Chapter 24: The Head of the Table

The Commission voted at ten the next morning, in the same back room in Brooklyn.

I stood in front of the table in a black dress with my mother's ring on my hand and my wedding pearls at my throat.

The five Dons sat in a row.

Benny's chair, at the far end, had been taken away.

"Miss Bellandi," said the chair. "The motion before us is simple."

"Who shall hold the East Side, and with it the Landolfi house?"

"The Landolfi house has a Don in a hospital bed, and he cannot answer for himself," said the first Don.

"The East Side has been signed to the daughter of the man who built it," said the second.

"The daughter has held the books of every family at this table for six years," said the third, "and has not stolen a dollar."

"And she shot the man who killed her father," said the fourth, "in front of all of us."

The fifth Don, an old man with a cane of his own, cleared his throat.

"I'll say what the others are thinking," he said. "We are not voting on whether it is proper. We are voting on who does it better."

He looked at me.

"I vote yes."

"Yes," said the first.

"Yes," said the second and the third.

"Yes," said the fourth.

The chair set his gavel down gently.

"Five of five," he said. "Mara Bellandi holds the East Side and the Landolfi house, by the Commission's word."

I did not cry.

I had cried enough that week to last a decade.

I only said, "Thank you."

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