Chapter 19: The Memorial Mass

The mass for my father was held on Sunday at ten, in the church on Ferry Street where he was baptized.

For sixteen years it had been a small, quiet affair, paid for by the Santoros.

This year the pews were full, and the doors stood open, and people stood on the steps.

My father's captains sat in the front rows on the left.

Rocco sat with me, in a black suit, with his hands still wrapped in white.

His mother sat on my other side.

She had taken my hand when I came in, and she hadn't let go.

Pasquale had refused to stay in the hospital.

He sat in the aisle in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tube and a rosary, and the priest said his name first.

Aurelio sat behind me with a small black speaker case on his knee.

He had spent Saturday night with the church's sexton.

At ten past ten, Nunzio walked in.

He came up the center aisle in a black overcoat with a wreath of white roses in his arms.

Twenty men came in behind him, and with them the judge who had closed the file on my father's death.

I felt Rocco go rigid.

"Wait," I said, very low.

Nunzio laid the wreath at the foot of the altar and crossed himself.

Then he turned to the church, and his face was grave and kind and tired.

"Forgive me for coming late," he said. "I have come to this mass for sixteen years."

"I won't miss it now because of a family quarrel."

He looked at me.

"Your father was my friend. Whatever has been said about me this week, I will not have his memory made into a weapon."

A murmur went through the pews.

Some of the old men on his side bowed their heads.

I stood up.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Took His Childhood Friend Away, So I Came Back a Mafia Heiress from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.