The sun gilded the windows. Stiff from the bricks against his back, the iron rail pressed into his shoulder, Lance raised his face. He had dared to grip God’s ankle, sworn to hold on, and demanded the yoke be placed on him. The throbbing grew in his head until it seemed he could feel his skull bulging.
The common definition of vendetta was a blood feud. But it had another meaning—a curse returned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lance shifted when Rico opened the window beside him.
“Whatchu doing, ’mano?”
Lance looked over his shoulder. “You’re up early.”
Rico leaned on the sill. “Chaz was making deliveries. He called to say you were on the fire escape and I should find out why.” He yawned.
Lance pulled away from the wall and stretched his spine. Could be difficult to explain why he did anything from here out. He rose stiffly and climbed back through the window.
Rico looked him over. “D’you sleep out there?”
“Didn’t sleep.”
Rico frowned at the rumpled letter. “From Rese?”
Lance looked down at the pages. “It’s not to me.” Though in a sense it was. Marco might have written it to Nonna, but the burden did not rest on her.
A vendetta, a curse on his family. Carlo Borsellino had started it. Too weak or spineless to threaten the Mafioso who murdered Agosto, he’d turned his wrath to the man who’d sent his father up. Carlo died but the curse was set in motion. Through Nonna’s marriage, Vittorio and Quillan were family. Only one had felt the bullets, but the curse had taken Quillan, as well, evil that would not be denied.
Maybe Nonno had been wrong to make peace with Paolo. Lives had been lost. Could he simply look away? Lance frowned. The Borsellinos had unleashed a destruction his family had watched in ignorance, taking the blows and not knowing why. Vittorio, Quillan, Marco, Tony. What would happen if he did nothing? Would it keep eating away at the Michellis?
Who was next—Jake, already tainted by Tony’s death? Or himself. Or Rese. What if he brought it onto her, as Marco had carried it to Antonia? An ache seized him. How could he go back to Sonoma, knowing what he knew?
With Rico’s stare ferreting into his thoughts, Lance drew himself up. “I’m late for church.”
Rico didn’t press it, but that wasn’t the end, he knew. Lance just didn’t know who to trust with his burden before he saw where it might go. He had told Pop, but Pop was choosing a path of nonresistance, a weary, trudged path he knew too well. Lance felt in his gut that wasn’t the way, but …
Vendetta. What did he know about feuds and curses? He’d had his share of fights, but they were face to face on the street. A simple problem; a simple solution. This was not simple, and he wasn’t sure there was a solution. But as Rese had said, nothing happened by chance.
He dropped to the kneeler and spoke the responses, but his mind still spun. Every step he’d taken had brought him to this. He had felt it from the moment Nonna’s finger on the envelope pointed him to Liguria, when Conchessa sent him to Sonoma, when he saw Rese’s sign in the window and found Nonna’s box in the attic. He’d attributed everything to the Lord.
Tony had died at the hands of terrorists driven by evil, but evil would have no power if it were not given by God. Tony: confident, capable, assured. Tony: black-and-white, bound by rules—only rules might no longer apply, and Tony wouldn’t stand for that. It fell instead to the prodigal.
He stared at the crucifix. How could he refuse to see it through? He had demanded Nonna’s burden before he knew what it was. But it wasn’t only hers. It was all of theirs. They all bore Nonno’s death upon them, those he died to keep safe and those who would come from them—as long as the curse was unreturned.
Maybe he was confusing the spiritual battle he’d witnessed the other night with a purely human grudge. But then why had the Lord shown him? It had to be in preparation for the next level. He’s reached the end of the board and become a knight, his responsibilites changed and magnified.
He left the church and started home, but stopped on the sidewalk. Stella sat in her plastic chair in a sky-blue floral shift, elastic stockings, and rubber-soled shoes. A ball of yarn rested against her ankle, the needles click-clicking dangerously in her knobby hands. “Buon giorno,” she said with a gappy smile on her liver-splotched face.
“Morning, Stella. Can I ask you a question?”
She paused her needles. “What question?”
“Are curses real?”
She squinted up at him. “As real as you.”
He glanced along the street, watching a small black dog make certain all comers knew he’d been there first, then back to Stella. “Can they hurt people, lots of people for a long time?”
“You mean mal occhio? The envy?”
“Worse.”
“La maledizione?”
“Vendetta.”
Her eyes rounded to match her mouth. “The blood curse.”
He nodded.
She made a sound deep in her throat, then, “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, but sometimes it is mine, too, and yours.” She pointed the needles at him.
Lance reached down to pet the little dog that sniffed his shoe and then jumped up on his leg displaying a tannish underbelly. His fur was wiry, not soft like Baxter’s. “Does vendetta require vengeance?”
“Blood cries out from the ground to God.”
Startled, the dog jumped and moved on down the sidewalk.
“Blood cries out.” He’d heard the cries when he stood where Tony died. Unlike everyone who had sat the the table and mourned poor Tony—even Pop now—he couldn’t let it go and move on as Rese said. Nonno Marco’s blood was crying out as well, and Vittorio’s and Quillan’s. “How does it stop?”
“To end a curse that big takes a very big sacrifice.”
