Chapter 12: Envelope Three

"Then I'll bring him a present," I said.

The widows looked at each other around the table.

"We'll all bring him a present," said the widow from Bay Ridge.

Assunta went to her hall closet and came back with a box of black church hats.

Nobody had to ask what they were for.

On Saturday night, the catering hall on Cross Bay Boulevard had valet parking and a fountain in the lobby.

By the door stood a ten-foot photograph of the old man at twenty, in a sailor's uniform.

Three hundred guests.

Every family.

A band in white jackets playing songs the old man had danced to in 1965.

I came in on Ettore's arm in a black dress that zipped up the side, because I'd learned.

He'd noticed.

He'd said nothing, very loudly.

Behind us came the widows.

Eleven of them, in black, in their church hats, walking in a slow line two by two with their purses on their arms.

Assunta led them.

The old man's daughter walked at the end, in her husband's memorial pin.

They took a long table at the back that the daughter had reserved under her own name.

The whole room turned to look, and then pretended it hadn't.

Cosimo sat at the head table, two seats from the old man.

He saw the widows.

He saw me.

He leaned over and said something to Angelina.

She was beside him in pale blue, the emerald on her hand, her stomach just starting to round under the silk.

She didn't answer him.

She was looking at the widows' table.

Ornella sat on the old man's right, where his late wife would have sat.

The old man himself was smaller than I'd remembered.

Eighty years old, his cane hooked over the back of his chair, his eyes as sharp as a gull's.

He looked at the widows for a long time.

Then he looked at his daughter among them.

His face didn't change.

His hand closed around the head of his cane.

After the pasta course, the band stopped and a waiter handed Ornella a microphone.

She stood with a glass of champagne.

She looked beautiful.

She always did.

"Eighty years," she said. "Eighty years of a man who built Howard Beach with his hands and kept faith with every family at the table."

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