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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.
I swallowed. “Steven, I heard about Beth. I’m more sorry than I can say.”
A miserable sound came from his throat, but after a few deep breaths his voice came out even. “It was stomach cancer. One minute she was fine and healthy and taking Alice’s Girl Scout troop on camping trips to the Hamptons. Then she had a few bad days, so she visited the doctor. Four months later she was just gone.”
For a split second I closed my eyes and saw Beth’s bright smile. I saw her wave and blow me a kiss from her front porch. Then I opened my eyes and saw my cousin staring at me.
“Did you hear about Beth because of that article?” he asked curiously.
I was surprised. “You know about the article?”
“Yeah. A buddy of mine from the old neighborhood had my email address. He sent me a link, saying ‘Hey, aren’t these your little cousins?’ And I was like, ‘Yup, those are my little cousins.’” He frowned. “Everything else aside, that was a hell of a bullshit article.”
“Hatchet job is more like it,” I grumbled. “They didn’t get any of that gossip from us.”
He nodded. “I kind of figured.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. A gust of wind stirred up a wave of crisp leaves. The tree branches hovering over the street shivered. I shivered with them.
“Steven.”
He looked at me when I said his name. I tried to sort through the words I wanted to say and then figured I’d be better off just speaking from the heart.
“You probably don’t want to hear it all these years later, but I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry, Stevie. At the time I told myself that because you and Beth were separated it wasn’t a betrayal. I was pissed at you for your role in our family’s financial collapse. I was so fucking wrong. I was selfish. I was terrible. But after Beth and I started, things changed, and it was no longer about some sick form of revenge. I cared about her. A lot. When she went back to you, it crushed me, and I’m not telling you that because I’m searching for sympathy. I’m telling you because I thought it would give you some satisfaction to know that I got hurt in the end, just like I deserved to.”
He dropped his arms and leaned back tiredly on the bench. He sighed. “Ten years ago it would have given me satisfaction, Dom. But now I realize there’s already too much hurt in the world. I get no satisfaction from hearing about more.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “I didn’t treat her right. That’s why she kicked me out in the first place. I cheated, I drank too much, I never helped with Maya. It was only after I realized that I might not get her back that I understood what I’d lost. From then on I made it my business to become a better man. I haven’t touched the bottle or placed a bet since. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t furious with her when I found out about you two. Hell, we were angry at each other. But we figured out how to forgive, how to love, how to be a family.” Suddenly his voice got husky. “Beth and I were meant to be, even if we suffered a rocky road along the way. We would have stayed together forever if she hadn’t gotten sick.”
I’d never been a crier. But sitting there on that bench beside my cousin as he talked frankly about forgiveness and heartbreak, a tear traveled down my cheek. And then another one. Steven and Beth had a shaky foundation, but they’d found their love story after all. I only wished they could have enjoyed it longer.
Steven reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew a small pack of tissues, and handed them over. “Allergies,” he explained.
I used two tissues and stuffed them in my pocket, feeling a little embarrassed about sitting outside and weeping like a teenage girl.
“Look, I didn’t have anything do with the restaurant going under,” he said suddenly. “I swear to god, Dominic, that’s not the way it went down. My father had power of attorney over everything, and I was too busy boozing it up and gambling every penny in my own bank account to realize what he was up to. He’d even gotten involved with the mob. The feds determined that I had no part in his schemes, which was a hell of a relief because it meant I didn’t have to join him in prison.”
I tried to think of something diplomatic to say but couldn’t come up with anything beyond a limp, “That’s good.”
Steven seemed to be waiting for me to say more, but I didn’t want to bad-mouth his dead father in front of him, no matter how much the asshole deserved it.
