Chapter 5: That's for the Cake

On Saturday I wore my mother's black dress and put the St. Anthony medal on outside the collar.

Ettore came down the stairs in a dark suit I had never seen him in.

He stopped on the last step.

"You're going in," he said.

"My father's seat is at that table. My cousin is going to sit in it and sign the renewal. Somebody has to say no."

"Then I'll walk you in."

"As what?"

"As your driver." He opened his arm. "Anything else is up to you."

I took it.

The renewal dinner was at the Falcone club in Manhattan, the same one every year, with a long head table and flags nobody had ever explained to me.

Two hundred people looked up when the doors opened.

I heard my cousin's chair scrape from across the room.

Cesare sat at the center with his father on one side, and Fiora on the other in a loose blue dress.

She had her hand flat on her stomach.

It was the first time anybody at that table had looked at her instead of me.

I walked down the middle aisle without hurrying.

Ettore walked half a step behind me, and nobody tried to stop us.

"Gianna." Cesare stood. He had trimmed his beard for the night. "I'm glad you came to your senses. Sit. I've had them keep your chair."

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