His eyes became serious. He nodded.
“I’ll stay under one condition.” I took a deep breath. “This is my condition. If you don’t agree—”
“Tell me.”
“I want to be there. At the challenge.”
He kissed my lips again, this time with a passion I felt burning in his soul. As messed up as it was, it turned him on to know I was going to support him in this.
What else could I do?
We really started going at it, and when we did, the plastic underneath us started to squeak. Nazzareno stopped and his eyebrows furrowed.
“What the fuck is that?” He slowly looked down, like it had come from my body or something.
I lifted the blanket back and told him it was plastic. Then I exploded with laughter at the look on his face. He didn’t understand, and I explained to him why some people did it, to protect their furniture. He rested his head against mine and started laughing too. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we started kissing again. We didn’t even stop after we fell to the floor.
It felt like the kind of sex that released so much but brought us even closer. The only meaning behind it was to strengthen our connection.
Our entire time in New York seemed to follow this theme.
We did the touristy thing, even though I’d seen some of the places hundreds of times. I’d passed them without even truly recognizing their worth. We caught a baseball game, and Nazzareno sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” with me. We went to Coney Island. Lilo used to take Lucila there, and in a way, I was doing it for them. I tried not to think of Kirill while we were there. It was where our…not relationship, but something-shiphad begun.
We were going out for a fancy dinner, and Nazzareno and I got dressed up, him in a black suit and me in a hot pink bandage dress. On the way, I told him all about Mamma’s Pizzeria, how much I loved it. We went there instead, and he approved, which said a lot, since…Naples. Nuff said. We took an early morning stroll to Valentino’s and stood in line for baked goods. We went to Central Park and ate them while we people-watched.
We did dinner with Neil and Andrea at Aunt Lucia’s. The three of us stopped and smiled when Nazzareno walked in with Edna on his arm. We all clapped quietly while Glenn Miller serenaded us in the background, and in her fancy gown, she bowed. A few minutes later, a knock came at the door, and Nazzareno went to answer it. An older Italian man with a fedora walked in with him, and Nazzareno introduced him as his great uncle, Francesco.
Edna squeezed my arm.
Francesco looked more like Marzio than Nazzareno did.
Great Uncle Francesco took a seat next to her, and the entire time, they talked. They seemed fascinated with each other.
Neil and Andrea both looked at the dinner I cooked and then at me.
I held my hands up. “I picked up a few pointers in Italy!”
“Who brought the antacids?” Neil joked.
I wasn’t sure if Nazzareno got the joke when after the first bites, Neil, Andrea, and Edna acted like they all had died by letting their heads hit their plates. Nazzareno seemed to think they were acting like they had passed out. He didn’t seem to find it funny, then it dawned on me.
“You think they’re…poking fun at what happened to you after the…lion tranquilizer?”
The entire table quieted, and Nazzareno took a drink of his whiskey, nodding. The only one with a grin on his face was Great Uncle Francesco, who must have heard about what I’d done. News traveled fast in the Fausti family, apparently.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t cook—or couldn’t. The last time I tried, everyone got sick.”
“She was trying to get a job at this mob-owned restaurant—” Neil started, but then picked up his glass and downed some of his wine.
After that, though, the night was a lot of fun, and Edna even allowed Francesco to escort her back to Vice City.
Nazzareno and I had breakfast with Molly the next morning, who stood by and watched as Hoffa fell in love with Nazzareno—after she saw that, Molly gave her approval of him. We made plans to take Hoffa back to Italy with us.
We took the ferry to Ellis Island, and then I stopped in front of a church and decided to go in. I thought maybe it was a sign when a woman sat outside of it, selling headscarves, or what Nazzareno called amantello, from Italy—or she claimed. Even though she was only charging twenty bucks, Nazzareno gave her a hundred. She stared at him wide-eyed as we entered the church.
I wasn’t sure what to do, or if I was going to erupt into flames because of all the mistakes I’d made in my life, but a sudden peace washed over me. I sat quietly and just…breathed. Before we left, I lit a candle, burning it for my husband. I may not ever be a traditional wife, but he had held a vigil for me when I was in the hospital.
This was the one thing I decided to be the strongest at for him—protecting his soul.
