Chapter 8: What Dino Carried

Dino's POV

I have never been good at saying things.

I am good at measuring a door twice and cutting once, and at carrying the heavy end without being told.

Six weeks ago I took out the trash at eleven at night and found Rocco on the back stairs with his hand on Carla's neck.

She had said, "Not tonight. Gia's home," and she'd laughed, and he had laughed back.

I stood there with a garbage bag in each fist, and neither of them saw me.

I told Marco the next morning, in the parking lot behind the dealership.

He had gone gray and said, "Give me till Dad's birthday."

I could have told Gianna that same afternoon.

I walked up four flights with my mouth open to do it.

She was at the stove with her hair tied up and a spoon in her hand, and she turned around and said, "Taste this."

I tasted it.

I said it was good.

That was the whole of my courage, for six Sundays.

On Sunday morning I drove to the dealership on Fourth Avenue and parked across two spaces.

Gianna had shown me Carla's screenshot at midnight, on the crate behind her restaurant, and she had not cried.

She had said, "Marco told him I'd come back," in a voice with nothing in it, and I had wanted to put my fist through the brick wall.

The showroom was bright and smelled of tire shine.

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