Chapter 6: The Wedding Nobody Attended

I never went to Lugano on Thursday.

Cassio's men watched the villa from the road and saw four Mancuso cars pull into the drive at noon.

On Saturday I went to Edoardo's wedding instead.

He held it anyway, in the Mancuso hall in Newark, with three hundred chairs and a cake the size of a door.

The families came because their invitations had gone out in March.

They sat under the chandeliers and drank, and nobody looked at the empty seat at the front.

I walked in through the main doors at three o'clock in a dark red dress, with Cassio on my left and Fabio a step behind.

The room went quiet one row at a time.

Edoardo stood at the front in a gray morning coat.

He had been shaking an old man's hand.

He let it go and smiled.

"Vivi," he said. "You came. I told them you would."

"I came to say something."

"Then say it at the altar."

"I'll say it here."

I took the paper out of my bag and unfolded it.

My hands were steady.

I had practiced it in the mirror, and I had made myself practice the worst part more than the rest.

"Eight months ago, in Lugano, Edoardo Mancuso married Silvia Pagano."

Somebody dropped a glass.

"The certificate is stamped by the registry. The witness was my father."

I held it up and turned slowly so the front rows could see the seal.

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