Don's Regret Came Too Late novel · Chapter 14 of 32
Chapter 14: Whose
The band stopped in the middle of the hymn.
The eight men under the saint stood still, sweating, with her swaying on their shoulders.
Every face on both sidewalks turned to me.
"She told you she killed it," Silvia said to the crowd. "She went to a clinic on the Upper East Side and killed my husband's brother's baby. Everybody heard."
"Everybody heard you say it," I said.
"And now look at her." Silvia swung her arm toward the west sidewalk. "Ask him. Ask the Iannone who sleeps in her stockroom."
Across the street, Leandro didn't move.
Behind him, four of his men put their hands in their jackets.
On our side, four of Vittorio's did the same.
The grandmothers in the lawn chairs looked from one sidewalk to the other and didn't get up.
I turned back to the saint.
Papa's twenty was still in my fingers. I pushed the pin through her ribbon and closed the clasp.
Then I turned around and put my hand flat on my stomach, where everyone could see it.
"It's mine," I said.
Nobody breathed.
"My baby is mine. I'm a Pellegrino. I'm carrying a Pellegrino." I looked at Silvia. "And you don't get to say one more word about it in front of her."
I pointed up at the saint.
An old woman in a lawn chair said, "Brava."
Silvia's mouth opened.
Davide was already at her elbow, his hand under her arm, smiling at the crowd.
"The heat," he said, to nobody and everybody. "A pregnant woman shouldn't walk this far. Come, sweetheart."
The band started the hymn again, a little ragged.
The saint lurched forward on her eight shoulders.
Vittorio didn't move with her.
He stood in the street in front of me while his family walked on without him.
His mother looked back once over her shoulder and crossed herself.
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