by Cora Brent
Giovanni was waiting for me to talk first, but I didn’t know what to say. Of course I was sorry. I’d been sorry for a very long time.
“So, it’s true,” he finally said.
“Yes, it’s true,” I admitted.
He winced. “I guess I never really wanted to know. Or maybe I was afraid you’d just lie to my face.”
“Gio,” I said softly, “it was a decade ago. Yeah, I had an affair with Beth while she was separated from Steven. I was young and stupid and bitter.”
His shoulders slumped. It didn’t matter to Gio if it happened ten years ago or yesterday. He’d heard me admit it out loud now, so it was suddenly real, not just a shadowy rumor. Gio was hurt. The big brother he’d always worshipped had fucked his own cousin’s wife out of spite.
A gust of cool wind creaked the door open a few inches. It didn’t seem worth crossing the room to close it, though.
Gio crossed his arms. “What about the kid?”
“Your kid?”
“No, Dom, not my kid. Yours. What about her?”
I just stared at him, wondering if he’d really just said what I thought he’d said. It took a long time for me to scrape together an answer. When I finally could find the words, it almost hurt to say them.
“Giovanni Esposito, don’t you know me any better than that?”
He just shook his head sadly, lowered his head, and started to walk out.
“Wait, where the hell are you going?” I demanded. “We’re not done here.”
He was already at the door. He didn’t turn around when he answered. “Got to shower and get ready. We’ve got a grandmother to bury after all. I’ll meet you there, okay?”
“Gio. Fuck, come on. We need to talk.”
“Keep the newspaper,” he tossed over his shoulder before he left.
I didn’t chase after him. It seemed like he didn’t want me to. We had more shit to sort out, but I couldn’t force him to face me. We couldn’t get into this when Donna’s funeral was looming.
Yet when Gio met me at the funeral home, he wasn’t cool or angry. This wasn’t the place for that anyway. We were both sad, and even if he didn’t like me very much right now, we were still brothers.
The funeral director, a very pallid, very tall man named Ed Stock, talked scarcely above a whisper and was almost comically attentive as we described our desire for a very simple service.
“Thank you for entrusting your loved one to our care,” he said in a grave voice as he escorted us to the door after we handed him a check.
“Um, you’re welcome,” I said, offering him a salute for some strange reason.
When the double doors of the funeral home whispered closed at our backs, it gave me an eerie feeling. Gio didn’t seem to notice. He waited to make sure I was coming before he started for the parking lot.
“You want to grab an early lunch or something?” I asked him hopefully.
He shook his head. “Nah, I promised Tara I’d come home. We’re going to take Leah to the park before I head into work.”
“Sounds nice.”
He looked at me. “You’re welcome to come, Dom. I don’t want to talk about the damn article or ten-year-old scandals, but you’re always welcome.”
I would’ve loved to take Gio up on his offer. But I had something to take care of first. I couldn’t relax with my family or make a true commitment to the girl I cared about until I settled old scores. For ten years I’d been shadowed by the ominous clouds of the past. It didn’t matter at this point who had been more wrong and who deserved to pay for it the most. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d spent far too much time being haunted by memories and regret. I owed it to Donna to fix this.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I said. “Kiss the little stinker for me.”
“I will.” He waved and left, a little too quickly.
What I wanted to do right now more than anything was go to Melanie. I ached to hold her and tell her about the things that had been haunting me for so long.
Instead I drove to Sonoran Acres. Walking in there was rough. Everyone knew who I was, and they’d all heard about Donna’s death. Gloria the nurse even gave me a gentle hug.
“She was so loved,” the woman said, and she suddenly had tears running down her cheeks. I was glad, though, glad my grandmother had so many friends here. I hoped when their grief faded, they’d celebrate the feisty woman who had loved everything about life.
The manager of the assisted living facility came out to talk to me. I’d met him before. He was a small, nervous man who always had ink stains on his white shirt and pulled obsessively at a thin, red moustache. After dealing with him for ten seconds, I realized his biggest worry was that we were going to sue the place for letting my grandmother roam around in the middle of the night and break her hip. I cut him off when he started yammering about releases of liability and shit.
“I need to see her room,” I said curtly. “I’m trying to get in touch with a family member back East, and I’m hoping she has contact information for him.”
“Of course, of course,” the man said. He led me down there himself. He was still talking when I stepped inside and shut the door in his face.
Donna’s cozy suite smelled like lemons. I felt the grief punch me in the stomach the second I entered. There was a bed, a low dresser, and a desk in the bedroom, which adjoined a full bathroom. A small living room area held a two-seater sofa and a television I’d bought her.
I didn’t know where to look, so I started with the bedroom desk. It felt wrong to be rummaging through Donna’s things less than twenty-four hours after her death, but there was a reason. I knew she’d approve.
