The Don's Dying Wish novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Sunday

Tiziana held the paper out to me in the hall.

"You'll want to read it first," she said. "You like to read."

I took it.

It was the same order.

Withdraw all life-sustaining treatment.

Spouse's signature.

Today's date, typed in neatly.

"The Families will be here at three," she said. "They'll want to see his wife do the brave thing."

"And if his wife doesn't?"

She tilted her head, almost kindly.

"Then they'll see a girl who married a dying man for money and won't let him go," she said. "And a girl like that doesn't keep a funeral home in this city."

She walked back toward the Don's room, where the doctor was still talking in a low voice.

I went into the east bedroom and shut the door.

Marcello's eyes were already open.

"I heard," he said.

His voice was stronger than it had been three nights ago.

"We're leaving," I said. "Today."

"How?"

"The same way everybody leaves my care." I sat down on the bed. "In my van."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Under a sheet," he said.

"Under a sheet."

"In front of the Families."

"In front of everybody. That's the point." I leaned closer. "If I sneak you out, she says I kidnapped you. If I carry you out in front of the old men, as your wife, it's the law."

He was quiet.

Then he said, "My father has to back you. Out loud. Or they'll stop you at the stairs."

"I'll ask him."

"He's dying, Vittoria."

"He's been dying for a year," I said. "Today he gets to do something about it."

At seven, when the Don's nurse went down for coffee, I slipped across the hall.

Ambrogio was gray against his pillows.

But when I said his name, his blind eyes turned straight toward me.

"She typed the date," I told him. "Three o'clock, in front of the Families."

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