Don, Your Regret Can't Keep Me novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Place on Passyunk
At their sixth anniversary dinner Mauro gives the apartment Giada restored to Gabriella and admits he's drawn to her, so Giada drops her ring in his wine and announces a divorce; in the coat room Gabriella says she's Dom's younger half-sister, and Giada knows Dom's father died before Dom was born.
On our sixth anniversary, my husband gave our home to another woman, at our own table, in front of twelve men.
I still had the key in my purse.
It was tied with a red ribbon.
I'd spent six years on that apartment.
It was the top floor of my mother's old building on Passyunk, right over her bridal shop.
I'd stripped the floors on my knees and stained them walnut.
I'd sewn the yellow curtains myself.
I'd built a cedar closet with a shelf for his watches and bought a bed big enough for two people.
We had never shared a bed.
Not once, in six years.
That was the whole point of the apartment.
Mauro stood up at the head of the table with his glass of red.
His men went quiet.
"To Dom," he said.
"To Dom," they said back.
Dom Zito had driven Mauro's car since they were nineteen.
Two years ago he'd stepped in front of a bullet meant for Mauro, and he'd died on the sidewalk outside a bakery.
Mauro turned to the woman at his right hand.
She'd been at our Sunday dinners for four months now.
Honey-blond hair, red wrap dress, a gold chain around her ankle.
She sat in the chair that used to be mine.
"Dom asked me once to take care of his family," Mauro said. "So Gabriella gets the place on Passyunk."
The men clapped.
Gabriella pressed her hand to her chest.
"Mauro. I love the yellow curtains."
I set my fork down very carefully.
He'd never even been inside.
I'd told him a hundred times it would be ready by our anniversary.
He'd always said, "Do what makes you happy, Giada."
His uncle Sergio leaned over and patted my wrist with his ringed hand.
"You don't mind, sweetheart. You've got the big house."
I got up.
"Mauro. A word."
He followed me into the hall with his glass still in his hand.
The hall smelled like his cologne and the roast.
"That's my apartment," I said.
"It's my building."
"I built that apartment for us."
He looked at me.
"There is no us, Giada. You've got a house, a car, a card with no limit. What else do you want?"
"Do you love her?"
He didn't even pause.
"I like her. She makes me laugh. She talks about Dom." He shrugged. "I won't lie to you. I never have."
That was true.
He never had.
In our third year, at that same table, I'd told him I loved him.
Out loud, in front of everyone, because I'd thought I was brave.
The men had laughed.
Mauro had laughed with them and said, "Her father taught her that one."
I'd laughed too, so nobody would see my face.
I didn't laugh now.
I walked back into the dining room.
Every head turned.
I twisted off my wedding ring.
It had been his grandmother's, and it had never fit.
It came off easily.
I dropped it into his wineglass.
It rang against the bottom and sank in the red.
"Happy anniversary," I said. "I'm filing on Monday."
Somebody snorted.
The capo with the pinky ring said, "She'll be back by dessert."
They all laughed.
Gabriella laughed the loudest.
Mauro stood in the doorway and looked at the glass, not at me.
"Sit down, Giada."
I'd sat down for six years.
I picked up my purse.
The key with the red ribbon was still inside it.
I took it out and put it on the table in front of Gabriella.
"The curtains are silk," I said. "Don't open them in direct sun."
Then I walked out.
The coat room was off the front hall, small and dark and full of fur.
I was shaking so hard I couldn't find my sleeve.
The door clicked behind me.
Gabriella leaned against it with her arms folded.
"Oh, honey," she said. "You really thought he'd move in with you up there?"
I got my arm into the coat.
"Get out of my way."
"Dom always said you were a doormat with a sewing kit." She smiled. "My big brother had a mouth on him."
"Your brother."
"Half brother. Same dad." She tossed her hair back. "Dad had a girl in Atlantic City. That was me. Dom was the oldest, I was the baby."
She opened the door for me like a hostess.
"Drive safe, Mrs. Sabatino."
I walked down the front steps into the October cold.
My car was at the curb.
I got in and put both hands on the wheel and didn't start it.
My phone lit up on the seat.
Annette Marino, my best friend since second grade.
"WELL??? Did he cry when he saw the curtains??? Is he carrying you up the stairs right now???"
I turned the phone face down.
I was thinking about Dom's mother.
Two years ago she'd come into my mother's old shop with her own wedding gown in a garment bag.
She'd wanted a piece of its lace for Dom's casket pillow.
There was no lace left on it worth cutting.
So I'd cut it from my own gown instead, and she'd held my hand while I sewed.
She'd talked the whole time.
About the car wreck on Oregon Avenue.
About how Dom's father had been dead five months when Dom was born.
"He was my only one," she'd said. "His father never even saw him."
I looked up at the lit windows of the house.
Gabriella was back at Mauro's right hand, laughing.
Dom Zito's father had died before Dom was born.
And Gabriella said she was the baby.
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