by Cora Brent
Dominic nodded with approval. “Good. Will I see you over at Sonoran Acres after the burial?”
“I’ll be there,” Jason promised. He looked over at me. “Listen, I haven’t talked to Gio yet, so I’m just going to go torment him and his lovely wife with my presence for a few minutes. I’ll see you later, Melanie. Thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder for a little while.”
“Bye, Jason.”
Dominic peered down at me. “He cried on your shoulder?”
“Yes. I ought to send him a dry-cleaning bill for the tear stains.”
He flashed a small smile, then turned serious. “Thanks for coming. Means a lot to me.”
I was swimming in his dark eyes. If I wasn’t careful, I’d drown. I cleared my throat.
“Dom, I just want to say again how sorry I am. I know how much you loved your grandmother.”
He swallowed and started to draw his arm around my waist, “Mel,” he sighed, but he never got a chance to finish the thought because a bulky guy in an ill-fitting beige suit interrupted things.
“Dominic, I was sad to hear about Donna,” the man said as he shook Dominic’s hand. “She was a nice lady. She would come in all the time when you were working and would always make sure to ask after Elle and the kids.” The man perspired and wheezed a lot, like he had asthma or maybe emphysema.
“Thanks, Bill,” Dominic said warmly. The he gestured to me. “This is Melanie Cruz. She helps manage both restaurants. Don’t know what we’d do without her.”
Bill extended a meaty hand. It was sweaty. “Pleased to meet you,” he said cheerfully. “Bill Toro, owner of Toro’s Pizza, up in Scottsdale. I’ve known your boss here since he was a teenager. He and his brother both worked for me for a while.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said politely, but on the inside I was a little flustered. Dominic hadn’t introduced me as his girlfriend or anything even vaguely close. As far as Bill Toro knew, I was just a regular everyday employee. That shouldn’t bother me right now, but it did.
Bill Toro didn’t stay and chat long. He made Dominic promise that they would find time to catch up soon and then he wheezed and waddled his way to the door.
“Dominic!” Gio called from across the room. He beckoned his brother.
Dominic waved and then held up one finger.
“I think we’re going to the cemetery now,” Dominic said. “It’ll be real quick and then we’ll head over to Sonoran Acres for a little while.”
I nodded. “Okay, well I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Tell Gio there’s no need to come down to the restaurant tonight. I’ll make sure everything gets taken care of.”
He looked a little surprised. “You’re not coming?”
“No, you should be with your family right now.”
He glanced around and then tried to reach for me. “I want you there,” he said quietly. “More than anyone else. Please come.”
I wavered. How could I say no to him, especially on a day he was hurting? Yet my brittle mood won out. Being here at the funeral home, mingling with mourners left me feeling deeply uneasy. My earlier sense of being slowly squeezed somewhere deep in my chest had returned. This was the first funeral I’d attended since my parents’ deaths four years ago. In that bleak time I had clung to someone else instead of sorting things out for myself, and it had solved nothing. I didn’t doubt Dominic’s sincerity when he said he wanted me around, but I still wasn’t sure exactly where we stood or whether he really was the man I had thought he was. And grief complicated things. I knew all about that.
“I have to go look after the restaurants,” I told him, backing away slightly. “There’s no one else who can do it. You and Gio shouldn’t have to worry about that today. I’ll call you later to let you know how everything went.”
Dominic sighed and raked a hand through his hair. He said my name, but I’d already grabbed my purse and was quickly walking away. I had to get out of there. I might suffocate if I stayed in this room any longer. Dominic followed me out the door and into the tasteful wood-paneled lobby of the funeral home, where I could see that there were two other rooms hosting two other sad events with a bunch of other anguished people.
“Melanie,” he called again.
I would have kept walking, but he seized me around the waist and tried to pull me toward him.
“Stop!” he hissed in my ear.