From our conversation at the hospital, I figured out that she’d been keeping in touch with Steven all these years, although it didn’t seem like the contact was regular. She revealed she hadn’t heard from him in a while, but maybe there was an envelope or something with a return address label so I could track him down. I hadn’t had any success with my Google searches this morning. Gio had mentioned recently that Steven’s family might have moved up to Syracuse, but that information was old. According to the article, the family was living on Long Island at the time of Beth’s death and had since moved from their last known address. Perhaps that trauma had made him pull up stakes and try for a clean start with his two daughters. For all I knew they were living on the other side of Phoenix.
Donna’s desk was a treasure trove of family photos, yellowing menus from Esposito’s, and other odds and ends.
Gio’s fourth-grade report card.
A picture I’d once drawn of a frog eating a fly.
A frayed pink ribbon that must have some unknown significance.
I sorted through the photos with care. It was like staring down into a gallery of ghosts. There were faded pictures of Donna and Papa Leo when they were young, pictures of the old Esposito’s on Spring Street, Polaroid shots of my mother and her big brother, Frank, when they were kids, school photos of me and Gio, and an eight-by-ten family photo taken the day of Steven and Beth’s wedding.
My mouth went dry as I stared at the face I hadn’t seen in ten years. Funny, I didn’t remember her as looking at all like Melanie, and in my mind she still didn’t. Yet in this picture there was something about the way she posed with her chin tilted up, wide eyes looking straight through the long years between then and now. No, Melanie didn’t look like Beth. It was just the defiance of the pose that made me think of her. I gingerly set the stack of photos on the desk.
When I reached into the last drawer, I expected to find more of the same and for the most part I did. There were more pictures, a Broadway program from Les Misérables, and old Christmas cards. Most of the cards were signed with names I vaguely remembered as being friends from New York. I felt morbid, sorting through them and knowing that many of the senders were probably not alive anymore.
The last card I happened to open had a picture of a stately white chapel in a snowy wonderland with “Merry Chr
istmas” embossed on the front in silver script. That wasn’t remarkable. But when I looked inside, the inscription almost made me drop the card.
Dear Donna,
Thank you so much for the American Girl dolls you sent. The girls really do love them. Alice refuses to go to bed unless her Molly is tucked safely beside her. We are doing well and planning to move down to Long Island in the spring. I wish it were sooner. The winters here in Syracuse are not to be believed. Maybe someday we can all come visit you out there in sunny Arizona. I know Steven would love to see you again. It’s been far too long.
Merry Christmas.
We love you,
Beth, Steven, Maya, and Alice
The rounded script blurred before my eyes. Beth had written this. There was a folded piece of loose-leaf paper in the card. I unfolded it to find a neat pen-drawn picture of two figures with long hair and flowered dresses. The word “Me” was scrawled over one figure. The other one was labeled as “My doll, Molly.” At the bottom the artist had written out her name and age.
Alice, age 7.
Alice would be nine now. This card and this picture were two years old.
I searched for over an hour but couldn’t find anything else that gave a hint as to a current address and phone number. I’d have to find another way.
Before I left, I tracked Gloria down and asked her if she could please lock my grandmother’s room until someone from the family had a chance to come collect her personal effects. She squeezed my arm sympathetically and promised that she would see to it.
As soon as I was back in my truck, I made a phone call. Jason answered on the first ring.
“How are you doing, man?” he said earnestly. “Been thinking about you and Gio.”
“Hanging in there,” I said. “Listen, Jay, I need a favor.”
“Anything, buddy.”
“You still keep in touch with that private investigator buddy from college?”
“Yeah. His name’s Arthur Cavendish. Most of his clients are justifiably paranoid upper-crust wives who want to catch their cheating husbands eating twenty-year-old pussy, but Artie can do anything. Why? You need to find someone?”
I touched the Christmas card. It was the only thing I’d taken from Donna’s room.
“Yeah,” I answered slowly. “I need to find someone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MELANIE
The moment I walked in here, I felt like I was being slowly strangled from the inside. Death and sadness were old, unwelcome acquaintances. I should have realized that being at Donna’s funeral would remind me of the worst time in my life, but somehow it hadn’t occurred to me. Even the look of the funeral home was the same. Too much hardwood everywhere and far too many flowers.
“Hey there, stranger,” said a familiar voice, and I looked up to find Dominic’s best friend was talking to me.
“Mind if I keep you company?” he asked.
“Hi, Jason,” I said warmly. “Please do.” I gestured to the empty space on the bench.
In truth I barely knew this guy, but Dominic talked about him all the time. Jason was reportedly an unrepentant playboy with his own family struggles to deal with, but he and Dom had been close friends for a decade, so I figured he was all right. Anyway, I’d been feeling a little awkward as I suffered my private panic attack, alone in the back of the funeral home.
Jason settled down beside me. He was one of those guys who managed to take up a lot of room with the sheer force of his charisma. He wore an expensive suit, was still absurdly handsome, and the irresistible spicy musk of his aftershave must have been designed as a magnet to collect women. But as he looked around, his chiseled features conveyed a sad expression.
“She used to feed me all the time,” he said.
“You mean Donna?”
Jason nodded. “It seemed like there was always a pot of sauce on the stove, and she was always waiting for someone to serve it to. I used to go over there under the pretense of looking for Dominic, even after he moved out.” He chuckled a little. “I’m sure she saw right through me, but she was always happy to fill a bowl and watch me eat. Nice lady. I should have gone to visit her more after she moved to that nursing home.”
