Chapter 20: Friday

Lucia's POV

At four o'clock on Friday, the garden held every family in Rhode Island.

Eleven bosses sat at the long table where I had eaten Sunday dinner all my life.

Their captains stood behind them with their hands folded.

My father's chair at the head of the table was empty, with his black cane laid across the seat.

I sat on his right, in a black dress, with Bianca at my shoulder.

Remo stood behind my chair with his arm out of the sling and the basket of phones at his feet.

Silvio Ruzzo came last, with a pastry box.

He kissed the oldest boss on both cheeks.

He set the box in the middle of the table.

He looked at my father's cane and put a hand to his heart.

"Friends," he said. "We are here in grief, and I will be brief."

Nobody moved.

"Gaetano is gone, and the Pesaro waterfront is a child's inheritance. A child who has been talking to the government."

A murmur ran down the table.

I kept my hands in my lap.

"I did not want to say it," Silvio said. "I wept when I learned it."

He opened his hands.

"But I must show you something, for your protection and mine."

Two of his men carried a white screen out onto the lawn.

A third set up a small projector on a folding table.

The gray woman with my face sat in the hotel room and said, "I'll tell you everything."

I watched the bosses watch me.

I watched the oldest one go gray.

"I can bring it to you," said my voice. "Protection. For me. I don't care what happens to the family."

When the film ended, no one spoke.

A boss from Woonsocket pushed his chair back with a scrape.

"Lucia," he said. "Is that you?"

"It's my voice," I said.

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