“I can’t right now,” I snapped and shoved him away with more venom that I intended. The overwhelming sense of death was too strong. I needed to breathe some air that wasn’t thick with sorrow. He backed off.
Just before I pushed the glass doors open, I whirled around. Dominic hadn’t chased me any farther. I expected that he’d look angry, or maybe see that he was already on his way back to the visitation room. But neither of those was true. He looked even sadder than he had earlier.
On the drive home I thought about how, since I’d started working at Esposito’s, I’d felt like part of a family. It must have been wishful thinking on my part. A therapist probably would have been able to properly explain the trajectory of my life, why an orphaned girl-woman hastily married the wrong guy, remained adrift for years, and then finally tried to pathetically glue herself to someone else’s family just because she didn’t have one.
Dominic wasn’t completely to blame for my confused cornucopia of emotions. The Espositos just weren’t my family. No amount of clinging to them would change that.
In the midst of all this introspection, I was feeling mighty sorry for myself by the time I walked into my living room. Even the company of my purring cats did nothing to thaw my dark outlook. So I called the only person I knew who might understand exactly how I felt right now.
“I was just thinking about you,” Lucy said brightly when she answered. “Must be that incomparable sisterly bond.”
For some reason those kind words spoken by my only sister caused me to burst into tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DOMINIC
Before I left for the airport to take the red-eye to JFK, I paid my brother a visit. He was working over at Espo 1, but he agreed to sit down and hear what I had to say.
Gio swirled the ice in his water glass as he listened, and I felt ten years of guilt being lifted off my chest. I wished I’d told him all the details long ago. About me, about Beth, about why I needed to fly to the other side of the country and face the man I’d wronged. A phone call simply wouldn’t do, not if we were going to have any real closure.
When I was done talking, he exhaled thickly, crossed his arms, and sat back in his chair.
“You’ll be back on Friday?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ll land in New York early in the morning, rent a car, drive out to Long Island, and wait for Steven to show up. My return flight will be the following morning.”
“And you’re sure you know where to find him?”
“He bounces around a lot, but according to Jay’s PI friend, he moved into a rental house in Levittown a few months back.”
Gio raised an eyebrow. “And the girls?”
“I assume they’re with their dad,” I answered, meeting his gaze without a waver.
“Right,” he said softly. He looked sad. “That’s rough, two young girls losing their mother at such a young age.”
“And there’s no Donna to step in and help,” I reminded him. “We were lucky.”
A smile crossed his face. “Yeah, we were lucky.”
I stood up when Gio did. The dining room was getting busier as the dinner hour progressed, but the staff had known enough to leave us alone here in the corner.
“Have you checked in downtown yet?” he asked, referring to Espo 2.
“Briefly,” I said, not really caring to elaborate on the chilly reception I’d gotten from Melanie when I asked her if she could handle everything at the restaurant for a few days because I needed to leave town for reasons I didn’t have time to explain. Her scowl deepened as she realized I wouldn’t be offering details, and
she was too proud to ask for them point-blank.
The thing was, I knew I owed Melanie the complete story, not just a hasty couple of sentences. More than that, I owed her the truth about my heart’s intentions, but I needed to do it the right way. I couldn’t just bark some words at her in the back office of Espo 2 before I ran out with my carry-on bag.
Melanie didn’t come willingly when I tried to hug her before I left. I didn’t push her. My eyes tried to plead my case, but she wouldn’t look at me directly.
Just believe in me, honey. I’ll make everything right.
“I’ll be back,” I told her, in my head sounding more like the Terminator than a guy making a promise to the girl he was wild about.
“I’ll be here,” she said, but the challenge in her face made me wonder if she really would be here. Maybe I’d already squandered what we could have had. If only I’d gotten my head out of my ass sooner.
I wanted to grab her up in a kiss that covered my lack of words, but she crossed her arms defiantly like she might bite me if I tried. So instead of a real kiss, I pressed two fingers to my lips and then quickly, before she could react, I reached over and brushed her lips with my fingertips. I left without saying anything else.
