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1
Cristo opened the front door and swept his hand out for me to enter my childhood home. Stepping inside, I inhaled the scent of polished wood and too many carpets. I tapped my black graduation cap with its little golden tassel against my thigh as I glanced up at the stairs. Childhood memories flooded me of waiting for my father to return late at night. I would leave my bedroom door open, and the instant I heard the front lock unbolt, I’d rush out of my room and skip down the stairs to stand at the bottom so the first thing he saw when he stepped across the threshold was my face.
Cristo ruffled my hair as he passed me. Shaking off my memories, I followed him with my eyes as he hauled my luggage upstairs.
“Do you need help?” I called out, even though I knew he would dismiss my offer. He was old school like that.
Cristo waved me away, so I slipped off my shoes and took a right from the foyer into the living room. My gaze coasted over the heavy, dark wood furniture, the intricately designed rugs covering the floor, and the traditional red-and-white embroidery scattered around, from the runner on the coffee table to several of the pillows piled high on the couch and armchairs. The warm late-spring air breezed through the open windows. The only thing missing from making the place an exact replica of a traditional Romanian home was a stove fireplace decorated in ceramic tiles.
I spied the little shrine in the far corner of the Eastern wall of the house, holding an Orthodox icon, which I knew was SaintParascheva, grandmother's favorite. The votive candle, which she lit every morning, illuminated the gold leaf of the small wooden painting. A surge of nostalgia welled up inside me. Along with guilt. Guilt and worry. Guilt for not being around this past year as my mother fought leukemia. Cristo and Bunica, my grandmother, took care of her, and the toll it had taken on them showed in the small dust bunny that rolled past my bare foot.
Worry because Cristo confided in me that the family was having money problems. With the Americans evacuating Afghanistan, certain warlords that my father partnered with to smuggle raw opium and ephedrine out of the country were being replaced by the Taliban. The drop in income, on top of the medical bills coming in for my mother’s treatment, had led to a cash shortage. Guilt swooped in again at the thought of my hefty boarding school tuition since my parents refused to pull me out my senior year.
I had to make it up to them somehow, and that started with linking our family with the Lupu clan. For now, Mama was in remission, but leukemia was a sneaky disease, and the very thought that she might not be with us at some point drove me into near panic mode. I’d be the dutiful daughter if it killed me—and marrying Nicu just might.
But how could I deny her anything? I’d already disappointed her when I caught my father killing someone and the mess that had created. More than anyone in the family, she was concerned about our image, and I knew she had been worried about my prospects. Mafie girls did not move away from home and go to boarding school. This marriage took a huge weight off her shoulders, and the engagement-wedding whirlwind gave her something exciting to focus on.
This homey townhouse had been the center of my world, a sanctuary until the fateful night that had changed everything. Unlike other girls my age who were getting ready to leave home, I was determined to take an active role in my family. Leaving at such a young age, I had missed out on so much, and I was determined to make it up to them.
I plopped down on the couch, my fingertips grazing the new material. Had they gotten this reupholstered since the winter? Cristo waltzed in and sat down heavily beside me. I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. He felt like he’d failed in his duty to protect me. After my father called me at school to tell me about my engagement, Cristo FaceTimed me. He had fought with my father to give me more time, arguing that I was too young. But, as he’d painfully confessed, their hands were tied.
In our video chat, his jaw was tight and his teeth clenched as he gave me the verdict of my future. I expected to be engaged, but I thought I might get away with a year or two of college with Jewel. Of all the Lupu men, my brother hated Nicu the most. With his temper, I worried he’d do something rash. We were on the phone for hours. Holed up in one of the few private bathrooms in the girl’s dorm so no one would overhear us, I talked him off the ledge from starting a war with the Lupu clan. That’s when he divulged the whole story. He and my father had tried to trick the Lupu sef, or boss. It had backfired, big time. Not only was I going to marry a man I hardly knew, but everyone in his family would hate me.
The kitchen door swished as it swung open, and I heard the hurried pitter-patter of my mother and Bunica. Sweeping in behind them was the delicious apple and cinnamon scent of her favorite pastry, placinta cu mere, that I was certain she’d prepared specially for my arrival.
Throwing their hands in the air and clapping, they exclaimed, “Catalina! Cat, you’re home!”
Bunica’s thin arms wrapped around me, cocooning me in warmth and love that I missed, the scent of apples and sugar floating off her. When I was a toddler, and again when the nightmares had invaded my nights, Bunica had insisted that a cot be moved into my bedroom so that she could watch over me as I slept. It was such a bunica thing to do. Standing up, she hustled back into the kitchen, probably to bring her placinte.
Meanwhile, my mother shoved Cristo out of the way. He grumbled something about being disposable but gave up his seat for my mother, who wrapped her arms around me.
“We’re so glad to have you back home for good, sweetie,” she crooned.
“Sadly, I’m not here for long,” I reminded her, giving her a pout. How unfair was it that, just as I was coming home, I’d soon have to leave?
She tutted, rocking me back and forth in her bony arms. She’d lost a lot of weight this past year with the chemo.
“But you’re here for now, and we’ll make the best of it. After your wedding, you’ll be in Manhattan, which isn’t far compared to Massachusetts. I don’t know what that uppity Lupu woman is thinking, letting her sons live in those penthouses in the middle of busy midtown when there are nice quiet townhouses just up the block.”
My mother tried her best not to complain, but we both knew that the Lupu clan made their own rules. They were known for their modernism and love of culture. Nicu’s father had bought the four penthouse apartments in the two towers of the Time Warner Building off Columbus Circle before construction had even begun. From what I heard, their sef, Alex, lived with his wife in one apartment, while his consilier, Tatum, occupied the other penthouse in that tower. Nicu and his older brother, Luca, lived in the two penthouses in the opposite tower. That would soon be my home.
“Get your father,” my mother ordered Cristo, fluttering a hand at him to hurry up. I caught his eye and gave him an apologetic look.
He leaned over our mother and clapped my knee with his big hand, shaking it lightly. “I’m glad you’re back for good, little sis.”
My mother nudged his shoulder and pointed to the foyer, where the stairs going down to my father’s office were located. He let out a long, suffering sigh as he heaved himself up.
“Oh, please, she spoils you rotten,” I jested.
That was their way, to banter and complain about each other. I had missed that, too. The joking and playful teasing. The laughter that always rang somewhere in the house.
“How was the train ride? Too crowded? With all the baggage you had to bring home, you should’ve let your brother pick you up,” she complained.
I shook my head. “It’s almost four hours each way, and that’s without traffic. It’s too much for Cristo.”
“He could’ve driven up, stayed overnight in a hotel, and brought you back the next day,” she insisted.
“Mom, I’m not a little girl. He’s done it so many times over the years,” I reiterated, as I had over the phone half a dozen times this past week alone. “It’s too much and completely unnecessary.”
