I Bought His Love, Then He Became the Don novel · Chapter 2 of 76

Chapter 2: The Wire

Damiano says yes, Lucia wires eighty-six thousand dollars and dresses him in a coat with the tag still on, and her friend Serena is waiting at her desk holding the confirmation.

He said yes.

I heard it.

His mouth kept moving after it, and I heard nothing else.

Then he took my hand.

He held it on the bench under the window that didn't open.

I told myself for twenty months that it was a very good performance.

I took my hand back.

I took out my phone and called my father, right there on the landing.

He picked up on the second ring.

Behind him a crane was beeping, and somebody was yelling about rebar.

"Lulu!" he shouted. "I'm on a roof. Talk fast."

"Daddy, I need the trust to release eighty-six thousand dollars. Today. A wire."

"What for?"

"I'm buying something."

"Is it a car?"

"It isn't a car."

The crane stopped beeping.

For a few seconds all I could hear was wind.

My father had never once asked me what I did with my money.

He'd raised me on the idea that a Morelli didn't have to ask permission for anything.

"Is it for a person?" he said.

"It's for a hospital."

"Whose?"

"A friend's grandfather. He needs surgery."

I looked at Damiano, who was sitting very still with his hands between his knees.

"Is he good to you?" Dad said.

"He's good to everybody."

"Then that's the answer I wanted." I could hear him grinning. "I'll call the trust lawyer. He'll wire it by two. Kiss the old man for me."

He hung up.

"Lucia," Damiano said. "I can't take..."

"You already said yes."

"I said it before I..."

"You said it. I heard it." I stood up and brushed off my skirt. "Get your coat. We're going to the hospital."

"Now?"

"They'll want it in writing. Come on."

The cardiac tower was across the river, with a glass bridge over the street.

The billing office was on the second floor behind a plexiglass window.

The woman behind the window had a lanyard and a cold.

She slid a form under the glass and told us the account would be reviewed in three to five business days.

"Then the surgery can be scheduled in what, a month? Six weeks?" I said.

"Once the payment clears, it goes on the list."

"I want it on the list today."

"Miss, I don't make the schedule."

"Who does?"

"The surgical coordinator, but she..."

"Get her."

"She's with a patient."

"Then get someone who isn't."

I leaned on the counter.

"My father built your parking deck," I said. "His name is on the plaque in the garage. I'd hate to have to call the chairman of your board over a form."

Damiano said, very quietly, "Lucia, don't."

I didn't look at him.

The woman looked at me for a long moment.

Then she picked up her phone.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting at a desk in a back office, watching a different woman type.

My father's trust lawyer had already sent the wire.

The hospital's confirmation printed at ten to two.

FROM: THE LUCIA MORELLI TRUST.

TO: CARDIAC SURGERY DEPARTMENT.

AMOUNT: $86,000.00.

MEMO: PASQUALE SANTANGELO.

The surgery went on the schedule for the second Friday in November.

The woman behind the desk said it was the fastest she had ever seen it done.

I folded the confirmation in half and put it in my bag.

I felt very pleased with myself.

I'd always felt that way after I got something I wanted.

Damiano said thank you to the woman, and to the clerk behind the glass, and to the man who held the door.

He didn't say it to me.

He was standing at the end of the hall with his phone to his ear, with his back to me.

"Nonno, it's paid," he said. "No. A friend. I'll explain. Don't cry, you'll get your shirt wet."

I didn't know what to do with my hands, so I looked at my watch.

On the sidewalk the wind off the river went right through his jacket.

It was a thin green canvas thing with a broken zipper.

"That's not a coat," I said.

"It's fine."

"It's October. You're my boyfriend. Come on."

There was a department store on Michigan Avenue with a menswear floor that smelled like leather.

I picked out a camel wool coat.

It cost nine hundred dollars.

Damiano took one look at the tag and put it back on the rack.

"I can't wear that."

"It's not a gift." I took it off the rack again. "It's a uniform."

His face did something I didn't understand.

"A uniform for what?"

"For being seen with me."

He was quiet for a second.

Then he put his arms into the sleeves.

He wasn't proud about being cold.

He was proud about almost everything else, and I hadn't noticed yet.

At the register I bought him a new phone, because his screen was cracked in a star.

"When I call, you answer," I said. "Your screen shouldn't be the reason you don't."

He took the box from the clerk and held it in both hands.

"What else am I wearing?" he said.

He said it lightly.

I thought it was a joke.

I walked back to my dorm alone, because I had a studio critique, and I left him on Michigan Avenue in a camel coat that still had the tag on the sleeve.

It was dark when I got to the third floor.

My door was open.

It was always open for Serena.

I'd given her a key myself, freshman year, so I wouldn't have to get up.

She was sitting at my desk with her legs crossed.

My bag was on the bed.

The hospital's confirmation was open in her left hand, and her phone was in her right.

She looked up at me, bright as a lamp.

"Eighty-six thousand dollars, Lucia?" she said. "What did you buy?"

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