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I step up to the wardrobe and help her find something to wear.
It’s not until we’re walking along the drive that it occurs to me: The woman on my arm is the woman I have been trying to shape Tessa into all along. Except, I’m not sure the transformation had anything to do with me.
When I can’t stop staring at her, she notices.
“You look beautiful.”
“I know,” she says, meeting my look. “I look like I’m yours.”
She puts her hand around my arm.
There’s a saying in the family—if the don himself ever shows up at your front door, it’s either the best or the worst day of your life. I wish this one were the opposite.
Vinny’s mother has aged a decade overnight. Her hair is frazzled, and she’s dressed in a robe with mismatched slippers. One look at me, and her bloodshot eyes well up with fresh tears.
She stumbles over her apology for her appearance. I pull her into my arms before she can get the words out.
My connection to Vinny runs through her—we are related in some distant way. Cousins of some fashion. The relation isn’t immediate, but we are no less bound by the same blood.
When she collects herself, I introduce Contessa. Tessa offers her hand and her apologies—her eyes swimming with the same emotion. I swear women have some language of their own. With only a handful of words exchanged between them, Maria pulls Tessa into an embrace as well. There’s no questioning where Vinny got his disposition.
Contessa whispers those little words that I am not allowed to say:
I’m so sorry.
Maria nods gratefully.
Vinny’s father is surprisingly absent, but by the bottles littered around the table, I have a sense of why he isn’t here. I don’t press the absence, taking my seat next to Maria.
It’s my obligation as don to offer the family some recompense—the promise that the security a successful son would have brought them won’t die with Vinny. They’ll be taken care of. Most families don’t care about that, at least, not in the moment. They want justice.
Maria sniffles into her tissue.
“Can I see him?” she asks. “One last time?”
“No, ma’am,” I say, as gently but as firm as I can. Her face crumples.
“It was bad, wasn’t it?”
Before I have to decide how to answer a question like that, Contessa intervenes on my behalf.
“What a cute picture,” she says suddenly, picking up a framed childhood photo of Vinny off the end table. He doesn’t look much older than Nate in that picture, showing off doing a handstand between his two parents, who are posed for a normal family photo.
Maria laughs sadly. “Vinny was always jumping in front of a camera or sticking his tongue out, trying to get someone to laugh. When he was little, his uncle used to comment ‘Bigfoot Sighting’ on his pictures because they were all blurry.”
“I’d love to see,” Contessa urges gently.
Maria brings us a photo album from under the coffee table. I’m grateful for the intervention, sharing a glance with her behind the woman’s back. She slides her fingers through mine.
“I didn’t print out as many as I should have…everything is online now. But I still have his school photos. I was always complaining that I didn’t have any ‘good’ pictures of him. When picture day came around, I picked out the perfect outfit, combed his hair just right. I told him, ‘You better sit still, look at the camera, and smile, or so help me.’ “I was so proud he was finally going to have a normal picture.” She laughs wetly and hands the school photo over to Tessa. It’s Vinny as a child, doing exactly as his mother said—sitting still and smiling politely for the camera, with his hair styled up in big wet spikes. A mohawk gone horribly wrong.
“He snuck in his dad’s hair gel. I was so mad, I told him I wasn’t going to waste my money on the picture. Of course, I did anyway…”
“I wish I had gotten to know him better,” Tessa says.
“He never met a stranger. Or an enemy.” Maria tries to discreetly wipe at her face again.
“Speaking of enemies, Maria,” I interrupt, trying to be gentle, “It’s standard that I tell you—I have Vinny’s killer in my custody.”
