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  “I gotta go.”

  “Frankie, wait. I need to ask you something.”

  “Gotta go, Sierra,” he said, and snapped his cell phone shut.

  I stood there in Ma’s sunny kitchen, listening to Perry Como sing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire and worrying about a biker, a cop, and a used-car salesman’s son. In the living room, Al and Joey struggled to put the tree in its stand, swearing when it didn’t stand up straight and blaming each other for the problems of the world and other assorted issues. This was not Christmas as I had ever known it.

  I stepped to the edge of the dining room door and peered into the living room.

  “Youse guys,” I said to my brothers. “It’s almost lunchtime. Pa and Francis will be home with Ma anytime now. How about you knock it off with the language and start cooperating?”

  The front door opened at that moment and Francis stepped inside, his face taut and gray with tension. Behind him I could hear Pa, his voice as soft as a whisper, coaxing.

  “Baby, let me carry you,” he was saying.

  And we all heard Ma’s breathless answer. “No. What do you want Mrs. Dominichi to think, eh? I can do it.”

  But she couldn’t. They paused for minutes on each step and not one of us moved. Francis wouldn’t look backward. He couldn’t and Ma wouldn’t have wanted him to. This homecoming had to be done her way. Ma was trying to act as if everything was normal and we were to go along with it or die trying. I knew what she was doing. She was sealing off the hurt and the vulnerability, and we were to do it too. That’s the Lavotini way. You take it on the chin. You shake it off. And you don’t mention it again. It’s the code.

  When Ma finally stepped through the door, she looked around at us all, taking in the undecorated tree, sniffing the smells from her kitchen, and noticing the stricken looks we all were trying desperately to replace with frozen, wooden smiles.

  “Al,” Ma cried, “what’s the matter with you? What are you doing letting your poor brother do all the work by himself? Look at that tree. Is that what you call a tree? It’s crooked.”

  Al stepped forward to take Ma’s arm, guiding her toward the steps up to her bedroom.

  “No, you don’t!” she said, swiping at his head with her good arm.

  Pa intervened. “Let us help you up the stairs, Evie,” he coaxed.

  Ma turned on him. “What? I’m not going to bed. I’m going to sit right down here on this sofa and make sure these knuckleheads get it done right.”

  “Sierra!”

  I jumped. Ma was in commando mode and there was no fighting it.

  “Yeah, Ma?”

  “You get the eel for the sauce?”

  “Yeah, Ma. Sure.”

  Ma nodded. “All right, then. Is it on?”

  I was aware of answering her, but I was also aware that in our tiny row house, time was standing still. We were all frozen with the desire to do it right, to help Ma pull off the grand charade, but at the same time, our hearts were in our throats and our souls were aching with the desire to make this horrible reality go away. Our Ma was invincible, wasn’t she?

  “I got minestrone. I got sauce. I got the cassata working.”

  Ma smiled softly, but she couldn’t hide a wince as Pa gently guided her to the sofa and lifted her legs up onto the cushions.

  “Sierra, bring me a glass of your Pa’s Chianti,” she whispered. From one corner of her eye, she tracked Al moving toward the door, trying to escape either from his emotions or his job. It didn’t matter to Ma.

  “Oh no, you don’t, buster,” Ma said, her voice still a husky whisper. “You and Joey start with them red balls, and be careful you don’t break them. They was handed down from your grandmother to me. One day your children, should the good Lord bless you with a woman patient enough, will have these ornaments. You drop one of them and you’re cutting into your legacy.”

  Pa was standing by Ma’s side, almost wringing his hands. Ma looked up at him and frowned. “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “Evie, I …”

  “So you would break with tradition too?” she asked.

  Pa didn’t know what to say. Every Christmas Eve, Pa went down to the firehouse to cook supper for the single men who volunteered to work while the married men took off to be with their families. Sometimes Ma joined him, but more often than not she stayed home, cooking for the hordes of relatives and friends that would stop by on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

  “I am fine, sweetie,” Ma said. “Now leave me be to get these children on the right road.” Ma looked around at all of us and sighed, but it was a pleased sigh. “I guess you people would fall apart without me,” she said.

