It’s funny. I never used to think about things like legacy and family. I did my job, had some kicks, and came home. That was my life before Lena and Opal. I think about whether the life I’m building now is the right one.
Yes. Without a doubt.
I long to get back to them. Strange feeling. But a good one, I think.
They went through hell tonight. So they get bagels this morning. And anything else they want. Beyond that, I have a lot ofrestructuring to do. I wonder what Lena will say when I tell her what’s happening. I drive faster.
Angela Scarpetti was the only mother I ever knew. Didn’t have much contact with the rest of the family, so I know the concept of aunts and grandmothers, but they were never in my life. Mom wasn’t the sentimental type.
But she loved her sons with the complete, fierce, undemonstrative love of someone who shows affection through action rather than expression. She made sure we were fed and educated, made sure we understood the world we were living in and were prepared for it. She never pretended it was anything other than what it was.
She told me something once, when I was fourteen and asking why she did what she did, because I understood the urge, but I needed to know I wasn’t broken for it. Mom sat me down and said that someone has to. There are bad people in the world, and they make it worse. People like her and me were here to make it better, and I was good at it, so I should embrace who I was. “Don’t feel guilty for being able to see people for who they are. Feel good that you can easily remove the bad ones. Not everyone can.”
“You mean Dad?”
She smirked. “Yes. I mean your father. He’s one of the good ones, Dar. We have to protect him and people like him.”
Lena is one of the good ones. So is Opal.
Though admittedly, when she told Ed she was glad he hurt, I saw a little of myself in her. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Nah. It’s a good thing.
That’s what’s ahead of me now. Good things. All because of the ladies in my apartment.
I don’t know whether I would have ever made the move on Marco before Lena and Opal. I was content with my life, as content as someone like me ever is, anyway. They’ve changed everything.
For the better.
TWENTY-SEVEN
LENA
He comes backin the early morning, and the first thing I notice is that he looks relaxed.
Not relieved. Relaxed. There’s a difference, and I clock it immediately—relief has a quality of release to it.
This is the opposite. He moves through the door with a quietness I’ve never seen in him before, like a frequency that’s been running just below audible has finally gone silent. He sets his keys on the hook and a large paper bag on the hall table.
He’s trying to be quiet. Must think we somehow slept after everything.
I’ve been on the couch all night. My tea is cold. The drawing on the refrigerator catches the first yellow light coming through the window. I look at it, then I look at him.
There’s blood on his cuff. Dried, dark, a stripe of it across the left sleeve of a denim jacket I don’t recognize.
He sees me seeing it. He doesn’t explain. He takes in the couch and the cold tea and the burned-down candles, and he reads allof it in one pass, the way he reads everything I do—completely, without asking me to explain it to him.
He goes to his office. The door stays open, like an invitation.
I follow him.
He’s already got the jacket off by the time I get there—the one with the blood on the cuff, folded over the back of his chair like it’s any other jacket. The blood doesn’t bother him. I doubt it would in his profession.
Either of them.
He’s standing at his desk with both hands braced on the surface, looking at it. Not at anything on it. Just at the surface itself.
“Dario.”
