“Oh, my God,” she whispered, running her fingertips over the bodice. “Oh, my God.”
“This is you,” her friend said. “Let’s see.”
Adele broke into tears when Katrynn stepped out of the dressing room. Sabina clapped. Her mother smiled and gave her a nod.
Stella stood on the platform with her and fussed about the bodice, jerking the dress to and fro on Katrynn’s body with surprising force. She took a bunch of notes in a spiral notebook, then she stood upright and grabbed Katrynn’s ponytail. She wounded it tight and pulled her pencil from her ear and stuck it in the roll of hair. “There. What did I say—a silver screen star. You are Grace Kelly, sweetie. Look at you.”
Look at her, indeed. She met Bev’s eyes in the mirror. Her friend grinned. And then Katrynn started to cry.
~oOo~
By the time they left Fulvio and Stella, Katrynn had her dress, her shoes and all her accessories; Bev had her matron of honor dress; Adele had her mother of the groom dress; and they had chosen dark blue suits for the men to wear. The colors she’d picked were blue and silver, which she had been assured were excellent classic colors for a December evening wedding. She had only known that she liked them, and that she wanted to steer far clear of any take on red and green.
Her mother wouldn’t choose a dress for herself, either. She wasn’t comfortable with the expense—not that she knew how much anything cost. The Paganos were picking up the tab, and with a word, Bev had taken numbers out of the conversation today.
Katrynn had a strong suspicion that Nick and Bev were paying for the wedding, but she didn’t know, and Bev wouldn’t say. But she had certainly been in charge on this day.
Even so, Dana had insisted that she would take care of her own dress, and a suit for Katrynn’s father.
Katrynn thought it highly unlikely that her father would still be around in six weeks.
After the boutique, they had a late lunch at a nearby tea room, and the women dispersed after that. Katrynn walked her mother to her car.
Before Dana opened the door, she turned and leaned back on it. “You’re happy now? This—the glitz and commotion, becoming Catholic—it’s what you want?”
Katrynn nodded. “I’m happy. I don’t care about the glitz. But the commotion, the church, so many people who care, yeah. It’s what I want.”
“I’m sorry your own family isn’t what you want.”
“Mom, please. I love you. That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes, darling, it is. But I don’t mean to be passive-aggressive. I am truly sorry. I know you love your family. And we love you. But your dad and I never could have given you anything like this. And I don’t mean the money.”
“Mom, do you ever think that maybe there’s…something wrong with Dad? Something that could be fixed?”
Dana’s eyes narrowed. “Your father is who he is. I love him as he is. Why would I want him to be fixed? Because he isn’t like everybody else?”
“Because he hurts people who love him.”
“People who love him should accept him as he is.” She squeezed Katrynn’s arm. “I’m going to go, Katrynn. I love you. You are going to be a beautiful bride. I’ll see you soon.”
She got into her car and drove away. Katrynn stood where she was and watched until the car was out of sight. When she turned toward Bev’s SUV, her friend was leaning against the hatch.
“You okay?”
“My family parts don’t fit together,” Katrynn sighed.
“Do they need to?”
Katrynn thought about that. “I guess they don’t. I fit here.”
“Yes, you do. You ready to go home? We can stop at the florist on the way. We’re going to get this wedding done, and it will be beautiful.”
Katrynn had every faith that it would.
~ 23 ~
John had woken up hung over as fuck, but he’d run it off. He’d puked twice on the road, but by the time he and Theo had split up and he’d headed back to the beach house, he’d felt human again.
He was pleased, when he got to the church, to see that his brothers looked a lot worse than he did. Luca, in fact, was slumped in the corridor just outside the door, his sunglasses on and his mouth hanging open.
“Fuck,” Joey muttered, and John turned to see his little brother struggling with the boutonniere.
“Let me see. I thought Adele did yours.”
“She did. But her hands were sh-shaking, and it’s all…” He gave up the word and simply shook his lapel back and forth, demonstrating that the flower was too loose.
John repinned it more firmly. “You look good, Joe.” He punched him lightly in the gut. “Fat, but good.”
“Fuck off…p-pretty boy.” He said it with a smile.
The door opened, and Carlo looked in. “Pop wants to talk to you, bro.”
At John’s nod, Carlo pushed the door wide and helped their father into the room.
For the first few months after Pop’s announcement that he was dying, he’d seemed pretty healthy—in some ways, he’d seemed healthier than he’d been in a while. His mood was better, and he put on a little bit of weight. Not much, but enough that he’d begun to look more like the Pop they’d all grown up with. It had quickly become possible to forget that they were going to lose him, and soon.
