The Don's Dying Wish novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: The Don on My Table

Behind me, the back hall was empty.

I heard one stair creak above my head, and then nothing.

"Mrs. Brancato," I said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Tiziana lifted her veil with one gloved finger.

"I'll see where you're putting him."

"The family waits in the front parlor," I said. "Nobody comes in the back."

"I'm not nobody."

"In this building you are," I said. "That's the law, and it's my license."

The embalmer stood beside the van with his hands folded and said nothing at all.

The driver stood on the other side.

Tiziana looked at both of them.

Then she looked up at the windows over the alley, one by one.

"Where's my stepson?"

"Upstairs. Asleep."

"I'd like to see him."

"Tomorrow," I said. "At the wake, with everybody else. Today's for your husband."

For a second I thought she'd push past me.

Then she pulled the veil back down.

"Four o'clock tomorrow," she said. "The Families will want to see him in that box. And then they'll want to see the other one."

She walked out of the alley in her heels.

A black car was waiting at the corner for her.

We brought the Don in on the cot.

He was so light that the embalmer carried his end alone.

Marcello was waiting in the back room.

He'd come down the moment the car left.

I'd told him he didn't have to see it.

He'd said, "I've seen him every day for two years without being able to look. I'm looking."

So he looked.

I won't tell you about the work.

There's nothing in it a family needs.

I'll tell you that in the morning the Don's nurse came to the side door with a garment bag and a paper envelope.

"His navy suit," she said. "The one he wore for her mother. For Marcello's mother."

"And this?"

"His things." She pressed the envelope into my hands. "Rosary. Glasses. And the bracelet."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Don's Dying Wish from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.