Chapter 4: The Sister Who Knows Her Place

On Friday I stood at the altar of Saint Rose beside my sister, and neither of us looked at the other.

Roisin wore ivory silk with a long train, and she held her bouquet low against her stomach.

I wore a dark green dress that I had bought myself, with sleeves, because I wanted to be able to breathe.

Nino stood on her other side in a black morning coat, with his mother in the front pew dabbing her eyes.

Dominic stood on mine.

He had a plain dark suit and a plain gold band in his pocket, and he held very still.

I knew that stillness. It was the kind a man learns when people have spent a long time waiting for him to make a mistake.

The priest began.

He married Roisin first, because Nino was the heir.

When Nino slid the ring onto her finger, she turned her head, just slightly, and looked at me.

She was checking.

She wanted to see me wince.

I smiled at her, the real smile, the one I had not used in nine years.

Her mouth tightened.

Then it was my turn.

"Do you take this man?" the priest said.

"I do."

Dominic's hand was warm and dry, and the ring fit.

He didn't make a show of the kiss. He only touched his mouth to mine, light and quick, and when he drew back his eyes stayed on my face a moment.

I felt it all the way down my back.

I hadn't expected that.

The reception was in the Brancato banquet hall on Eighteenth Avenue, under chandeliers, with two hundred guests.

Every capo in Brooklyn sat at the long tables with his wife.

I was seated at the end of the family table, three chairs down from my sister.

Dominic sat beside me, and Benny, who wasn't family, sat on his other side with a napkin tucked into his collar.

"Is the chicken good?" Benny whispered.

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