Chapter 21: She Stays

I answered him at the long table, in front of every captain in the Bronx.

I hadn't planned it that way.

I had planned to say it in the dark, with my hand in his.

But at nine the next morning the old captain with the white mustache knocked on the clinic door.

He had his hat in his hands and thirty men behind him.

Brancato and Quintero stood together in the hall, and the old man said the families wished to settle things properly.

Tadeo got himself up on one arm, grey in the face, and Ines said a word I won't write down.

He walked to the dining room anyway.

He sat at the head, and I took the chair on his right, as I had on the first day.

The captains filled the benches on both sides.

The old priest sat at the foot with a cup of coffee, blessing nobody.

"I'll speak first," the old captain said, and stood.

"The Brancato families met at dawn.

"Gaspare keeps his life, because Marisa's daughters were in that orchard.

"We will not make orphans of them twice."

A murmur ran down the table.

"He keeps his life and loses everything else. His name, his rings, his seat.

"He sits in the room behind the commissary oven, where the baker was tied.

"He eats what's brought to him."

He turned to me.

"You may see him. Or never. That's your right."

I thought of my father's hand on my elbow in the chapel aisle.

"Never," I said.

"So be it."

He took off his hat.

"The Brancato chair is empty. We want her."

He meant me.

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