“I’m sure she knew you cared about her,” I soothed, but it was just a nonsense thing that people said at funerals. I had no idea what Donna Esposito did or did not know. I was starting to calm down a little with Jason beside me. At least I was no longer tempted to jump up and sprint out of the funeral home as if I was being chased by a chainsaw murderer.
There were a few dozen people here, all talking to each other in low, respectful voices. Gio got in front of the room and made a short speech about his grandmother. He talked about how she’d raised him and Dominic, about how she radiated love and acceptance no matter who you were. While Gio talked, I stared at the back of Dominic’s head. He’d been extremely preoccupied the last few days and most of our conversations had revolved around work. At least that crappy Sun Republic article hadn’t hurt business at all, and we’d been crazy busy. In fact I was so busy I couldn’t seem to find time to answer the texts Dominic sent where he said he was thinking about me. I didn’t mean to ignore him. I missed him constantly. But I couldn’t be all sappy when I had some important questions on my mind. I needed some answers. But this wasn’t the right day to seek them.
Dominic had hugged me when I walked into the visitation room, but then he’d greeted everyone that way. Both Esposito’s locations were closed until six p.m., and there were a few staff members here. They shook hands with their bosses and murmured proper words. Carl the ex-cop waved sadly at me before exiting on the arm of a rather twitchy-looking woman. I assumed she was the overbearing wife he was always trying to escape from.
The casket was closed, and burial would take place immediately afterward at the neighboring cemetery. People were starting to rise and shake hands with the family members who sat in the front row. Tara stood beside her husband and brother-in-law as they accepted condolences.
Jason nodded in Dominic’s direction and nudged my arm. “Is he doing okay?”
“I hope so,” I said, checking out Dominic in his black suit, his hair slicked back. He looked excellent. Mouthwatering in fact. I understood what a creep I was for itching to rip the clothes off a guy who was moments away from burying his grandmother, yet that didn’t shut off my hormones.
I didn’t realize my inner struggle had an audience until Jason cleared his throat. I thought he was suppressing a laugh and considered how that might have been odder than my secret lust. Then he shot me a bemused glance, and I grasped that Jason was unusually perceptive, at least when it came to sex. He knew exactly what I was thinking, and he found it funny. I folded my hands and primly looked at the wall. I still felt like a creep.
“You know,” Jason said, leaning close, “I think there’s something at the nursing home after this. You should come, Melanie. I’ll even pretend I’m a gentleman and give you a ride over there.”
“No, thank you.” I shook my head and stood up. “I should stop by the restaurants and make sure everything’s all set. We’ll be open for dinner, and I don’t want the guys to have to worry about anything. Besides, it sounds like something for close friends and family, and I don’t really fit into either category.”
Jason stood up, too, looking a little worried. “He’d like to have you there, Melanie. I’m sure of it.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then mind your own damn business, Jason.” Instantly I grimaced at my own rudeness.
Jason Roma chuckled, though. “He said you were spirited.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, but I could already see that for myself.”
“I’m sorry,” I said miserably. “I have kind of a hard time with funerals.”
Jason put a hand on my arm and grew serious. “Don’t jump to conclusions. And don’t believe everything you read.”
The Sun Republic article was
the elephant in the room that no one talked about, least of all me. If any of the staff had read it, they’d kept their opinions to themselves. Tara texted me yesterday to ask if I wanted to meet for coffee and have a chat, but I found an excuse not to. I was still shaken up by what I’d overheard outside Dominic’s door on Sunday morning.
“What about the kid?”
I couldn’t make sense out of it. Dominic was so good with his little niece. If he’d had a child of his own, then surely he would be a part of her life. I thought I understood Dominic well enough to know at least that much.
The sudden feel of a strong hand on the small of my back was familiar. I whirled around. Dominic was standing just on the other side of the bench. He looked even better up close than he had from across the room, except for the fact that I could see the sadness in his eyes much more clearly.
Jason reached over and clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, squeezed briefly, and then let go. “I was just telling Melanie over here about how lucky I was to be Donna Esposito’s charity case. I think your grandmother fed me more meals than my own mother did.”
Dominic moved his hand gently across my back. I thought he would pull me closer, but he didn’t.
“You were never a charity case, Jay,” he said to his friend. “You’ve always been family. Right from the first day you wandered over and demanded I accompany you on a beer run.”
Jason looked touched. “Thanks for saying that. You Esposito people have been my tribe for the last ten years.”
Dominic nodded soberly and glanced at the casket. “Well, the tribe just got a little smaller, my friend.”
“I know,” Jason said. “I’ll miss her.”
Jason scanned the room. It was less crowded now. Gio and Tara were talking to a pair of elderly gentlemen.
“Hey, Dom,” Jason said in a casual voice, “when you get a moment, I need to talk to you.”
“Is it about our little project?” Dominic asked cryptically, dropping his hand from my back.
Jason nodded. “Yup.”
