The Don's Animal-Talking Little Girl novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Angel's Wing
Dilly's half-birthday fell on a Saturday in April, warm for once, with the cemetery lawn so green it looked painted.
She'd asked for a party at the top of the hill by the cottage, with lemonade and a cake shaped like a crow.
The housekeeper had made the crow. It looked more like a boot. Nobody told her.
Everyone came.
Teo's capos and their wives, the ones who'd turned their backs in the chapel, now in spring hats.
The old Don from across the river and both his sons, carrying four boxes from the bakery.
Dilly had eaten at his table every other Sunday since December.
The first time, she'd told him the pigeons on his roof remembered his son.
He'd had to go out to the alley for a while.
Now he sat in a folding chair with a plate of cake on his knee.
The cockatiel sat on his shoulder, and he let it.
Gran was in a new lilac cardigan, with a cane instead of the wheelchair. Her heart had been doing better all winter.
"It's spite," she told the doctor. "I want to see how it ends."
Teo hadn't touched the illegal side since the bakery.
By March the river routes were gone.
Three of the old men had retired to Florida.
The heavy one with the cigar ran the construction yard now, and complained about it daily.
Agata's share sat in a trust in Dilly's name. Nobody voted it.
At four o'clock Teo stood up on the porch steps of the cottage.
He'd waited five months exactly.
He tapped a glass with a fork, and the whole hill went quiet.
"I was told to ask again today," he said.
He came down the steps and stopped in front of me.
He didn't kneel this time.
"Etta. Will you marry me? For real. In front of all of them."
I looked at him.
"Turn around," I said.
He frowned. Then he turned.
The ninety-year-old priest was coming up the gravel lane in his vestments, fast, with a prayer book.
Behind him came the housekeeper with white roses and two of Teo's men carrying chairs.
The bear-wrestling nurse brought up the rear with Gran's oxygen, just in case.
Teo turned back to me very slowly.
"You planned this."
"Gran planned it. I signed off."
"When?"
"The day after the courthouse."
"You made me wait five months for a wedding you'd already booked."
"I wanted to see how far you'd go."
Behind me, Gran said, "All the way. Pay up, gangster."
He laughed, the big rough one, the one he'd found again on our sagging couch.
I'd already put on my dress. It was white and plain, bought with my own money.
I had my work boots on underneath it.
Dilly went down the aisle first, between the folding chairs, throwing petals from a basket on her bike.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Don's Animal-Talking Little Girl are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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