Chapter 4: The Third-Year Mass

At nine forty that night I stood in the hall outside the study with a plate of cold cannoli as my excuse.

The door was shut, and a man in a dark suit stood in front of it.

"Mrs. Vannozzi," he said. "The Don's meeting."

Through the wood I heard Aurelio's voice, and the scrape of chairs, and Sandro answering something low.

A dozen men in one room, and my husband among them.

I held the plate out to the guard.

"Tell them I brought dessert."

I went upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom with the faucet running.

I texted the number I had memorized three years ago and never saved.

Your party is busy. Not tonight.

The answer took less than a minute.

Friday, then. Don't waste the week, tesoro. Bring me everything in that room, or I show him the fifth.

I deleted it.

I sat on the edge of the tub and watched my hands.

Molly texted at ten: How's the newlywed? Did you say anything to him?

I stared at the screen.

Then I wrote, No. Nothing. I'm fine.

She sent back a heart, and I felt nothing but tired.

The memorial Mass was at seven the next morning, because the Vannozzis said it every year on the nearest Monday to the fourteenth.

I put on the black dress I had owned since my aunt died.

Sandro looked at it, and at me, and said nothing.

He put his hand in the small of my back all through the drive.

The church was small and old and full of the family's men in dark coats.

Aurelio knelt at the front with Bianca on one side and the consigliere on the other.

A priest read his brother's name, and then the years of his life.

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