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It wasn’t working, sadly. He was dog tired. Shit scared.
Get going.He’d faced bullets, knives, clubs, bombs and fists. He could face down Grandma Pina.
“Be quick,” Kev said. “We can’t be late to the airport. Or we could pick up Zia Rosa, and bring her back, and you can do the family reunion adventure with her. Would you rather have reinforcements?”
He recoiled at the thought. “No. You cannot imagine how much those two women hate each other. What was Zia thinking, to fly out to Newark right now?”
“Thinking isn’t the appropriate word for what happens in Zia Rosa’s head,” Kev said. “Wish someone had stopped her, though.”
“She called a cab and sneaked out,” Sean reminded them. “Not their fault. Nobody knew they were supposed to duct tape her to a chair. Sveti said she was freaked after Petrie showed her the photos your, ah…” He paused, delicately. “Alleged siblings. I can see how that would be nerve-wracking. Since they, uh…look like you, and all.”
Bruno shuddered. “I’ll talk to Grandma Pina now, and get it over with. Then we pick up Zia. You two stay here. You’d scare her.”
“And you won’t?” Kev pointed out wryly.
Bruno glanced into the rear mirror, and looked away quickly. It was true. He looked like eight different kinds of shit. Vampire pale, eyes bloodshot, six day stubble. Palpable desperation oozing out of his pores. And a dangerously long interval had passed since his last shower.
He marched up the walkway. Lily was in trouble. Personal hygiene could wait. But it was unfortunate, to walk up to Grandma Pina’s door looking like a desperado. She was not the type to see through to a guy’s inner beauty.
He rang the bell, a hollow ding-dong. Several seconds passed, and the door jerked open a couple of inches, blocked by the security chain.
Grandma Pina glared at him from the narrow slit. There was no recognition in her gaze. “What do you want?”
He knew better than to smile. “Hi, Grandma Pina. It’s me, Bruno.”
Her face froze, eyes widened for a moment, before they squinched tight again. Her chin thrust forward. “I don’t believe you!”
He shrugged. “It’s me,” he said again. “Why would anyone lie about being me?”Or voluntarily claim you as a relative?
Seeing her face gave him a queasy feeling. Pina Ranieri had been a beauty in her youth, when she’d been courted by and married to Rosa and Tony’s oldest brother, Domenico. Her daughter had resembled her, but what he saw now was a chilling glimpse of how his mother would have aged if she’d taken a wrong turn in life early on, and focused on nothing but how the world had let her down.
Not that Mamma had any chance to take a wrong turn. The world really had let her down, in the worst possible way. She’d reached the end of the line at the age of thirty-two. Which, coincidentally, was his own current age. Huh. That fun fact hadn’t occurred to him until now.
All thanks to Grandma Pina. He looked at the disappointment and anger etched on her face, furrowing her brow, pinching her nostrils, puckering her mouth. So like his mother’s, and yet so horribly unlike.
“You’ve grown,” she said, still suspiciously.
“It happens,” he said. “I was twelve the last time you saw me. At Mamma’s funeral.”Not that you saw me often. Never if I saw you first.
“Don’t you give me any of that back-talk,” she warned, as if she’d heard his smartass thoughts.
He squelched a snotty reply. “May I come in?”
“What do you want?” she demanded, again.
He bit his lip, and tried again. “May I tell you about it inside?”
She slammed the door. The chain rattled. The door opened.
He walked past her into a house he barely remembered. Grandma Pina hadn’t invited him and Mamma to come there often. Bruno’s very existence was an irritation to her. A living reminder of her great disappointment in her daughter. Plus, he had tended to break things.
The living room was crowded with puffy furniture covered with shiny, impermeable plastic wrap. A glass coffee table was covered with little crystal doodads and ceramic flower sculptures. Pictures of kittens, flowers, sunsets and seascapes. Spic and span. Dead and embalmed.
She gestured towards the couch with a martyred air.
“No, I’ll stand,” he said. “This won’t take long. I just wanted to ask if you knew what happened to my mother’s stuff after she died.”
She looked affronted. “Well, after all these years, I never had any idea that you’d ever want any of that garbage! I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but I certainly never—”
