The Don's Wife Never Looks Back novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: The Old Neighborhood

I went to Taylor Street on Sunday at two, and I brought Marisa's mother.

I didn't bring her for protection.

I brought her because Nonna had asked, on the phone, if "the one with the towel" was free.

The two of them looked at each other on the front steps for a long, considering moment.

"You hit my grandson," Nonna said.

"With a towel. Wet."

Nonna nodded slowly. "Good. Come in. Sit by me."

The dining room was full, but it was a different full.

The uncles had come. All of them.

Men I'd seen only at weddings and funerals, in dark suits, with their wives beside them and their hands folded on the tablecloth.

Nobody had touched the rigatoni.

Santino sat at Nonna's right hand.

He'd shaved.

He looked thinner than he had at the clinic, and older, and very calm.

Marisa's mother sat at Nonna's left and put a napkin on her lap.

I sat beside her.

Santino waited until the priest finished grace.

Then he stood up.

"I'll make this short," he said. "My father ran this family for thirty years. I've run it for four. I'm done."

Nobody moved.

An uncle at the far end put down his water glass very carefully.

← Chapter 24 · All chapters · Chapter 26 →

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