Chapter 39
NICO
The dining room is set before the household has come down.
The chandeliers. The long oak table Papa kept.
Mama’s chair at his right, Cassia’s chair now.
Papa’s chair at the head, Dante’s chair now.
The chair beside mine has been Mila’s since the night I crossed to the kitchen to bring her a hot plate when she wouldn’t come down. It has been her chair since.
Nonna is at the sideboard.
She is wearing the apron with the embroidered Santoro crest at the hem.
I have not seen that apron in three years.
It was Mama’s. She lifts the pan onto the sideboard with both hands.
I do not say anything. She wipes her face on the back of her wrist once, just the once, and turns back to the stove.
The eggplant dish. Mama made it at Easter. Nonna has not made it since Mama died.
Don’t.
I look away. I pour a glass of water and set it at Mila’s place.
The household comes down in waves.
Dante and Cassia first. Dante in a black shirt rolled to the elbows, Cassia in soft silk the color of late summer leaves with her hair up. He reaches without looking and tucks a strand behind her ear.
She puts her hand briefly to her belly. The baby has been kicking through dinner all week. His hand finds her lower back as she sits.
I want that. Exactly that.
Renzo and Izzy next. Renzo in charcoal, his hand at the back of her neck. Izzy in a soft dress with Mama’s old ring re-set on her left hand.
She glances at the sideboard when she walks in and she knows, too — the apron, the dish — and her eyes come to mine for half a second before she sits. I pour her water. She lets me.
Marco in a clean shirt for the second time today. He stops in the doorway, clocks the eggplant on the sideboard without naming it, crosses to his chair and sits.
“You’re late,” Renzo says, dry.
“I was early. I had to leave to be on time.”
The table laughs. A sound I did not hear in this room for two years and now I hear it every Sunday. My jaw goes loose at it. Every damn Sunday. I did not know how much I missed it until it came back.
Giada in a dress. The dove-gray sweater Mama was still knitting her the year Mama died. She wears it under a v-neck so the sweater shows, like she’s decided tonight is the night she puts it on in front of everyone.
She sits across from me and does not say anything. The twin thing. She looks at me and nods. I nod back.
She knows. I know. The sweater is at the table. That is enough.
Sofia in the doorway. Isabella holding her elbow.
The room goes quiet.
She walks slowly. Slowly but forward. She is in a soft blue dress.
Her hair is brushed. The notebook she has been carrying since she arrived is not in her hands tonight.
She crosses to her chair — the chair Maria has been setting for her every Sunday for weeks without being asked, without Sofia ever sitting in it — and she sits.
There she is.
I had been holding my breath. I didn’t know it until she sits.
“Welcome, piccola,” Renzo says, soft enough that only Sofia hears it.
He has been calling her that for weeks without asking. Sofia has never once told him to stop.
“Hello, Renzo,” Sofia says. Quiet, but steady.
Marco sets his glass down. “All right. Pass the bread.”
The table moves. This is what this family does. I have never been more grateful for it.
I stand when Mila comes in.
I’m the only one who has stood. Dante started to and stopped when he saw me already on my feet.
She is in a soft dress the color of the inside of a peach. Hair down. The two lockets at her throat.
She has the bow of the violin in her left hand — she has been in the music room before dinner again, alone, playing something I couldn’t hear from the hallway.
She crosses to her chair and sets the bow on the windowsill behind her, and she sits.
I sit beside her.
My hand finds her thigh under the table. Light. She goes still for one breath and then she lets me. The warmth of her through the fabric pulls at my jaw and I keep my face even.
She let me.
The first course. Nonna brings it herself. Maria carries the plates. Each one set with ceremony. Nonna lays the last one in front of Sofia, stands there for a beat. Sofia looks up. Nonna nods once. Goes back.
I look at the dish in front of me and I think: Mama. I don’t say it. I eat it instead.
Cassia takes a bite. Looks at Dante. Dante looks at Nonna.
“Nonna.”
“Eat it, cher.”
Dante eats it. The table eats it.
Mila eats half her plate and then a small piece more. Under my hand her thigh is warm and still and I’m aware of her every second.
The way she holds the fork. The way she keeps her spine straight — that’s Dmitri, that’s a Pakhan’s daughter who still sits like one after five years of everything.
I’ve thought about what it costs her to hold herself like that. More than I should.
Sofia eats. Not much, but steadily. Isabella refills her water without being asked.
Mid-meal, Nonna stops at the sideboard with the second course in her hands. She is in the apron with the crest. She speaks loud enough to carry.
She is looking at Mila.
“Ma chère, eat. The whole house has been waiting for you.”
The table goes quiet.
Mila lifts her face from the plate. She smiles. Small and real. The first time she has smiled at this table in front of all of us at once. My chest pulls so hard I have to look at my plate.
“Thank you, Nonna.”
The first time she has said the name.
Nonna turns to the stove. Wipes her face on the sleeve. Turns back. Sets the second course down. Says nothing.
