The Mafia King My Sister Threw Away novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Sunday Table

Paola arrives to win Raf back and finds Carla at his right hand in front of forty people; Craig has put Carla's boxes on the curb.

Raf's mother lived in a narrow yellow house on Federal Hill with a Virgin Mary in the front garden.

She met me at the door in a black dress and an apron, and she was five feet tall.

She looked me up and down for a long time.

"You're the accountant," she said.

"Yes, Mrs. Colucci."

"You ate today?"

"Not yet."

"Good." She took my arm and pulled me inside. "Nobody eats before my table."

The dining room ran the whole length of the house.

Someone had pushed three tables together and covered them in white cloth, and forty people were already sitting down.

Cousins, uncles, a priest, three small boys under the tablecloth, and four men in dark jackets who watched the door.

Every head turned when I came in.

I wore the only dress I had that was not for an office, a plain navy wrap my mother bought me for a funeral.

"Here," his mother said, and sat me in the chair on Raf's right.

Raf stood up when I came to the table.

None of the other men did anything like that for their wives.

I felt it go down the table.

"Your seat," he said, low. "Mine is the one next to it."

"This is the head of the table."

"Yes."

"I'm the bookkeeper."

"You're also hungry," he said, and pulled the chair out.

I sat down.

A bowl of antipasto went by, then another, and a bowl of something with fat green olives that I ate without tasting.

An old uncle across from me leaned forward and said, "You're the one who put the ring in the cake."

"It was a lemon cake," I said.

The whole table laughed, and Raf's shoulders moved beside me.

He was trying not to.

It was the first time anyone had laughed with me in two days.

That was when the front door opened.

Paola walked in wearing a white coat, red lipstick and a gold clutch.

She carried a box of cannoli from the good bakery in both hands.

She had put on the face she wore for new people, bright and a little shy.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, Mrs. Colucci," she said. "I wanted to bring something."

His mother stood very still.

Paola's eyes went down the table, found Raf, smiled, and then reached the chair on his right.

I watched the smile stop.

"Oh," she said.

"Paola," Raf said.

"I didn't know she was coming."

"She works for me."

"Since when?"

"Since Saturday morning."

"That's not funny."

"It wasn't a joke."

Paola laughed again.

It was the same laugh from my bedroom doorway, small and bright, and it made the hair rise on my arms.

"Raf," she said, "baby. Come on. I was upset. You know how I get."

"You told me, in front of thirty people, that you'd chosen Craig."

"I was angry at Carla." She turned to the room.

"Everyone knows how she is. She cornered me and made a scene. I only said it to make her stop."

Nobody at the table said a word.

His mother had not moved from where she stood.

"Which sister are you?" she asked.

Paola blinked. "I'm Paola. The girlfriend."

"No, I mean which one is the bad one."

His mother tilted her head.

"The one who cooks for her family, or the one who comes with pastries?"

I put my fork down.

I had not said anything yet.

I had decided I wouldn't, because I knew my sister, and the quieter I stayed, the more she would give me.

"I can explain," Paola said.

"There's a plate at the end," his mother said. "By the boys."

"The end?"

"You may eat. You're my son's guest, and my table is for guests." She sat down. "But you do not sit by him."

Paola looked at Raf.

Her lip shook, and she wiped under one eye with her finger, careful of her mascara.

I had watched that move work on my father, my teachers and two landlords.

"Raf," she whispered.

He turned his chair slightly toward me, to reach for the bread.

He did not look at her.

"Sit down, Paola," he said. "Or go home."

She stood another moment with her cannoli in front of forty people.

Then she set the box on the sideboard, very gently, and walked out into the hall.

I counted to ten, because I was not a saint.

Then I said, "Excuse me," and followed her.

Paola waited in the narrow front hall, under a painting of a saint with a bleeding heart.

She had stopped crying.

She was checking her lipstick in the mirror.

"You think you won," she said, without turning around.

"I'm eating dinner."

"You're sleeping with him."

"I'm balancing his books."

"Same thing, with you." She snapped the compact closed. "He'll get bored. I know exactly what he likes."

"Paola, what do you want?"

She finally turned.

She was smiling, and I realized she had come into that house not to win him back at all.

She had come to see the table.

"I wanted to give you something," she said. "Craig had your boxes put on the curb this morning. Eleven of them, plus the mattress."

My stomach dropped.

"It's supposed to rain at four," Paola said, and opened the front door. "You should hurry."

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