  I turned my back and headed for the kitchen, my throat tight and my eyes burning. “Yeah, Ma,” I whispered to myself, “we would all be lost without you.”

  Nineteen

  On Christmas morning I woke up in my old twin bed upstairs in my old bedroom, the room that Ma kept like a shrine to me, unchanged from the day I moved to Upper Darby with my girlfriends. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my eyes wandering from there to the cabbage-rose wallpaper and the gold-and-white mirror that hung over my dressing table. I strained to hear any sounds from the street, but I heard nothing.

  I rolled over and reached to pull the curtain away from my window. A thin coverlet of snow blanketed Mrs. Mattagoni’s slate rooftop. I rolled back, leaving the curtain open so I could watch the light breath of snow continuing to fall. My hand brushed the bedside table, knocking into the tiny package John Nailor had given me.

  I picked it up and pushed up onto one elbow. I could open it now, here, up in my room alone. I could open it in private and not have to answer my brothers’ questions or see the hope in Ma’s eyes. Still, I made it last, picking at the tape that sealed the ends of the tiny box. What had he done? And where was he right at this moment?

  The paper and bow fell away, gold and white giving way to a small gray jeweler’s box. Too large to be a ring, too small to be a bracelet.

  I pried the lid up, feeling the hinge give and snap as it popped open. Inside was a smooth silver locket on a thin silver chain.

  I picked it up and slid my thumbnail between the edges and gently slid it open. John had taken a picture of Fluffy and slipped it into the left side. On the right side he had carefully written the words I LOVE YOU, SIERRA.

  I sat there in bed, holding the locket, for one moment letting myself feel it. I loved him too. Deep down inside of me, I suddenly knew it. While I was wrapped up in my fears and doubts, I knew, undeniably, that I loved him.

  I reached over, picked up the pink princess phone, and punched in his number without pausing to think that I could be waking him. I wanted him to know that I knew now how I felt. I was sure.

  “Merry Christmas,” a soft female voice answered. “I woke up and you were gone,” she said.

  I froze, hanging on to the receiver. Wrong number, I thought, and started to hang up. But then I realized it was Carla Terrance’s voice. There’s just something about your boyfriend’s ex-wife you don’t forget.

  “Hey, Carla,” I said. “Merry Christmas. Is John around?”

  Of course, on the other hand, leave it to an ex-wife not to forget the sound of her ex-husband’s new girlfriend. “No,” she purred, sounding just like a sex kitten sitting in a milk bath. “I don’t know where he is. Maybe he went out to find breakfast for the two of us.”

  I didn’t react. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I wouldn’t ask why she was there or scream or give her anything but Sierra Lavotini, secure and content.

  “Well, good. I’m glad things are going well.” Yeah, that’s it, I thought. Make her think you knew she was there.

  “Are you really?” Carla asked, begging for it in my opinion.

  “Yep. I know he wouldn’t want you to be alone on Christmas. I’m just sorry I’m not there to join you. But I’ll be back tomorrow, so don’t worry.”

  It was weak, a lame attempt to sound l
ike I had the plan and the key to John Nailor’s heart, but what in the hell was she doing there?

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Carla said, her voice getting huskier by the syllable. “By tomorrow he may have moved on. In fact, I do believe he said something about needing to call you.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Call me?” I echoed.

  “Yes. He’s not going to be able to pick you up tomorrow. He has plans.”

  The way she said “plans” made me envision her naked, stretched out in bed and beckoning for him to come to her. Suddenly the Lavotini temper took over and I found myself snapping.

  “Just have him call me when he gets in, all right?” I said, and slammed the phone back onto the receiver.

