Banished at Dad's Wake, So I Came Back to Run the Boardwalk novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Closing

Nicki's POV

On Labor Day Sunday the Taddeo club set the long table for thirty-one.

The thirty-first place was at the head, in front of my father's chair.

It held a clean glass and a bottle of anisette with the seal unbroken.

I came in at four o'clock with Asher a step behind my left shoulder.

He wore his father's gray suit and stood very straight in it.

The thin gold ring was on his left hand, stuck at the knuckle, and he had not once tried to turn it.

Every chair was full, and every man stood up.

Nobody had told them to.

I walked the length of the room between the two rows of men with my heels loud on the old linoleum.

Malachy Quirke stood at the far end with his cap crushed in both fists.

Esther Sklar sat against the wall by the kitchen door, in a hat with a feather, with her handbag in her lap.

Nobody had dared to stop her at the door.

At the head of the table, in the second chair, sat my uncle Silvio.

He wore a black suit and a white shirt, and the gold St. Anthony medal lay on his chest.

His hand was on Dom's ring.

Nunzio sat on his right, with a long white bandage over his left eyebrow and a gray face.

"Niece," Silvio said, softly, and rose halfway.

"Zio."

"We've kept your father's place. As you see," he said.

"I see."

I walked to the head of the table and stood behind my father's chair and put both hands on its back.

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