“What is it, Roman?” Was this about the meeting? Luke DeMarco?
“Your father wants to be sure you’ll be attending his birthday dinner.”
“You’re calling me about that?” It was at the end of the following week, and of course I’d be there. There was no way for me not to be. Unless I wanted to give Dominic ammunition.
“He wanted to invite you and Lucia to spend the night.”
“That won’t be necessary. We’ll drive home.”
“He insists.”
I took a deep breath. The party was going to be held at the house in the Adirondacks, but I’d have driven four hours each way rather than spend more time in that house with him.
“Of course,” I said, understanding.
“Listen, there’s one more thing.”
I waited.
“Your brother.”
He paused, and I could hear him measuring his words.
“I just thought you should know he met with your father late last night.”
My father had gone back to the house in Calabria after I’d left for New Jersey. “So?” I asked, not surprised. He’d been pissed to have been left out of our meeting.
“He’s stirring the pot, Salvatore.”
“What’s new with that?” I’d known my uncle all my life. He was an intelligent man. He was also a businessman. He knew what would happen if Dominic, rather than I, took over the family. And he somehow had a calming effect on my father. Sergio had trusted him. And I trusted Sergio.
“Nothing is new, but now that you’re…distracted…with your houseguest, he’s suggesting he take care of the DeMarco problem.”
“Take care of it how?”
“Take out Luke DeMarco. Make an example.”
I shook my head, although Roman couldn’t see. “Fucking typical. This is my problem to deal with. Not his.”
“He’s got your father’s ear.”
“That’s not news.”
“It’s different this time, Salvatore,” he said heavily.
“When are they flying home?”
“Late afternoon. I’m flying with them.”
Silence again, but I could tell he had something to say.
“Franco won’t give the word just yet, but you need to know what’s going on.”
“Thank you, Uncle.”
I hung up and pocketed my phone. I didn’t want to deal with Dominic’s jealous aggressions right now. I had other things on my mind. I needed to get back. Talk to her. Explain that I wasn’t a fucking monster.
She’d said she had no friends and refused to see her family. Well, we had more in common than she knew. She’d learned to hate my family over the last five years. Learned to hate everyone, maybe. I just, stupidly enough, didn’t want her to hate me.
I got back into the car, started the engine, and drove an hour to the cemetery. I came here more often than I probably should. Parking close to the family plot, I got out. The heat and humidity seemed to want to suffocate me after the air-conditioned drive. I stopped and picked up a dozen white Calla lilies from the flower store a block away, my mom’s favorite, and headed up the small hill. The ground beneath my feet felt soft here, damp and covered in moss. A small gate surrounded the plot of land housing many of the Benedetti family. I walked my usual path, reading off the names of the dead in my head, noting the number of years each had lived. Too many damn lives cut short.
But this was what we did. We killed. We died. And for what?
I reached the spot where my mother’s and brother’s headstones stood side by side. I tossed the dying flowers, the ones I’d brought the last time I’d come, and replaced them with fresh ones. I pulled out some weeds and scraped dirt off the inscriptions on both their tombstones, noting the year of birth and death on Sergio’s grave. He’d been a year older than I was now. Married. His wife pregnant when he died. It wasn’t fucking fair.
When it had happened, I’d been broken. He was my one ally, my friend. He’d known how to become boss. Our father loved him and yet, Sergio wasn’t like him. Not at all. He’d been gunned down at a gas station. A stupid, cowardly drive-by. He’d deserved a better death than that. And he’d deserved a life first.
My father had retaliated, but something didn’t sit right with me. In fact, the whole thing stank. They’d blamed a smaller family from Philadelphia, one that was supposed to have been loyal to us. Somehow, evidence had turned up incriminating them. But it didn’t make sense, not then, not now. My father had been crazed, though. He’d loved Sergio, and he’d simply reacted, killed off the boss’s sons. Effectively ending the family.
I was supposed to have been with Sergio at the meeting he was coming home from, but I’d been sick. In a way, it felt like I’d cheated death, but then, if I had been there, maybe Sergio wouldn’t have died. Maybe things would have gone differently.
I never said much when I came to the cemetery and never stayed long. Just showed up. Wanted them to know I hadn’t forgotten them. I got back in the car and headed toward Natalie’s house. Natalie was Sergio’s wife. Apart from her friendship with me, she’d cut off ties with the family after his and my mother’s deaths. She hated my father and brother. She hated the life. But she had loved my brother, knowing the cost of that love.