Chapter 10: The Katarina

Assunta Pellegrino came to the Bartos office on Monday morning with a tin of anise cookies.

She wore a camel coat and a black hat, and she took the visitor's chair without being asked.

My father stood up so fast he knocked his coffee over.

"Captain," she said, smiling. "Please. I don't come as the Pellegrinos. I come as a mother with a Christmas invitation."

She set the tin on my desk. I did not touch it.

"The blessing is at seven on Christmas Eve, at the parish hall in Millvale."

"The priest will say a few words, and Dominic will give a toast. We hope the whole river will be there."

"We'll be there," I said.

"Of course you will." She patted her glove. "Your boats will look so fine."

"It will be a pleasure to see them in my family's company."

She looked out the window at the dock.

The tows lay at their moorings in the gray light, six in a row, each with its name in white paint on the pilothouse.

"The Marta Ann, the Josef B., the Katarina," Assunta said gently. "The Little Zuzana. The Danube Rose."

"And the old Stefan, of course, though I understand you sold her before your girl was born."

My father stopped with a paper towel in his hand.

"How do you know about the Stefan?" he said.

"She was a coal barge tug on the Allegheny," he said. "Nobody has said her name in thirty years."

"A friend of the family mentioned her," Assunta said lightly. "I have a bad habit of remembering names."

She rose and kissed my father on both cheeks. She took my hand in both of hers and held it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Don's Son Drowned Me, So I Came Back to Sink His Family from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.