Chapter 9: The Syringe

Emanuele drove me to the hospital himself on Tuesday morning.

"The terms were no Cortese in the room," I said.

"I won't go in the room. I'll stand in the corridor."

"You'll start a fight."

"With whom? Mariano's at the Hall, counting chairs."

He parked in the doctors' lot and came around to open my door.

His jaw was shaved and his tie was straight.

He carried himself like a man who had slept very little and lied a little.

I let it go.

I'd decided that morning to let it go for a day.

On the fifth floor, two Montalto guards looked at him, and at me.

"He's with me," I said. "He's my fiancé."

The younger guard swallowed.

"Miss, the acting don said..."

"The acting don is my cousin. I'm his daughter."

They stepped aside.

Room 412 was dim and warm.

My father lay in it with tubes in his arm and a mask over his face.

He looked shrunken.

His broad hands lay on the sheet like gloves somebody had left behind.

I sat on the edge of the chair and took the right one in both of mine.

"Hi, Papa," I said. "It's Raffi. I brought you the paper."

I read him the headlines, because the nurses said it might help.

The harbor strike.

A stolen painting in the north end.

A bakery that had won a prize.

"Bruna Cortese made that one," I told him. "I'm not supposed to tell you, but I've eaten four of them."

His hand lay quiet in mine.

Then, very faintly, his thumb moved.

It pressed once against the heel of my palm.

Then again.

Then a third time.

Three presses.

When I was seven and had nightmares, he used to sit on my bed in the dark.

He squeezed my hand once for I'm here, twice for it's all right, and three times for I love you.

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