At some point in the fall, though, he’d begun to show weakness. He carried an oxygen tank with him now, just like the one Joey had once needed all the time. Joey had gotten strong enough that he could get by on normal days with an inhaler, and he only needed to hit oxygen when he was sick or overly stressed. Pop would only be getting weaker.
He had hold of Carlo’s arm as he came into the room, and he didn’t let go until Carlo led him to a chair. “You good, Pop?”
“Yeah, Junior. Get out, will ya?”
Carlo laughed. “Okay. Joe, c’mon. Let’s give ‘em the room.”
Once they were alone, John sat in a chair at his father’s side. “You feel okay, Pop?”
His father reached over and laid his broad, workman’s hand on John’s leg. “You’re a good man, John. You’re a good son. Of all my children, you’re the only one who’s never disappointed me.”
“Pop…”
“Be quiet and let me talk. It ain’t so easy for me these days.”
John shut up and laid his hand over his father’s.
“Even when you were little, you were the one staying around to help your mother clear the table or bring the washing in. Your brothers, I always had to yell, but you were there, helping her because she needed it. You take care of your family.”
“We all do, Pop.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m proud of you all. Teresa and me, we made a great family. But I’m saying that you see what people need and you do it. You see it right off. That’s your mother in you. She was patient. She paid attention. She never thought of herself first. You’re gonna be a good husband. I’m not gonna get to see it, but you’re gonna be a good father someday, too.”
In all John’s life, his father had never before indicated that John’s way of being was anything more than simply expected. He was ‘the good son,’ and he’d usually felt taken for granted. The kid who didn’t get much attention because he didn’t demand it. He knew his father loved him, but he’d never before seen that he’d been appreciated. Now he saw it, but it came with the shadow of Pop’s looming death.
John’s hand clenched over his father’s. “Jesus, Pop, please.”
Pop reached over with his other hand and patted John’s shoulder. “It’s the truth, son. Let’s face it like men. I’ll be dead by summer. I’m slowing down like an unwound clock. But I don’t want to talk about that. I need you to do something for me. You’re the one I trust to do it right.”
John nodded. “You don’t have to worry about Adele, Pop. We’ll all take care of her.” The siblings had already talked about it. Adele and Pop had been married for several years, she’d been their next-door neighbor for most of their lives, and she had no children of her own. She had no other family but them, and she’d be their stepmother even after Pop was gone.
“I know, and I’m glad. But I want you to see to Joey. That boy is lost, and Adele’ll just coddle him and make him more lost. He needs to build his life.”
Joey had moved in with Pop and Adele in the summer. Except for keeping his job in the company, he had regressed almost completely to adolescence. He was thirty-five years old.
Pop went on. “Joe’s worst problem isn’t trouble with words or breath. His worst problem is his will. He lost his will. He just gave up. All we do is fight, so I can’t make headway with him, and I’m almost out of time. I need you to do it.”
John believed that to be true. For a few years, Joey had been doing okay—his speech had improved, and he was almost totally off the oxygen; he’d had his own apartment, and he was doing well at work. And then, a few years back, he’d slowly started to give up. He’d stopped therapy, and he’d lost ground with his aphasia. He’d gained weight and needed oxygen more often. And finally, he’d given up his apartment.
His answer, when asked, was always, ‘No point,’ and a refusal to continue a discussion on the matter.
“I don’t know what I can do, Pop.”
“You’ll figure it out. But I need it to be you.”
“Okay. I will.”
Pop smiled and made to stand. John jumped up and helped him, then found himself nearly tackled into arms that weren’t half as strong as they’d once been.
“I love you, Pop. I won’t let you down.”
“I know it. You do me proud.”
~oOo~
The church looked like it always did during Advent, with natural pine boughs and ropes and white and silver bows and bells. Understated but lovely and still festive. John had not been involved at all in the wedding planning, but as he stood at the altar in his blue three-piece suit and white shirt and tie, with Joey at his side, he felt some pride in the look of everything.
Elisa and Lia were both flower girls, in fluffy, white and silver gowns, because Lia had wanted to wear a pretty dress, too. They walked down the aisle with Teddy, Rosa and Eli’s oldest, between them.
Rosa herself wasn’t there; she’d given birth to a healthy baby girl, Rita, the week before. Eli had brought Teddy on his own.
