I Bought His Love, Then He Became the Don novel · Chapter 32 of 76

Chapter 32: Paid in Full

I sat on the edge of the bed and untied the string.

The bride hovered in the doorway with one roller falling out.

"Do you want me to go?"

"Stay," I said.

Inside the box, on white tissue, lay the blue passbook.

The red word was still stamped across the last page.

CLOSED.

Under it, in pencil, in that square hand, he'd written one more line in the deposit column.

Balance owed: nothing. Ever.

Under the passbook was a single sheet of yellow trace paper, folded in quarters.

The kind he used to tear off the roll in the studio, for sketching over his drawings.

I unfolded it.

It was me.

Just my face and one shoulder, in a few quick lines.

My hair falling out of a pencil.

My head bent over something on a table, my mouth open.

In the corner he'd written the date.

The first week of September, junior year.

Before the bench. Before the money. Before I knew he'd ever looked at me.

There was a note in the bottom of the box on an index card.

"The first time I saw you, you were singing to that terrible radio and you didn't know anybody was there."

"I went home and drew you from memory. I've carried you in my wallet for seven years."

"You can have me back now. M."

The bride read it over my shoulder.

She burst into tears and lost two more rollers.

"Don't," I said. "Don't, I'm going to do it too, and I haven't done my face."

We both did it anyway.

The church on Taylor Street was full by eleven.

The baker was in the front pew on my side, in a hat with a feather.

The barber and his wife. The lady in the church hat, in a new navy wrap I'd cut for her.

The pants lady, who'd brought her granddaughter and was telling everyone around her who had hemmed what.

Three rows back on Damiano's side sat seven old men in good suits.

The captain with the white mustache had his granddaughter beside him in the green dress.

The cousins were the ushers.

They had carnations in their lapels and necks like fire hydrants, and they kept asking people, "Bride or groom?" in very gentle voices.

Pasquale was in the front pew on the groom's side.

He'd brought a cookie in his pocket. I could see the shape of it.

I stood in the vestibule in the ivory silk, with the bench date sewn into the inside of the hem.

My father stood beside me.

His cane was home, leaning against the wall by the stairs.

"Ready?" I said.

"I've been ready for seven weeks. You're the slow one."

The organ started.

The doors opened.

Sixty-one feet of red carpet, all the way down to Damiano.

He was standing at the altar rail in a dark suit and the white shirt I'd made him.

His face broke open, and stayed that way.

Dad put my hand through his good arm.

We started walking.

He was slow.

I didn't care.

I matched him step for step, the way Damiano had on Taylor Street, one step to the left.

Halfway down, his left foot dragged on the carpet.

The church fell silent.

He didn't stop.

He didn't look down.

He just picked the foot up and put it down again, and kept coming.

At the end, he took the six-inch step without stopping.

He put my hand in Damiano's hand.

"She's not paying you a cent," he said, loud enough for the third row. "Don't ask."

The whole church laughed.

Pasquale laughed loudest, and then he cried, and then he ate the cookie.

I said my vows first.

My hands were shaking. Damiano held them.

"Seven years ago, I sat down on a bench and offered you money," I said.

"I thought it was the only way anyone would ever stay."

"I didn't hear what you said back. I wasn't listening. I'd already decided what I was worth. I bought things I should never have bought, and people I should never have priced."

I took a breath.

"I'm listening now. I'm not offering you anything. I'm just here."

Damiano looked down at our hands for a long moment.

"You paid for my grandfather's heart," he said. "He's sitting right there. He just ate a cookie in church."

Pasquale waved.

"Everything else," Damiano said, "you never paid for."

"Not one day. Not one drawing. Not one mile on the Edens. Not one night in that waiting room."

"I gave it to you for nothing, Lucia. I'm still giving it to you."

The priest had to wait a minute before he could go on.

So did I.

He put the ring on my finger beside Pasquale's wife's ring.

I put one on his, over the place where the graphite used to be.

It was back now, a little gray smudge on the side of his right hand. He'd been drawing the Morelli and Santangelo yard all week.

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