Don, I Left as You Wished novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: The Feast

It went through the crowd.

I watched it happen.

People looked down at their phones, and then up, and then around, and then at me.

Then at Santo, two steps ahead of me.

Then back at me.

The band was still playing. Nobody on the stage had a phone out.

"That's her," somebody said behind me. "That's the stepdaughter."

"In the pool. With the brother."

"Stepbrother."

"Same house. Same thing."

A woman in gold earrings turned all the way around to look at me and crossed herself.

My mother's hand found mine and held on hard.

Santo had stopped walking.

He stood in the middle of the street with men backing away from him on both sides, slowly.

He didn't look at his phone. He didn't need to.

Someone had sent a caption with it. I heard a man read it out loud to his wife.

"The stray finally got into the family. Through the deep end."

People laughed.

Not everyone. Enough.

Then Dino came through the crowd.

He didn't come fast. He came like a man walking behind a coffin.

His face was gray. His eyes were wet. He'd done his eyes, somehow, in the minute since his father checked his watch.

He stopped in front of me in his cream suit.

"Roz," he said, loud and broken. "Was that why?"

The whole block went quiet to hear it.

"Was that why you threw my ring in the pool? Six years. I gave you six years."

A woman said, "Oh, honey," to him.

"I defended you," Dino said. His voice cracked perfectly. "When everyone said you were after the money. I defended you."

"You told the story of me drowning for laughs," I said.

"And you were sleeping with the man who did it."

That got a sound out of the crowd. A long low sound.

Two of the cousins who used to chant at me from the deep end were standing by the sausage cart.

Grown men now, with bellies and wives.

One of them leaned over and spat on the street by my shoes.

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