Nothing stops evil except personal sacrifice. But Nonno’s death hadn’t ended it. The Borsellinos might have thought it was over, but the evil remained—because they had never paid. Anger surged. “What sacrifice?” She shrugged. “Only you can know.”
Chest squeezing, he stuffed his fingers into his jeans and started past, saying, “Grazie.”
“Prego.” Click, click, her needles went back to work.
————
When he didn’t call the next night, Rese lifted the phone to call him. Maybe he was giving her the chance to initiate. She had claimed the right, and it was just like Lance to hold her to it. She touched in the first numbers, then paused.
What if something had happened? Her mind ran over all the possibilities. His life was hardly uneventful, neither of them immune to catastrophe. Something could have happened, something he didn’t want to tell her.
Had Roman convinced him to take the job? She shook her head. No. He would have called. Had Antonia suffered another stroke? Rese lowered the phone. Was he at the hospital holding vigil? What if Antonia was dying? Rese pressed the phone off.
Dad’s death had been the worst thing she’d ever gone through, worse than her mother’s attempt on her life. After he bled to death in her arms, she had shut down completely. She didn’t handle death well, not even Evvy’s and Ralph’s peaceful and timely passings. If Antonia …
Rese shook her head. If he wanted her, he’d call. But now her mind was churning. She climbed into her covers, resigned to fight for sleep—a fight she lost, of course, for most of the night.
Star was up before her the next morning, cooking crepes with Lance’s recipe, still composed and obviously eager to eat again. Rese dragged herself into a chair. The scent of the buttery frying batter and the tart berry syrup filled her with nostalgic thoughts of Lance at the stove. The flagstones were cool beneath her bare feet, but somehow the kitchen always seemed warm, even on misty, overcast mornings such as this. Probably an illusion, but, hey, nothing wrong with that.
Rese turned on the espresso machine. “Want one?” She was not caffeine addicted, as Star liked to put it, but after a night like the last …
Rese looked over her shoulder. “Did I disturb you?”
Star shrugged. “At least it wasn’t the buffer.”
Rese turned, surprised. “I thought you’d slept through that.” Though she had hoped Lance couldn’t. It was the first time he’d kissed her, and she had stomped upstairs to demand professional distance. Hah. Then she’d spent the night buffing the wood floors until she’d collapsed. “I thought you slept through anything.”
“ ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me,’ ” Star said with perfect Music Man inflection—another favorite. Star loved any story where impossible things happened. Rese had snorted when the few measly kids with instruments they couldn’t play turned into the huge marching band, but Star had said, “You don’t get it, Rese. You just don’t get it.”
She poured milk into the steamer carafe. “So tell me something I don’t know.” Because Star’s life was pretty much an open book.
“I intentionally failed the biology midterm, because you’d been out late on the site all week with your dad.”
Rese turned. That was the lowest score she’d ever gotten on a test, but Star’s had been worse. Senior year, and she already knew she wasn’t going to college and finishing high school was a formality. “Star, I didn’t even care about grades.”
“You’d have cared if mine was better.”
Rese stared. “You don’t really think that.”
Star returned the stare.
Rese said, “I’ve never competed with you.”
“Never thought you had to.”
Rese expelled a hard breath. “What are you talking about?”
Star turned back to the stove. “It doesn’t matter.”
Rese left the milk and stopped beside her. “What are you saying? That you didn’t do your best because you thought I had to be better?” Compulsively competitive. Had she made Star feel inferior—considered Star inferior?
“ ‘For nothing can seem foul to those that win.’ ”
“I’ve never tried to win against you. Never tried to make you feel … less.”
Star giggled. “Like you had to try. That’s the jest, don’t you see?”
She spun. “I let you win.”
Anger washed over her. “Win at what?”
“Life.”
Rese sagged against the counter. “Do not blame your problems on me, Star. I’ve been there for you, every time.”
Star swallowed. “I know.” She flipped the crepe. “Strong, steady Rese.”
Impossible to tell if that was sarcasm.
Rese rubbed her face. If she had slept, she might have managed this conversation with some semblance of tact. Not having slept, however, she would no doubt hack it completely. “How have I offended you?”
“Did I say that?” Star slipped the crepe onto a plate, spooned filling in a line down the middle, and rolled the edges over.
Rese couldn’t help noticing how evenly golden and soft it was. “I think that’s the basic message, here. That because of me you couldn’t excel.”
“Not couldn’t, Rese.” Star drizzled the deep red syrup. “Didn’t.”
“I’ve never held you back. I’ve supported every step.”
Star tossed back her head and sang, “I have no strings to hold me down. There are no strings on me.”
“So I’m Stromboli to your Pinocchio?”
Star put the plate before her, an offering Rese ignored. She had left Lance in New York to take care of Star, and this was her thanks?
Star walked back to the stove. “Michelle told me you’ve given your life to the Lord.”
“I tried to tell you that too. You walked out.” And kissed Lance on the way.
Star poured another crepe. “So maybe you’ll see what it’s like, being controlled.”
Rese dropped into the chair, snatched up her fork and stabbed the crepe. “I’ve never controlled you, or even wanted to.”
