The Don's Dying Wish novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Phone Call at Dawn

I woke up because somebody was frying peppers.

Gray light was coming through the alley window.

Marcello was asleep on his back with one arm flung over his head and the other around me.

He slept.

I lay there and watched him breathe, the way I had on my wedding night.

It was not the same at all.

Downstairs, a pan banged.

Then my grandmother's voice came up the vent in the floor, clear as a church bell.

"Breakfast is on the table for anyone who's still alive up there."

Marcello opened one eye.

"Does she know?"

"She knows everything," I said. "She's seventy-nine."

We came down together.

Amalia was at the stove in her black cardigan, with eggs and peppers in one pan and sausage in the other.

She didn't turn around.

"Sit," she said.

We sat.

She put a plate in front of me.

Then she put one in front of Marcello that was twice the size.

"For the effort," she said.

I put my face in my hands.

Marcello picked up his fork with great dignity.

"Thank you, Nonna."

"Don't Nonna me." She sat down across from him and poured her coffee. "I heard that bed from my room."

"Nonna."

"Thirty-one years old and he can't find a quiet board in a house this size." She sipped. "Your grandfather knew every quiet board in this building."

"I didn't need to know that," I said.

"You're a funeral director," Amalia said. "Everybody dies, and everybody does the other thing. Eat your eggs."

Marcello laughed so hard he had to put the fork down.

It was the first time I'd heard him laugh out loud.

Not a whisper, not a breath.

His whole voice, in my kitchen, with the window open to the alley.

That was when my phone rang.

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