Chapter 46
MOLLY’S DINER, LOWER MANHATTAN
It was the next day and Luca stopped outside the diner and looked through the misty windows at the people inside.
He spotted Steffi straight away, tucked into a booth near the jukebox, dressed in black combat trousers and a ripped jumper like she could lead an invasion.
He swallowed. She was all grown up, yet they were still going through the same type of shit they’d been going through since they were kids.
And his sister was still biting her nails.
Luca headed for the door, stepping out of the icy cold and into the humid atmosphere of this almost full eatery. As he approached the booth, Steffi stood.
‘What happened to Errol?’
‘You’ve seen him?’ Luca asked. When in doubt, answer a question with a question.
‘Yes, I’ve seen him. He looks like someone ran him over in a Buick and I’m sure he’s lying to me about what happened.’
She looked anxious. He’d seen that look many times before too. ‘Steffi, sit down. Have you ordered coffee?’
‘Yes, I’ve ordered coffee, but tell me what’s going on.’ She retook her seat just as the waiter brought a coffee pot and filled up two large mugs.
Luca slipped off his coat and waited for them to be alone with only the café chatter and the muted murmurings of Bing Crosby singing about a white Christmas. ‘Errol’s OK. I called him before I got here. He’s going back to the emporium today.’
‘And that tells me nothing about what happened.’ Steffi put her hands around the mug, pulling it towards her.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ Luca admitted. It was the truth. He suspected, but he didn’t know. Not 100 per cent. And what Ronnie had said to him, admittedly under duress, was still ringing in his ears.
‘But you know something,’ Steffi said. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’
‘I think…’ He stopped talking. What was he going to say to his little sister? That he thought their father had ordered someone to hurt Errol? He should. Steffi wasn’t completely oblivious, she just liked to pretend sometimes.
‘You think what?’ she asked.
He cut to the chase. ‘I’m going to see Dad.’
Steffi inhaled sharp. ‘What? But you said—’
‘I know what I said but, you know, maybe I need some kind of closure.’
‘Oh.’ Steffi looked crestfallen.
‘What?’ Luca asked.
‘I don’t know, I just thought that if you ever decided to see him it would be because you…’
‘Because I what?’
‘Because you… wanted a relationship with him again.’
Luca felt his jaw tense and he reached for his coffee mug, his fingers toying with the handle. ‘Steffi, that’s a big ask.’
‘Is it? Because he’s still our father. What else are we meant to do but love him?’
This black and white thinking when it came to the family was so at odds with the badass non-conforming persona Steffi liked to portray in the rest of her life it was hard to swallow.
If it was anyone else guilty of the crimes Babbo had committed, Steffi would be leading the petition for the electric chair.
‘I really don’t think love works that way, Steffi,’ Luca stated.
‘How does it work then? Because I can’t switch off how I feel about a person just because they have done things I don’t agree with or understand.’
‘But, also, you can’t love someone just because you share DNA,’ Luca countered.
‘So you don’t love Dad? And I’m not allowed to love him either?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Which bit?’
‘Steffi, I said I was going to see him. You and Mom wanted me to go see him,’ Luca reminded her.
‘But not like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like it’s an ending not a beginning.’
His sister’s emotional tone obviously touched him, but he had heard it before. He also needed to remember that in some things they had a difference of opinion and that should be OK. Except, with this, with family, it wasn’t easy.
He let go of his coffee mug and reached for her hands.
‘No,’ Steffi said, moving them off the table and folding her arms across her chest.
‘Steffi, come on, I thought you’d be happy,’ Luca said.
‘Why? Because me and Mom have finally gotten on to you so much you’ve given in?’
‘You don’t understand, Steffi,’ Luca said, shaking his head.
‘Because you don’t tell me anything. Because you think I can’t handle it. Which is pretty fucked up seeing as I’m a Marcello.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Luca hissed before he had thought it through.
‘Keep my voice down?’ Steffi exclaimed, now sounding outraged. ‘I’m not ashamed of who I am.’
‘I get that,’ Luca said. ‘And you shouldn’t be. But I am ashamed of who Dad is.’ He didn’t say it loudly, but he asserted it as much as possible.
‘Then why are you gonna waste your time seeing him?’ Steffi asked, jolting her leg up and down under the table. ‘If you’re so weighed down in life, carrying all that shame around with you.’
Steffi was right. How could he expect her to understand? But telling her what Ronnie had done, what he had threatened to do to her? He couldn’t do that to her either.
‘Steffi, I know this has all been hard on you,’ he said, more gently. ‘But it’s been hard on me too.’
‘Then, if it’s so freaking hard, don’t go to see Dad. Because you will get his hopes up that something has changed and nothing will have changed at all.’
‘His hopes?’ Luca asked. ‘His hopes for what?’
Steffi shook her head. ‘It’s not for me to tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’ Now there was panic taking hold of his chest. There was an agenda and Steffi knew about it.
‘Just go and see him,’ Steffi stated as she finally unfolded her arms and put her fingertips to the table, cautious. ‘But why not go with an open mind?’
‘The next thing you’ll be saying is go there waving an olive branch.’ That was never going to happen.
‘Well, why not?’ Steffi asked.
Luca was shaking his head before he even realised it. ‘Steffi, if anyone should be waving an olive branch, it’s Dad.’
‘But we both know that’s never going to happen.’
‘Yeah, exactly my point.’
‘Why are you so impossible?’ she asked him. ‘Just go there and listen to what he wants to say with no preconceived opinion. Can you at least do that? If not for you then for me and Mom.’
He was going. He’d already made that decision.
For so many reasons – as always the protection of his mother and sister and now, in addition, too many people he cared about were being dragged into this – Sybille, Errol, Gabriella and Phoebe.
Innocents. His decision to see his father came down to his morality.
His values. His need to do right. So, Steffi wasn’t asking for much more than he had already decided he had to give.
‘OK,’ he answered, nodding.
Steffi’s expression visibly brightened. ‘You’ll listen? Without already having decided that it won’t be something you want to hear?’
He nodded again. ‘Yes. But there is something else I wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’ Steffi asked.
‘I’ve not been to the prison before,’ Luca said. ‘Will you… come with me? Just, you know, to the outside or wherever you’re allowed to.’
Steffi reached for his hands then, drawing them into hers across the diner table. ‘Yes, Luca. Of course I will.’
And in that moment, he felt his sister’s warmth and it mattered more now than perhaps it ever had.