Chapter 15: The Christening

I knew the number.

I had typed it into the Stratton directory myself, three years ago, on Haley's first day.

I had called it a thousand times to ask where Brent was.

I stood by the kitchen counter and took pictures of the call log with my own phone.

Every number. Every time.

Then I walked back out onto the terrace with the coffee pot.

I filled my father's cup.

I filled the underboss's cup.

On my way behind his chair I slid the burner back into his jacket.

He was telling a story about my grandfather and a stolen donkey.

Everybody laughed.

I laughed too.

When he left, my father walked him to his car and kissed him goodbye.

Then my father came back up the steps and held out his hand.

I put my phone in it, open to the pictures.

He looked at them for a long time.

He didn't ask whose number it was.

He saw my face and didn't need to.

"The christening is at three," he said. "Your cousin's boy."

"I know."

"He's the godfather."

"I know that too."

My father handed back my phone.

"The whole family will be there," he said. "Every cousin. Every aunt. The elders."

"You want to do it there?"

"I want every person who ever ate at my table to see it," he said.

"So nobody can say later that Salvo Caruso did it in the dark."

The church in Mondello was small and white and packed to the doors.

My cousin's boy screamed through the whole ceremony.

The underboss stood at the font in a cream suit and held him while the priest poured the water.

He made his promises in a loud, warm voice.

To renounce the devil. To guard the child.

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