Gio didn’t need to hear about those specifics, but I did have one favor to ask of him before I left.
“Do something for me while I’m in New York?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You know I will.”
“Tell Melanie that I left her something in the bottom drawer of her desk. I know she never looks in there, because I found a bag of expired Doritos and a Bath & Body Works coupon from August. Just make sure you tell her I left her something. Tell her tomorrow.”
He was puzzled. “Why all the James Bond nonsense? You could just text her from New York tomorrow and tell her yourself.”
Of course I could. But Melanie and Gio needed to have their own conversation. I knew Melanie respected my brother enormously, and it bothered her that we’d started a relationship without his blessing. This seemed like a good opportunity for them to clear the air.
Gio stroked his chin and leveled me with a serious look. “It’s real, isn’t it? You and Melanie.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Big fat yes in bold neon lights for my part. It’s totally real, man.”
That made him smile and let out a low whistle. “Isn’t that something,” he said. “Dominic’s in love.”
“Keep that to yourself, okay?”
“Come on,” he scoffed. Then he flashed me a rueful grin. “You have a safe trip, brother.”
He stood up and offered me a handshake. Then he pulled me closer for an affectionate man-hug.
My flight left at eleven and would land at eight a.m. New York time. I hadn’t flown in years, and even though I was exhausted, I didn’t think I’d be capable of relaxing in midair, especially considering the plane was nearly full and smelled like stale bagels.
“Excuse me,” said the woman beside me. She’d been trying to get a wiggly toddler settled in the seat beside her since we’d boarded. “Would it bother you terribly to turn off the overhead light? Unless you plan to read or something,” she added.
“No bother,” I said, and switched it off because I’d just been staring at nothing and thinking about the past anyway.
“Thank you,” the young mother said gratefully and settled a blanket over her little boy.
Then I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until passengers began cracking open their tiny window shades to watch the sunrise. I pried my window open and kept a keen eye out until the Manhattan skyline came into focus. For ten years I’d only seen the city of my birth in movies and in my memory. Laying eyes on it again was like running into a long-lost friend whose face has never completely left your thoughts.
The captain’s voice crackled over the plane’s loudspeaker. “Folks, we’ll be landing in New York’s JFK Airport in just a little while here. Skies are clear on this early October morning, and the current temperature is fifty-two degrees. If you’re in town for a visit, have yourself a grand time in the Big Apple. But if you’re returning, then welcome home.”
The little boy sitting beside his mother began clapping. He smiled at me when I looked over. I smiled back.
Luckily I hadn’t needed to check any luggage, but it still took some time to get off the plane, find the rental car desk, and obtain the keys to a red Honda Accord. By the time I was on the Belt Parkway out to Long Island, it was almost ten o’clock.
Traffic wasn’t bad. Rush hour had passed, and anyway, people usually traveled east to west in the morning, not the other way around. When I was a kid, sometimes we’d ride out here to visit the beach in the summertime on the rare days Papa Leo could bear to turn the kitchen over to someone else. When I thought of Long Island, I thought of sand and the Jones Beach boardwalk. But as I drove through Nassau County, I saw that most of it just looked like ordinary suburbs.
According to the GPS, Steven’s house was only twenty-four miles from the airport. I didn’t really have a plan, other than to hang around near his house and wait for someone to appear. Artie Cavendish’s report was thorough, considering the short notice. He’d found out that Steven had been working as a package delivery driver for five years and that he’d moved around three times in the two years he’d been living in Nassau County. Of course Artie’s report didn’t cover more important questions, like whether Steven was still a gambler with a bottle perpetually in his hand. Or if he was capable of taking care of his girls in the wake of his wife’s death.
At some point I realized I was starving. Long overdue family confrontations shouldn’t be tackled on an empty stomach. I pulled off the parkway and found a diner before I reached Levittown.
