The Don's Wife Never Looks Back novel · Chapter 12 of 32
Chapter 12: Toy Drive
I read the line in the ledger three times.
Livia Marchese. Born in March. Placed at birth. Returned at nine.
Contact declined.
"She knew," I said. "For thirteen years she knew. She came to work for my husband. She sat at Nonna's table every Sunday while Mama pinned the aunts' hems in the next room."
The sister didn't answer.
She slid the little photograph across the desk to me.
"Take it," she said. "The building's sold. It would go in a box in a warehouse."
"It should go to her."
"She left it here once already."
I put it inside my wallet, beside Mama's note.
In the car, Nathaniel didn't start the engine.
He sat with his hands on the wheel and looked at me.
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to ask her," I said. "In front of him. In front of everybody who calls her a saint."
"When?"
"Saturday. The toy drive."
The Corsi Foundation opened its Christmas toy drive every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
I'd hosted it twice.
The lobby of the Corsi hotel was full of red ribbon and tinsel and forty new bicycles lined up under the chandelier.
A brass band from a parish school played carols by the elevators.
There were news cameras, two of them, and a photographer from the Tribune.
Fifty children from the South Side parishes stood in a line in their good coats, waiting to be handed a bike by the don.
Santino stood by the tree in a navy suit, shaking hands with a monsignor.
Livia was at his side with her tablet, in a red wool dress, checking names off the list.
She looked lovely.
She looked like the foundation's own Christmas card.
I walked in through the revolving door in my black coat.
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