in for a cup of tea and when they explained their predicament, she told them that they could stay the night.
    “It was only a two-storey house with two bedrooms and two large receptions downstairs, but when Ivan, Shirley’s husband came home and she told him the kind of rent landlord were asking for a single room, he decided to move the living room furniture to the dining room and convert the room into a bedroom for my Mum and Dad to rent.
    “It helped my parents save a lot of money and helped the Joneses with their mortgage payments.   Shirley had another daughter, Eva, just before my mother had me.   They bought double bunk beds for the girls’ room when we were old enough and the older girls had the top bunks and Eva and I had the bottom, but most nights we used to sleep in one or the other. When mother first opened the restaurant, she had to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to make it profitable and Shirley looked after me for her.   People used to call Eva and me the ‘the black and white twins’ when she took us to the shops or to play in the park.”   Stephano laughed at the memory as he released the car’s central locking mechanism.   It hadn’t been as easy when he and Eva were teenagers—their friendship had incited racial comments and abuse from both races.
    ***
    Within a few minutes of arrival they were shown to their table.   The restaurant had a cool elegance that wasn’t typical of the Thai restaurants at which Natalie had previously dined, but the dark wood tables were quite close together.
    Natalie had looked forward to having a green curry all day, but changed her mind at the last minute when she thought of the creamy coconut milk.   She and Stephano both ordered Pla Tod Sam Rod , whole de-boned sea bass with a chili, tamarind and lemongrass sauce.   She wasn’t particularly hungry, but when his Thot Man Kung, deep-fried crab cakes flavored with red curry paste and finely-chopped lime leaves, arrived it smelled heavenly.   When he offered her a bite, she shook her head.
    “Try it,” he encouraged.   “It’s