Chapter 11: Half a Page

The harbor office was a tin shed at the end of pier six, with a coal stove in the corner that nobody had cleaned since the eighties.

The young dockhand was waiting by the door with something folded in his glove.

"I came in early for my shift," he said. "Your cousin was just leaving. He had a smell on him."

"A smell?"

"Smoke. And he looked sick."

He opened his hand.

It was half a page of heavy cream paper, black at the top, the edges curled and brittle.

I knew my father's slanting hand even through the soot.

Ettore took it from him with two fingers, and held it to the window.

I read it over his arm.

...if you ever walk out on them in front of the Families, don't.

The contract I signed the night you were born says the one who leaves first, in front of witnesses, forfeits the Orsini docks.

Aurelio wrote it.

I was a fool and thought it was a formality.

The paper was gone after that line.

Below the burn was a single sentence at the very bottom, in a different pen, pressed hard.

Ask Ettore who was told what day it was.

I looked up at him.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know." He was staring at the page. "Gianna, I swear it."

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