“There’s no doubt someone needs to pay for forcing her to live a life of lies. And all along, you believed your father was murdered when he was sitting up in a big house in Mount Vernon with his duplicitous wife, pretending she’d given him the heir he wanted. Who thefuckdoes that?”
“Folks who believe that because they have power and money, they can get whatever they want. I decided to tell you and not Ray, because he would tell me to pray for them, and I’m sorry, but I’m not the forgiving type when it comes to people hurting those I love.”
“Do you mind if I take the journals and read them myself before I come up with a solution to help you pay the bitches back for what they did to your mother? Now I know why she wouldn’t marry my uncle. She was afraid he would find out about her past.”
“There probably wasn’t a day when she didn’t live in fear that someone would uncover who she actually was. And that’s why she wouldn’t let anyone get close to her.”
“No one but Uncle Frank. And there were times when she refused to see him. He would tell me he didn’t understand why she kept pushing him away. It was only after he had cancer that they started to spend more time together.”
“My mother was a complicated woman.”
“She had to be, Kenny, to keep up the façade she had to play all of her life.”
Kenny closed his eyes and shook his head. “That had to be stressful, and now I know that’s why she died so young.”
“Are you going to honor her dying wish and pay the bitches back for how they ruined her life?” Frankie asked.
Kenny opened his eyes. They were cold and unreadable as a stone. “Yes.”
“That’s all I need to know. And I’m not going to tell you how I’m going to make it happen, except that I know people who run a prostitution business and owe me a few favors. My soul is damned, and I know I’m going to hell, and there’s no way I’m going to bring you down with me. So, whatever we talked about here stays between us. After I finish reading your mother’s journals, I’m going to burn them. I hope that’s okay with you?”
“It’s okay, because I also planned to burn them.”
Frankie stood up, Kenny rising with him. “I know you and your girl are planning to go away for Christmas, so I’m going to get out of your hair so you can get ready. Now that you’ve found your special lady, don’t take too long to put a ring on her finger.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about, because she’s been hinting that she wants to be a June bride.”
“Are you talking about this coming June, Kenny?”
“No. That’s too soon. Her birthday is coming up in July, so that’s when I plan to give her a ring, and if she doesn’t want to wait until the following June, then we’ll marry sooner.”
“Go get the journals, buddy, because I promised my father I’d be back in time to help him put up the tree. I don’t know why he waits until Christmas Eve to get a tree, but I can’t gethim to change. I suppose it’s because old folks get stuck in their ways, and it’s hard for them to change.”
“It’s going to happen to us if we live long enough,” Kenny said, smiling. “I’ll be right back.” He put the journals in a canvas sail bag and gave it to Frankie. “Merry Christmas, brother.”
Frankie nodded. “Back at you, brother.”
Kenny walked him to the door, closing it behind him. He felt a sense of relief now that he was able to share what his mother had written with another person. And whatever decision Frankie would come up with, Kenny would go along with it.
He had two things on his wish list for the coming year:
Buy an engagement ring.
And have Ray baptize him.
Epilogue
Newark Trauma Center—Newark, New Jersey—August 8, 1989
Frankie walked back into the room and rested his hand over Kenny’s. “Brothers for life.”
That had been their childhood motto. It didn’t matter what they had to go through; they would never desert one another. He had a flashback of another time, when he stood next to a hospital bed watching Ramon Torres fight for his life. Now it was Kenny.
He didn’t understand why, despite the many sins he’d committed, he wasn’t the one in a hospital bed hooked up to machines monitoring his vitals. He supposed he’d been spared because a higher power would punish him later for breaking a number of the seven deadly sins.
Frankie realized his entire life was based on lust for women, power, and money. And twice in his life, he’d been a party to devising a scheme to exact revenge. Something he knew he would have to atone for.
“Frankie?” He turned to find Ray dressed in clerical garbwith a purple stole around his neck. He held a small box in one hand. “What are you doing?”