While I chowed down on a hearty breakfast of waffles and eggs, I kept mulling over the idea of texting Melanie. Something like “Miss you, babe” or “Wish you were here” seemed corny and inappropriate right now. I could message her under the pretense of asking if everything was all right at work, but that would probably just rub her the wrong way.
Once I was back in the rental car, I was hit by the fact that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent an entire day without working. Even on holidays I always found a reason to drop by the restaurant and do something that wasn’t even important. That was a big difference between me and Gio. He was no less dedicated, but he’d found a way to balance work and life. Funny, for a long time I’d thought of work as the same thing as life. Only lately had I realized I was wrong all along.
The house where Steven lived was on a narrow side street with maple trees and front lawns and sidewalks littered with orange leaves. The houses were all well kept and neat, except for one. I knew it was Steven’s rental house even before I double-checked the address. Unlike the houses surrounding it, this one seemed to droop under the weight of being unloved.
I took a couple of deep breaths before I walked up to the front door. In fact if I hadn’t spent the entire night flying to the other side of the country, then I might have lost my nerve before I rang the doorbell. But no one was home anyway. I listened for any hint of sound inside and heard only the echo of the doorbell chime. No car was in the driveway, and the only clue I had that anyone actually lived here was the child’s bicycle that leaned against the house just beyond the side door.
Reluctantly I returned to the car and waited.
I waited for a long time.
At two p.m. I had to piss so bad I couldn’t think straight, so I drove over to a 7-Eleven to use the bathroom. When I returned, a battered black Chevy Malibu was sitting in the driveway of Steven’s house.
This time when I got to the front door, I knocked instead of ringing the doorbell. There were footfalls, the sound of the lock being turned, and then the door opened.
Steven Esposito’s sorrow was written all over him. He was still physically formidable, but his shoulders drooped, his hairline had receded, and his face bore the weariness of grief.
At least that was
his expression before he saw me standing at his front door. Then his expression changed to openmouthed shock. I figured fury would follow, but he just kept blinking and looking stunned. He opened the screen door and squinted at me like I was an apparition.
“Dominic,” he croaked.
“Hi, Stevie,” I answered in what I hoped was a humble tone of voice.
Steven shook his head as if he was trying to shake himself awake. I got the feeling he would have been less shocked to find that a talking penguin had arrived to summon him to the North Pole.
I waited for him to invite me inside. I waited for him to punch me in the mouth. He didn’t do either.
He stepped outside and sat down heavily on an old redwood bench. He was wearing what I assumed was his work uniform, a plain brown shirt and pants with the company logo on the left pocket. I watched as he leaned forward and let out a huge sigh. He gave no sign that he wanted me to sit beside him.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
“Ten years,” I agreed.
Steven looked at me then. In coming here, I had halfway expected to be met with wrath, but when I searched my cousin’s face, I didn’t find it. Maybe the passage of time solved a few things after all.
He scooted over a few inches, rested his elbows on his knees, and made a tent with his hands. “Have a seat.”
I sat. I wanted to break the sad news before he asked what I was doing here, so I just came out with it.
“Grandma Donna died last Saturday.” I paused. “I’m sorry, Steven. The funeral was on Tuesday, but I wasn’t able to track you down right away.”
He didn’t make a sound. He just stared at his hands—big, broad hands that looked like they were used to working hard. Like mine, like Gio’s, like Papa Leo’s.
“Had she been sick?” he asked.
“No. She went into cardiac arrest as soon as she was put under anesthesia to fix a broken hip. We weren’t expecting to lose her. You should know that she talked about you. In fact the last conversation we had, she asked about you.”
“Damn,” he muttered with a wince. “I should have made an effort. It’s just that we’ve been barely hanging on, day to day. I used to think about it, that I ought to find a way to bring the girls to see her out there in Arizona. Beth always talked about planning a trip . . .” His voice cracked and trailed off. His head dropped.
