Page 107 of Mafia Queen
* * *
My parents hadthe crown between them in their bedroom the night I overheard their conversation.
What it would be like if this thing didn’t exist? Who you’d be?
You’d still be mine.
Do you ever wonder what I’d be? What Icouldbe?
Do I not take care of you?
A few months before their deaths, Papino had missed the point entirely. Twice. Through the hinge-wide space between the door and the jamb, I’d watched my mother fall out of love with him.
And then the handles were hot.
There has to be a perfectly unmagical explanation for the heat of the crown and its case, but that doesn’t mean history isn’t trying to tell me something. The possibilities of power had made Mamma hungry for it. She resented the disappointments of her station, and they turned her against her husband.
The coal rocks burn bright white, shimmering with heat inside a hot metal box. We’re having this stinky coal furnace taken out as soon as possible. Then we’re scrubbing this shit out of the floors and walls and plastering all of them over with peppermint and lavender sheetrock, and if that doesn’t get out the smell, we’re sealing off this section of the basement behind seven layers of lemon-scented cinder block. Zio Guglielmo says none of those materials exist, but I can dream.
But I’ve proven to everyone that I am Santino’s partner and equal. That day, I set myself free of any desire for vengeance. I’ll never kill anyone again. That’s his job from now on.
We aren’t saints, but we’re home, living in a place that feels more right to me than St. John’s or the Leaky Bean or anywhere across the river ever did. I have a place with him, here.
Between us, he rules me with love, and my love for him rules my life.
Santino comes to the basement of Torre Cavallo with the crown’s box under his arm. He grips the bottom with his left hand, which is now only partly bandaged.
I meet him at the bottom step and kiss him. He hands me the box. I place it on a red milk crate I’ve set in front of the open furnace, between two metal folding chairs. We sit in reverent silence for a moment.
“Do you remember the night my parents died?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who did it?” I ask.
“Nobody knows.”
“You said you had the night off, but you went anyway.”
“Emilio planned a last-minute dinner, so…”
“It was her. My mother. She sprung it on him. I remember. And she said if Papà died, she was in charge.”
His eyes narrow as if he doesn’t know where I’m going with this.
“Santi, she didn’t love him. She’d been getting harder and harder for months, but that morning, she went ice cold.”
“Wait. You think she planned it? Camilla Moretti?” He’s practically laughing.
“Camilla Cavallo. And yes. I think she planned to have my father killed, but she got the wrong guy to do it, and he shot her too.”
“This is why you brought me down here?” He shakes his head. “They loved each other,Forzetta.”
“Look at me. Everyone says I look like my father, and maybe I do. But listen to everything that never made any sense. Emilio had a half brother who felt entitled to Camilla, to the crown.”
His head tilts. He’s getting it, but not yet.
Not quite yet.
