Regrets of the Don: His Beloved Walked Away novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: Ricky

Ricky emptied his pockets onto the gravel.

The Mercedes key. A ring with the apartment keys.

A wallet his father opened, stripped of cards, and handed back with nothing in it but his license.

His father picked the car key up out of the snow.

He got into the white Mercedes and drove it out the gate himself.

He didn't look back at his son.

Ricky stood under the lamp in his cream suit with one cheek red and his splint held against his chest.

The guests on the steps went back inside, one by one, to the cake.

Nobody offered him a ride.

My van came up the drive.

The valet held the door for me.

Ricky looked at me across the gravel.

He had the face he'd worn at the altar when he turned around to say he was sorry.

Only now he meant it, and only for himself.

"Lili," he said.

I got into my van and drove out the gate.

In my mirror he was still standing there, getting smaller, with the snow landing on his gel.

The next Friday Valentina moved out of the apartment on Shore Road.

The doorman told the fish woman's cousin, who told the fish woman, who told me before I'd lifted the shutter.

Two of my mother's friends carried the boxes. No movers.

She went back to my mother's house on 82nd Street, to the bedroom she'd had at sixteen.

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