Epilogue
Luca
The bar’s all brass and soft lamps, mirrors behind the bottles throwing back a hundred versions of the same dim room. From the corner booth, I can see the elevators and the street door in one line.
It should make me feel in control. It doesn’t. My palms are dry, and I have to remind myself to breathe so I don’t end up holding air in my chest like a fool.
Elena’s hand is on my knee under the table, her thumb tracing a slow line that calms me. She’s dressed simply in a black dress, hair pulled up. Nothing that demands attention, and still she takes all of mine. She’s not saying much, letting me work things out in my head.
I’m thankful and also annoyed. I need her to speak to me, calm me down. Tell me everything is going to be fine.
Like she heard me, she murmurs, “You’re allowed to be nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” I say automatically, and the lie tastes stupid even as it leaves my mouth.
Her mouth quirks. “Right.”
I focus on the doorway again. A couple in sequins breezes through; a group of men in golf shirts claps each other on the shoulders and heads for the blackjack pit; a woman with a glitter clutch orders a martini and leans on the bar. The piano player hits the same three chords over and over.
I check the time. Early by two minutes. I should be grateful she’s not late; instead, I hate the two minutes for how damn long they feel.
“Luca.”
I don’t hear Elena say it so much as feel the word in her hand as it tightens. I look up.
The elevator doors open, and she steps out with him, a half step behind.
My daughter. Twelve years older than the last time I saw her, and somehow exactly the same.
Dark curls, longer now and thicker, the kind that have always refused to be told what to do and done what they want.
Eyes the deep dark of fresh coffee. She has my cheekbones and her mother’s mouth, and she’s wrapped in a simple camel coat even though the bar is warm.
Her hands aren’t empty; she’s holding them together like she’s trying not to fidget.
Nick Dixon, her husband, stands slightly behind and to the side with the stance of a man who is ready to jump into the fray if needed.
I remember the last time I saw him. I was in an orange jumpsuit, in prison and chained to a table, and he was a free man, threatening me, having purchased that prison. The old anger tries to surface, but it peters out before it gets anywhere.
He meets every glance in the room once and then stops looking, all his attention sliding back to the woman beside him.
Lucia’s gaze finds our booth. I’m standing before I know I’ve moved. The ground feels unsteady, even though it’s carpet and not some cliff edge.
She slows at the lip of the bar, the uncertainty I feel in my bones making her unsure. She steps closer. She is twenty-nine, and she is seven, and she is a stranger. And she is my daughter.
“Hi,” she says.
It’s absurd what that does to me.
“Hi,” I answer, because Elena told me to say the simple things and because anything else might shatter me.
Elena stands too. The calming presence, the buffer, and the bridge. “Lucia,” she says, soft and friendly. “Thank you for coming.”
Lucia nods once. Her eyes flick to Elena’s belly, and a complicated handful of feelings passes across her face too fast to name. Nick’s hand touches her elbow; she doesn’t shake him off.
“Nick,” I say, evenly.
“Luca.” He gives me that small professional nod men give when they don’t know if it’s safe to extend a hand. He doesn’t extend a hand. Smart man.
Up close, Lucia’s taller than she used to be—or maybe it just seems like it—and the coat is just armor for a simple black sweater and jeans.
No rings except a thin gold band on her left hand.
Her curls are tugged half back with a barrette, but pieces are escaping already.
There’s a faint freckle on her left temple that I don’t remember, and a tiny scar at the edge of her eyebrow I don’t recall.
Seeing the things I don’t know about her is a new kind of pain.
“Please sit,” Elena says, saving us all.
We slide back into the booth. Elena anchors me with a look: listen. I nod almost imperceptibly. Lucia and Nick take the far side. She sits first; he waits that half breath until she signals with the smallest tilt of her head and then settles beside her, careful not to crowd.
The server appears like magic. “Good evening. Can I get you started with something to drink?”
Lucia glances at me and then away. “Sparkling water with lime, please.”
“Same,” Nick adds.
“A Negroni, grazie,” I say, then catch Elena’s eyebrow and adjust. “A ginger ale with a slice of orange. Two.” She squeezes my knee, proud of me for not ordering anything stronger.
“Right away,” the server says.
Silence steps into the spot the server vacates and sits with us like an unwelcome fifth wheel.
“I’m glad you came,” I say, keeping my voice as even as I can. I have rehearsed, and still the words catch because rehearsals don’t include the way your daughter looks back at you like she’s unsure what to believe.