Nonna has just told the household how it is going to be. Nobody argues.
Marco stands halfway through the second course. Glass up. The Capo posture has settled into him this year. It fits now, the way it fits a man who earned it without knowing he was.
He looks at Mila. “To Mila. Who came down for the third Sunday.”
A small breath.
“And every Sunday after.”
The table’s half-laugh. Mila does not laugh. Her shoulders do the small adjustment they do when something costs her. I know that adjustment. She is glad and it is costing her. I want to put my hand on her face in front of all of them. I pour her water instead.
The table drinks.
Dante’s hand on Cassia’s belly. The baby kicks. Cassia laughs into her water glass, the one she’s been pretending is wine for months, and Dante’s mouth curves against the side of her head.
God, I want that.
I don’t look away from it fast enough and Giada catches me. She raises her eyebrow — just barely, just enough — and I look back at my plate and the corner of my mouth moves and I let it.
After dinner the household disperses the way it always does.
Cassia upstairs first, Dante a step behind. Her hand at her belly since the second course. He walks her up without making it look like he’s walking her up. He’s been practicing that for months.
Sofia goes back to the medical wing with Isabella, the two of them close the way they’ve been since the beginning.
Marco to the back room. A call from New York. Renzo and Izzy behind him for a beat. Giada to the kitchen with Nonna.
Mila to the back porch.
I watch her go. She wants to be alone on the porch tonight — when she needs the garden instead of a wall at her back, she goes to the garden. It’s not mine to change.
Dante finds me still at the dining table with the bourbon he set in front of me. He drinks his. He looks at the door to the back porch.
“I’m going out there for a moment.”
He goes.
I sit. Plates out, chairs scraped back, the low sound of Maria’s work from the kitchen. The dining room empties to its bones. I count my brother’s minutes on the porch the way I count everything I can’t stop.
He comes back through the dining room and stops at my chair. His hand on my shoulder for one breath — the Don’s weight in it, and also his.
“Brother.”
He walks back to Cassia.
I do not ask Dante what he said to Mila on the porch.
I find her at the railing a short while later. The garden is going dark. She has been looking at the iron bench.
I stop at the porch door. She turns her head.
“Dante skazal mne.” She stops. Switches to English. “He said thank you. For my brother. In Russian.” A beat. “He had been practicing.”
Something pulls in my throat.
“Ya skazala yemu.” I told him. “He kept his promise to my sister. Late.” She turns back to the garden. “But kept. In English.”
“He went back to Cassia.”
She nods once.
I cross the porch. I stand beside her at the railing. Her jaw goes tight for a moment. She does not look at me. I put my hand on her shoulder and she lets me, and the garden goes the rest of the way dark around us.
Two figures cross from the side gate into the garden below. I clock them before Mila does. Giada. Luca Valentino behind her.
I watch without moving.
Luca is in a dark suit. He always comes in a dark suit to a place he is not supposed to come to at all.
He has a thermos in his right hand. This is not improvised — Luca Valentino does not improvise. He planned to bring coffee to a woman whose Don he’d have to go through to speak to.
He planned the thermos the way I plan exits. I respect it and I am not going to tell him that.
Giada has not seen him in months. She is in the dress she wore to dinner and she walks straight to the bench like she knew he would be there. Maybe she did.
He steps forward when she reaches the bench. Hands her the thermos. She unscrews the cap. Drinks. Hands it back. He drinks from the same cup. Sets it on the bench. They do not speak. They stand in the garden in silence while the last light goes.
Mila is still beside me. Her shoulder is quiet under my hand.
That’s going to be a problem. For someone. Probably me.
Luca tips his chin — the Don-nod he gives a woman whose Don he respects. He turns and walks out the side path.
Giada stands at the bench alone. Watches him go. Her hand stays at her side. She picks up the thermos cap. Looks at it. Sets it back on the bench.
She walks back to the house. She has not seen us on the porch.
Mila and I stand until the garden is empty. Neither of us speaks. Her shoulder is still under my hand and her breathing is even and I am so aware of her it is embarrassing. That is all. That is everything.
We walk upstairs.
The hallway. The household already in and behind their doors.
The compound gone to that deep-hour quiet I have walked through alone for three years.
Tonight it is different. She is beside me.
I stop her at the door of our suite.
She turns. The two lockets at her throat. The peach dress in the dark hallway. I am done managing the distance between us.
I cup her jaw in my hand.
Her breath goes shallow. She doesn’t pull back. She tips her chin up and her eyes are steady on mine and my chest is so full it aches.
“I love you.”
She kisses me. Her hand in my shirt, pulling me through the door. She closes it behind us. She does not lock it.
The compound sleeps around us. The painting space off the bedroom waits in the dark the way it always waits. Yelena’s canvas turned to face the room now. No longer hidden.
I don’t go in there alone anymore. I go in with her.
The river runs downstream. We sleep.