Chapter 8: Five Years After

Five years after the clerk's window, I was standing at my own stove in Westchester, burning pancakes.

"Mama, that one's black," Angelo said.

He was four, sitting on the counter in his dinosaur pajamas with his heels drumming the cabinet.

"That's the crispy one," I said.

"Papa says crispy is for people who don't know how to cook."

"Papa eats the crispy ones first."

He thought about this seriously.

"Papa's a liar," he said, delighted.

"Papa is a lot of things," said Dominic from the doorway.

He was forty-one now, with gray coming in at his temples, in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

He came across the kitchen, kissed the top of Angelo's head, and stole a crispy pancake off my plate.

His phone buzzed on the island.

I saw the name on the screen, and my hand stopped.

It was the guard who sat in the car outside my father's house every night.

He had even learned to cook my father's meatloaf.

Dominic answered, listened, and lifted his eyes to me.

"When?" he said.

"Tonight," the voice said, loud enough for me to hear it across the room.

"The hospice called. They said his heart is going. He keeps asking for the boy."

I put down the spatula.

"Pamela," Dominic said.

"I'm going," I said.

"I'll come."

"You can't."

I said it more gently than I felt it.

"Aldo hit the Newburgh yard again at dawn."

"The table is at noon tomorrow, and there's one man in New York they're afraid of."

"They think it's you."

Dominic's jaw moved.

"They think it's the Don," I said.

"Sit in the chair, look at them, say nothing, and I'll tell you what to do from Syracuse."

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