Lucia folds her hands together on top of the table; her fingers are long and elegant, like her mother’s. “I told Elena I would.”
I look at Elena. She gives me a little ‘go on’ tilt of her chin.
“I’m nervous,” I say, and it feels like swallowing a coin. “And I’m grateful. And I’m sorry.”
Lucia’s mouth tightens. “Which part?”
“All of it,” I say. “But if you want specifics—” I stop, check myself, correct course. “You get to ask whatever you want. I’ll answer.”
She nods like I'm doing something right, like some part of her was waiting for me to try and control this. “You look older,” she says after a beat, and I could laugh at the mercy of it.
“I am.”
“Less… shiny,” she adds, a dry little edge that would make me proud if I had any right to be.
“Good,” I say. “Shiny was a mistake.”
Her eyes flick away at that, toward the windows, toward the faint smear of the boardwalk lights. “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and the honesty of it shaves another layer off my heart.
“You don’t have to know,” Elena says softly. “You just have to be here.”
Lucia’s gaze moves to Elena’s belly again. She inhales and lets it out like she’s resetting herself. “I don’t… want a performance,” she says to me. “No speeches. No ‘I did it for you’ or ‘it was the life’ or ‘I was protecting—’”
“No,” I cut in gently. “None of that. I did it because I chose it. It hurt you. I’m sorry.”
She swallows. Her throat works. It’s a small thing, and it’s everything. She gives me one short nod that might be acceptance or just a marker on a map.
The server returns with drinks and lays them down with practiced choreography. “Do you need another minute?”
“We’re fine,” Elena says, a smile that thanks him without needing words.
I take the ginger ale. The orange slice smells too bright. I put the glass down because my hand isn’t as steady as I’d like it to be.
Nick breaks the line of silence just enough to steady the edges. “Traffic wasn’t as bad as I feared,” he offers, calm, a small thing to keep the words flowing, even if unimportant.
“Good,” I answer, neutral. There is an old version of me that would throw him off the pier for the things he’s done, the things he’s said.
The current version understands that standing there was what she needed when I didn’t. I keep my eyes on Lucia and away from the reflexes that turn people into enemies when they’re near the ones I love.
“Why here?” Lucia asks suddenly. “This casino. This… place.”
“Because it’s not mine,” I say. “And it’s not yours. And it’s public. And because Elena likes the fries.”
The corner of her mouth twitches despite herself; Elena lifts her glass like she’s been caught. “They’re delicious.”
Lucia sips her water. “You look good,” she says to Elena
“I am,” Elena says, and the words are soft and careful. “And terrified. Both can be true.”
Lucia’s eyes drop to Elena’s stomach again. “How far along are you?”
“Thirty-five weeks. So just a few more left before this one comes along.” She pats her belly.
For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until now that this baby is Lucia’s sibling. Maybe a few decades apart, but no different than Caterina, Vito, and Nico.
“What are you having?” she asks quietly.
“We don’t know yet,” I say. “We want it to be a surprise.”
“A mistake, in hindsight,” Elena says, laughing. “I’m anxious to know.”
“I understand that,” Lucia says, then looks back at Nick. “We waited for Sofia and couldn’t for Charlotte.”
I can’t help the words. “How are they?” I ask, knowing it’s not my place. “Your daughters.”
Lucia’s posture shifts, an instinctive flinch, and then she settles.
She moistens her lips. “Good,” she says.
“Sofia’s four going on forty. Apparently, her teacher says ‘oh, honey’ when the students make a mess in class, so Sofia says it now, too.
Head shake and everything.” The corner of her mouth lifts despite herself.
“Charlotte tried riding the dog like a horse the other day.”
Nick exhales a laugh through his nose. “We intervened before any injuries occurred.”
I can see the pictures I’m not allowed to see: a little girl shaking her head, a dog resigned to all the antics. The ache is sharp and biting. “They sound…” I search for a word that isn’t too much. “Wonderful.”
“They are,” Lucia says, and there’s softness beneath the steel. She tips her glass, thinks better of it, sets it down. “And exhausting.”
“Exhausting is love,” Elena says gently. “I’m told.”
Lucia glances at her belly, then at me. “Do you have names?” she asks.
“We have fights about names,” I admit.
“Discussions,” Elena corrects primly.
“Fights,” I repeat, because teasing her is one of my favorite activities. “She wants saints. I want names that won’t get them picked on in school.”
“Says the man who named a son after a Roman general,” Elena mutters.
Lucia’s mouth quirks again.