Chapter 25: The Table

I brought the Assunta to the table by water.

The restaurant sat on the north shore of Staten Island, right on the Kill Van Kull.

It was an old brick place with a green awning, and a dock out back for men who didn't like roads.

Papa used to tie up there once a month.

I'd never once been through the kitchen door.

At a quarter to twelve I put the launch against the dock behind a long white boat with twin engines and a Varrone pennant.

Cosimo's boat.

He'd come by water too.

The engineer stayed aboard with the engines warm.

The deckhand stayed with him, pale, his backpack on his knees.

"If I'm not out in an hour," I told them, "you call the harbor police on sixteen and tell them where."

Ettore came off the boat beside me in a dark suit with the collar open.

His underboss came behind him.

Up the dock steps, Assunta was waiting at the restaurant's back door in her navy hat.

Angelina stood beside her in my raincoat, holding her elbows.

They'd come by car.

They'd wait in the front room with the coffee.

"You'll know when," I said to my sister.

She nodded.

She looked sick.

The back room had dark wood walls and one window over the water.

A long table, scarred and polished, with five heavy chairs.

Nothing else.

The Bay Ridge boss sat at one end with one son standing behind him.

The old man from Howard Beach sat beside him with his cane against the table.

Cosimo sat in the Varrone chair, in charcoal, his crucifix at his collar.

Ornella sat on a single chair against the wall behind him, in black.

Her hands were in her lap.

The fifth chair, beside Cosimo, was empty.

His hand rested on the back of it.

My father's chair.

He'd been holding it for two years.

"Marcella," Cosimo said, and smiled. "You came."

I didn't answer him.

I walked around the table, past the Bay Ridge boss, past the old man, and took his hand off my father's chair by the wrist.

I pulled it out.

I sat down.

Nobody moved.

The Bay Ridge boss's son took a breath like he meant to say something.

His father lifted one finger, and he didn't.

"That chair is held in trust," Cosimo said pleasantly. "You know that."

"I know who's held it."

"No woman has ever sat at this table."

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