Chapter 7: The Old Man

Pop's bedroom was at the top of the house, where I had never once been allowed in five years.

It was smaller than I'd imagined.

A hospital bed by the window. A crucifix. A photo of his wife on the dresser, young and laughing.

The oxygen machine hissed in the corner.

He was propped up on three pillows in a white undershirt, his arms thin as broom handles.

"Sit," he said.

I sat in the chair by the bed.

The capo shut the door and stayed outside it.

Pop looked at me for a long time.

"My younger son," he said, "sat in a hotel bar for three hours last night drinking club soda."

I said nothing.

"My older son came home at one and broke a lamp."

"I didn't break it."

"No," Pop said. "You never broke anything in this house. Five years. Not a glass."

He coughed for a while.

I poured him water from the pitcher and held it while he drank.

He watched me do it.

"I'm going to die," he said, when he could talk. "Weeks. The doctor won't say how many because he's afraid of me."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not. You shouldn't be. I let my son say that to you at my table, and I kept cutting my meat."

It was the closest thing to an apology I'd ever heard from a Corsaro.

I didn't trust it.

"What do you want, Pop?"

He smiled a little.

"Two things. Same as everybody. I want your machine to stay in Boston. And I want my grandson."

"You can't have either."

"I can have anything I want. I'm dying."

"Then die without them."

The oxygen hissed.

For a second I thought I'd gone too far.

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