Chapter 19: The Table

Lucio took the phone out of my hand.

"Leni. Who's coming?"

"All of them. Uncle Ugo's been on the phone since six."

"Is Rhonda with him?"

"She's at his house. She sleeps in his guest room now. She's telling people she's been afraid for years."

"Afraid of what?"

Leni looked at me through the screen.

"Of you two."

We flew to Providence on Saturday.

Bunny drove us to the airport and made Lucio promise to carry nothing heavier than his own temper.

"And you," she said to me at the curb. "Don't you dare say sorry to those men. Not for one thing."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. Go break something."

The family's restaurant on Atwells had a back room that nobody ate in.

It had a long table with a white cloth, a picture of the old Don on the wall, and a door that locked from the inside.

Women didn't go in there.

I'd known that since I was sixteen.

At noon on Sunday the twelfth of July, Lucio opened the door and held it for me, and I walked in first.

Eight men stopped talking.

Eight capos in good jackets around the white tablecloth, with espresso cups and a bottle of anisette.

The older one from the hospital sat near the end.

He'd taken his hat off and set it on the cloth beside his cup.

Ugo sat at the head of the table, in the Don's chair.

He didn't get up.

My mother sat at his right hand in navy silk with no pearls at all.

She'd dressed for a funeral.

"Nephew," Ugo said. "You brought her. Good. Saves time."

"Get out of my chair, Uncle."

"It's a table, nephew. Everybody's equal at a table."

Lucio didn't move.

He didn't raise his voice.

He just stood behind the chair and waited.

The room waited with him.

After a long moment Ugo got up, smiling, and moved one seat down.

Lucio sat.

I stayed standing behind him, beside the old Don's picture.

Ugo slid a fat envelope across the cloth.

The photos spilled out of it.

The roof.

The tin.

Me in his lap with my hair down and his hands under my shirt.

They went around the table from hand to hand.

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