Bev came down the aisle behind the children, looking gorgeous in a blue dress that made her eyes seem to beam out into the sanctuary. John found Nick in the pews and smiled. Don Pagano had ice for blood, but Nick Pagano’s love for his wife was naked heat.
Though they were all Paganos and related by blood, it was Bev who’d made Nick part of the family. John thought it was Bev and their children who kept Nick human at all.
He didn’t want Trey to follow Nick’s path, but he hadn’t figured out what to do with the information Nick had given him that night. He wanted to tell Carlo, but sharing a confidence of Nick’s was a tricky thing. There was a reason Nick hadn’t told Carlo himself. John wasn’t sure he understood completely, and now he wasn’t sure what to do next. But he would keep an eye on Trey and make sure that his nephew knew he could talk to him. For now, he was pressing Carlo as much as he could to let up and let Trey work with Pagano & Sons next summer. Better Pagano & Sons than the Pagano Brothers.
A couple of months had passed since that shitty night in Boston. John sometimes still woke in the middle of the night, his head filled with the sights and smells of that room. Katrynn didn’t think he needed to carry guilt for Calhoun’s death, but he disagreed.
There was a strange comfort in the guilt, though. He didn’t want to be the kind of man who could be party to something like that and not feel it.
He didn’t believe that Calhoun deserved what he’d gotten, but even so, he couldn’t say he hadn’t felt a bit of dark pleasure in the reaction to his death. It hadn’t made big news, but the attention he had gotten had been critical. It turned out that Calhoun had made a lot of enemies, and those enemies danced on the man’s grave.
The music changed, and the guests stood, and John threw thoughts of Calhoun out of his mind and watched the end of the aisle, where Katrynn stood, in a stunning dress, her arm hooked around her father’s. Crazy Bill cleaned up pretty well.
Joey elbowed him, and John turned and found his little brother crying. Not tears of happiness, either. He was freaking out.
“Dude, what’s wrong?” he muttered, turning back to watch Katrynn come down the long aisle. He didn’t want to miss his bride walking toward him.
“I can’t…c-can’t…” Joey gasped—and then stepped away from the altar and went to the pews.
“Joe!” John hissed, shocked. He saw Katrynn lose a step as Joey bolted. Their wedding party was small, only a best man and a matron of honor. Katrynn hadn’t wanted more. Now John had no one standing up for him. “Goddammit!”
At his side, Father Mike cleared his throat pointedly.
At the front pew, Carlo and Luca were standing, talking in quick, hushed tones with Joey. Then Carlo nodded, took something—Katrynn’s wedding ring, John guessed—from their little brother, and stepped out of the pew, genuflecting quickly a few feet ahead of Katrynn and her father, who had stopped in confusion. John met his bride’s eyes and saw her panic. He mouthed an apology to her, and she returned a brave smile.
Carlo trotted up to the altar, half-genuflecting again before he came up the steps. He showed John that he had the ring. “I’ll have to do, bro.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him.”
Father Mike didn’t protest against that language. He was a Jesuit.
“Shake it off,” Carlo advised quietly. “Focus on her.”
Carlo was right. This was their wedding, and he would not have it ruined. He smiled and held out his hand, and Katrynn and her father finished their walk.
John was going to beat Joey to a pulp. Not today, but soon.
~oOo~
Katrynn gaped at Adele’s retreating, sequined back and then down at the white satin pouch John’s stepmother had given her.
“You have got to be shitting me,” she grumbled. “Absolutely not.”
John grinned and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. She was done up in a sleek, pretty bun thing, and instead of a veil, she was wearing a diamond, or fake diamond, headband. The pendant he’d given her for her birthday lay at the base of her throat. She was absolutely gorgeous, and he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He wasn’t keen on what was going to happen next, either. All those old Italian hands on her.
“It’s a thing, baby. Carmen didn’t do it, and you would not believe the scandal. People were really offended. Like Carm thought she was too good for it.”
She pointed to the gift table, which was groaning under a mountain of shiny packages. “But everybody brought a gift. That’s not enough? We need more?”
“It’s not about need. Nick and Bev did it, too. Don’t you remember? It’s about tradition. You don’t have to, but people will talk.”
“A
money
dance. I’m supposed to dance with all these men while they stuff money in here.” She flicked at the satin purse. “Should I take my clothes off, too?”
“Okay.” He took the purse from her hands and set it on the table. “No money dance.”
She sighed unhappily and looked around the room. They’d booked one of the beachfront hotels for their reception, and for the wedding night. The ballroom sparkled with blue glass balls, silver snowflakes, and glittery trees. “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it.”