AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Giovanni was waiting for me to talk first, but I didn’t know what to say. Of course I was sorry. I’d been sorry for a very long time.
“So, it’s true,” he finally said.
“Yes, it’s true,” I admitted.
He winced. “I guess I never really wanted to know. Or maybe I was afraid you’d just lie to my face.”
“Gio,” I said softly, “it was a decade ago. Yeah, I had an affair with Beth while she was separated from Steven. I was young and stupid and bitter.”
His shoulders slumped. It didn’t matter to Gio if it happened ten years ago or yesterday. He’d heard me admit it out loud now, so it was suddenly real, not just a shadowy rumor. Gio was hurt. The big brother he’d always worshipped had fucked his own cousin’s wife out of spite.
A gust of cool wind creaked the door open a few inches. It didn’t seem worth crossing the room to close it, though.
Gio crossed his arms. “What about the kid?”
“Your kid?”
“No, Dom, not my kid. Yours. What about her?”
I just stared at him, wondering if he’d really just said what I thought he’d said. It took a long time for me to scrape together an answer. When I finally could find the words, it almost hurt to say them.
“Giovanni Esposito, don’t you know me any better than that?”
He just shook his head sadly, lowered his head, and started to walk out.
“Wait, where the hell are you going?” I demanded. “We’re not done here.”
He was already at the door. He didn’t turn around when he answered. “Got to shower and get ready. We’ve got a grandmother to bury after all. I’ll meet you there, okay?”
“Gio. Fuck, come on. We need to talk.”
“Keep the newspaper,” he tossed over his shoulder before he left.
I didn’t chase after him. It seemed like he didn’t want me to. We had more shit to sort out, but I couldn’t force him to face me. We couldn’t get into this when Donna’s funeral was looming.
Yet when Gio met me at the funeral home, he wasn’t cool or angry. This wasn’t the place for that anyway. We were both sad, and even if he didn’t like me very much right now, we were still brothers.
The funeral director, a very pallid, very tall man named Ed Stock, talked scarcely above a whisper and was almost comically attentive as we described our desire for a very simple service.
“Thank you for entrusting your loved one to our care,” he said in a grave voice as he escorted us to the door after we handed him a check.
“Um, you’re welcome,” I said, offering him a salute for some strange reason.
When the double doors of the funeral home whispered closed at our backs, it gave me an eerie feeling. Gio didn’t seem to notice. He waited to make sure I was coming before he started for the parking lot.
“You want to grab an early lunch or something?” I asked him hopefully.
He shook his head. “Nah, I promised Tara I’d come home. We’re going to take Leah to the park before I head into work.”
“Sounds nice.”
He looked at me. “You’re welcome to come, Dom. I don’t want to talk about the damn article or ten-year-old scandals, but you’re always welcome.”
I would’ve loved to take Gio up on his offer. But I had something to take care of first. I couldn’t relax with my family or make a true commitment to the girl I cared about until I settled old scores. For ten years I’d been shadowed by the ominous clouds of the past. It didn’t matter at this point who had been more wrong and who deserved to pay for it the most. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d spent far too much time being haunted by memories and regret. I owed it to Donna to fix this.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” I said. “Kiss the little stinker for me.”
“I will.” He waved and left, a little too quickly.