“But, Rese. Why else would you be my friend?”
Rese stared, every answer dying on her lips. Though Star sat down with her own crepe and proceeded to eat, whatever appetite the aroma of Lance’s recipe had conjured was dead now. “If you think I only want to control you, why are you my friend? Or are you?” Because it was getting very hard to see.
“I guess it’s what works for us.” Star gobbled her crepe. “You the superstar and ‘I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth.’ ”
Now that was too dramatic. Rese pushed her plate away. “What do you want from me, Star?” After seventeen years of giving what she had, she wondered.
Star dragged the plate over and cut into Rese’s crepe. “Ah. It’s what you want from me that puzzles.”
Rese forced her tone to remain neutral. “I don’t want anything.”
“Nor expect nor require. It’s as I thought.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Rese planted her elbows on the table. “You’re my friend. You have been for years. What do you expect me to say?”
Star ran her finger through the syrup and brought it to her lips. “I neither expect nor require.”
Closing her eyes, Rese expelled her breath. “When did I become the enemy?”
When Star didn’t answer, Rese opened her eyes.
Tears streaked Star’s cheeks, and she wrapped herself in her arms and rocked. “I don’t know. I just feel it.”
Rese reached across and gripped her hand. “It’s not true.”
Star sniffed. “Can I stay?”
Rese almost screamed in frustration. “Of course. Nothing’s changed.”
“Good.” Star stood up with a brilliant smile. “I’m going to paint.” And she walked out. Rese dropped her face into her hands. Maybe the drugs weren’t out of her system. Her prebirth addiction could have oversensitized her, or …
Was it the smack talking, or for the first time had Star really been honest? Did she resent the comfort she had always seemed to want? Rese tried to see it from her side, dropped her head back and forced a laugh. Would she never get it right?
The phone rang and she snatched it up, hoping for Lance’s voice. But it was the mental health facility, and the quirky tones of Dr. Jonas. “I’m glad to reach you, Rese. I was hoping we could meet regarding your request to vacate the order and assume care for Elaine?”
Of course. She was certainly qualified to take on another dependent relationship. She handled them so well. Rese pushed the thought aside. “As soon as possible. Thanks.”
She had started the process before leaving Sonoma, appealed to have Mom’s condition reassessed, to be given not just decision-making power, but full custodial care. Dad had done what he had to with a child to protect, an occupation that demanded so much of his time, and with Mom’s condition spiraling out of control. But Dr. Jonas was hopeful about her response to the new drugs. Anything was possible.
Rese closed her eyes and pictured her mother, disappointed that even the thought still churned emotional residue. This was the mother she loved, the one who’d tried to kill her, who’d let Walter into their lives. Lance had said he wanted to meet her, but he wasn’t there. She sighed, picturing the mental health center and imagining her own possible future. She’d put things in motion to bring her mother home, but if she proved incompetent, would she be moving in with Mom?
————
Stella’s words haunted him as Lance sat beside Nonna’s bed. “Blood cries out from the ground to God.” As Nonna had cried out when the realization struck? He had hoped the doctor would find something wrong so they could take her to the hospital and fix it. But since she’d suffered an emotional shock with no physical setback, there was nothing medically that could be done. The best they could do was keep her where she was, happy and comfortable—in her home with her family.
Momma had asked him to sit with Nonna while she taught her daytime classes. Momma said Monica and Lucy and Sofie all had things to do, but Lance saw through it. Pop
had told her to keep him occupied, make sure he didn’t do something stupid. That might have been a problem if he had any idea what to do.
He read and reread the letter. They had taken it in haltingly small pieces before, but now he went over each page as Nonno had written it until the flow and angst and sorrow of it filled him. Though aged, Nonno had been robust, full of life, full of goodness. What kind of spite cut such a man down?
There was no understanding it. But the question that got inside and twisted was how could Nonno’s sacrifice not be enough? Lance clenched his hands. “To end a curse that big takes a very big sacrifice.” Bigger than Nonno giving up his life? What could be bigger than dying sacrificially for those you loved? Lance shook his head. If he was supposed to act, he needed answers.
He reached for Nonna’s Bible on the nightstand. From inside the cover, pictures of her children and grandchildren cascaded into his lap. He looked at the photos, most of which were taken at much younger ages than they were now. All the smiles, the combed hair, children posed and poised—well, his expression was a little rebellious—but they all stared up at him with expectation. Not just for the moment of time when they had to be thinking Click the shutter! but for all the years since and all those to come.
He closed his eyes as the depth of Nonno’s love rushed him, and with it the loss. He grabbed hold of Nonna’s hand and sank into her pain. What was she thinking; where had she gone? Into her memories, as before? Or were even her memories too painful now?
How did God think she could bear it? And why should she suffer for something she had not even known? A young woman full of promise and dreams until Marco’s life touched hers. He hadn’t known, but he’d brought death and loss to her. And now it tainted them all. Lord …
For some reason he thought of Gina, the weary grief that defined her face these days. It had been Tony struck down, but Gina was paying for it. A grim realization formed in his gut. Marco might have had no choice. Tony hadn’t known before he married Gina, but …
Unforgotten Page 32
