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“It’s okay,” I told her. “We had you and Papa Leo. We had everything.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. She must have been exhausted. I didn’t know how long it would take before the attendants came to move her to a private room, but maybe it would be best if she dozed off until then. I was searching for a switch that would allow me to dim the lights when her eyelids fluttered.
“Is Stevie coming?”
“Steven?” I stopped cold at the mention of my estranged cousin’s name.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat and grew more animated. “That lady reporter said she would send him a plane ticket to come out for the opening of your new restaurant. I haven’t received anything from him since Christmas, but she said she could find him. I’d love to see my great-granddaughters. Stevie sent me the girls’ school pictures last year. So pretty. Just like Beth.”
Reporter. Steven. Beth. Girls.
The words ran through my head in a red-lettered marquee.
Everything was hopelessly connected; Leo’s death, the bankruptcy of Esposito’s, the scandalous drama of my cousin and his wife.
My cousin, Steven, eight years older, was tall, brash, and a mirror image of his father, both in looks and temperament. I idolized him before I knew any better. He’d never had much patience for two scrawny little boys who trailed after him in awe, but now and then he’d make a nice gesture like teaching us poker in the giant restaurant pantry or sneaking a pair of Italian ices to our table when we were supposed to be eating dinner. Steven was big and bold with a cutting wit, and it seemed to me like he could rule the world if he wanted to. There were always girls swirling around him like honeybees, but only one had ever stood out in my mind. Beth. Sweet, beautiful Beth. Steven and Beth had a tumultuous relationship in high school. They got married at age nineteen and bitterly separated six years later. They did eventually get back together, but I never knew if they stayed that way.
Steven’s father, Frank, Donna and Leo’s only son, was the de facto heir to our restaurant. But as Gio and I approached our teen years, the plans changed a little. Our grandparents were concerned about Frank’s gambling addiction and lackluster managerial skills. Plus they felt we were entitled to a share of the family business. I remembered the fights over this. There was Uncle Frank throwing a plate against the wall in the middle of Easter dinner and snarling about betrayal. There was my grandmother physically stepping between her husband and son when an argument in the middle of Esposito’s crowded dining room threatened to get physical. I always wondered if all that strain contributed to my grandfather’s stroke.
At any rate, Leo was gone, his widow was devastated, and Gio and I were too young to be of any real use running the restaurant. For a couple of years everything seemed to be normal. Both Gio and I were working in the kitchen at this point. Cousin Steven was in charge of the kitchen since his father didn’t often deign to set foot back there. It was Steven who taught us the most about food and the age-old family tricks that went into making a perfect pie. Sometimes he would talk about moving out of state and opening his own place, but I didn’t pay much attention back then. Steven was one of the best pizza chefs around, but by the time I reached high school and started working with him in the kitchen, I understood his star had already started to fall. He drank a lot. He started running an illegal numbers racket and squandering large sums of money. By this time he and Beth had a little girl and a very rocky marriage. But the restaurant was thriving, and there was a good future to look forward to for all of us. Or so we thought. We were wrong.
All these memories passed through my head in a flash as my grandmother waited for my answer about her eldest grandson.
“I’m not sure when Steven’s coming,” I answered as I very gently tucked the blanket around her. In her haze of pain and confusion, she probably didn’t remember that Steven and I hadn’t spoken in ten years, that if I showed up on his doorstep, he’d be as likely to punch me in the mouth as to say hello.
Gio returned with a nurse who offered Donna a few sips of water from a paper cup. A moment later a cheerful big fellow, who looked like he might play defensive lineman in his spare time, arrived to escort my grandmother up to her room. We followed, and then Gio pulled me aside while a nurse came into the room and gingerly checked Donna’s vitals.
“Tara will be here soon,” Gio told me. “She’s going to leave Leah with her mother and stay with Donna all day.”
I sighed. “We ought to be the ones standing by her bedside.”
“Nonsense,” my grandmother called in the saucy voice that I remembered from my childhood. It was a voice that tolerated no debate. “You boys have two restaurants to run. You don’t need to waste your time sitting here watching a clumsy old lady take a nap.”
I was going to say something, but she cut me off sharply before I finished the first syllable.
“I mean it, Dominic,” she warned. “Your lives shouldn’t be wasted mooning around a hospital. Go do what you need to do. And that’s an order from your grandmother.”
My brother and I looked at each other, each of us silently daring the other to argue. Gio grinned and shook his head. His silent message was right. There was no use in arguing with Donna Esposito. If she wanted us to leave, she wouldn’t relax until we were gone.
Half an hour later, when Gio and I were happy that our beloved grandmother was comfortable and in good hands, we walked out to the parking lot together.
“Surgery is gonna be rough at her age,” he commented.
“She’s a tough lady,” I said. “She’ll probably be square dancing in the Sonoran Acres cafeteria before Christmas.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. You heading over to Espo 2 now, or do you have time to grab some breakfast?”
I checked my watch. “Nah, I better go in. We’ve got to place food orders, and Melanie said she’d take care of the inventory count this morning, but I don’t like asking her to go above and beyond.”
We’d reached the spot where my pickup was parked. Gio’s car was parked just three spots away. He stopped behind my truck and drummed his fingers on the top of my truck’s tailgate.
“How is Melanie?” he asked carefully. “She stopped by Espo 1 yesterday to post the staff schedule and pick up some vendor records that never made it to the new place, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. I was busy dealing with a cash register issue.”
I didn’t want to get into an ethical conversation about Melanie, not out here in the parking lot of Phoenix Regional Hospital. I owed her an honest conversation about our status before I went ahead and discussed any specifics with my brother. Sometimes I got the feeling she didn’t want to have that conversation, that she was afraid of it. I hated the idea that she was uncertain about where I stood. The truth was, I would do anything and everything in my power to romance Melanie Cruz. I just wished we’d gotten together under different circumstances—where she wasn’t my employee, and we weren’t all walking the tightrope of a crucial business venture.
“She’s good,” I said casually. “Works hard, gets shit done. You know that. You’re the one who hired her.”
He seemed to be searching my face for something. “I’m sure you’ve heard that Tara told her about how everyone knows about the two of you.”