  There had to be a better explanation than the obvious. I punched in the number to my answering service and waited. Certainly he’d foreseen this, known I’d call him on Christmas Day. He was just caught up in a case, that’s all. And as for Carla being there, well, it was Christmas, after all. She was stuck in Panama City, miles away from her South Florida home. What else could the poor sweetie do but invite her in for Christmas?

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror, then over at Fluffy, who was staring at me with the same expression of disbelief.

  “Yeah, and I’m the queen of fucking England!” I snapped at my reflection.

  The monotone of the automated service reported only one call. “December twenty-fourth,” the female automaton said, “eight fortyeight P.M.” There was a click and then a voice began to speak, the same mysterious voice I had heard at the airport.

  “Don’t worry,” it said. “I know how to find you.”

  Twenty

  Pa insisted on driving me to the airport the day after Christmas. He wouldn’t let any of my brothers come with us. He always took me to the airport alone, and this year, although everything else seemed to have been tossed upside down, he didn’t vary this part of our tradition.

  When he pulled into the Montrose Diner, intent on pie and coffee, I almost balked. I wanted to tell him to take me straight to the airport just this one time. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t sure I could keep up the act I’d been playing for an Oscar ever since I heard Carla Terrance answer John’s phone, ever since I’d spent all day trying to call him back and hearing no answer and having no answering machine pick up. I wasn’t sure I could sit across the booth from Pa and not burst out crying, and neither one of us needed a mess like that.

  But I pulled it off anyway. I sat there with my thick white mug and my slab of pumpkin pie and smiled like the actress we all know me to be.

  “Sierra,” Pa said finally, “you can wipe that phony grin off your face any time now. It ain’t cutting it with me. Is it your Ma?”

  And suddenly the tears were right there, eating away at me. “Well, Pa, of course I’m worried,” I said, “but Ma’s gonna be fine. I just wish I weren’t so far away.” And so all alone.

  “Baby,” he said, covering my hand with his thick one, “I got your Ma taken care of. Don’t you be worrying. You came home, you set me straight, and we’re going on from here.”

  I smiled at him again.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s it. You got that same stupid smile going again. Is there anything else on your mind? I mean, obviously there must be.”

  I smiled more, like a fool I smiled. “Pa, I’m just not wanting to leave. I mean, usually I’m here another week, but this year there was so much going on and I didn’t know what was happening up here …”

  I was babbling, and Pa was watching me like a hawk and probably didn’t believe one-tenth of what I was saying. He took a long sip of his coffee and looked at me.

  “Sierra, I know when you’re lying to me. I respect your right to have your own life. But if I find out something’s bad wrong and you neglected to tell me about it, I’m coming down there.” He reached in his wallet and threw some money on top of the check. “You don’t want me coming down there and cleaning up a mess, do ya?” He stood up and waited to see what I was going to say.

  “Pa,” I lied, “there’s no mess to clean up and nothing to worry about. I’m just stressing a little, that’s all.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me. He let it go, but he didn’t believe me. We drove the rest of the way to the airport with me lecturing him on the care of Ma and him reassuring me that he had it covered. When we got to the curbside check-in I turned in my seat and looked at him.

  “Pa,” I said, “I’m breaking with tradition.” I looked at my watch. “Ma’s been alone at the house with just the boys there for an hour. How about you drop me off right here this time.” He started to object. “Really, Pa. You know how it is. They won’t let you come down to the gate without a lot of fuss and badge flashing. Go home. I’ll feel better about it, really I will.”

  I reached into the backseat and gathered Fluffy up into my arms, reluctant to crate her until I had to. Pa sighed, knowing this was a battle we didn’t need to have.

  “All right, sweetheart.” He got out of the Lincoln and walked around to the trunk, pulled out my bag and Fluffy’s crate, and set them down on the curb beside the car.

  “I love you, honey,” he said, hugging me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. Fluffy squirmed and yipped, forcing him to pull away before I lost it completely.

  “I love you too, Pa.” I stood watching as he slowly turned and walked back to the driver’s side of the car. The past few days had aged Pa. For the first time I could see the vulnerable side of him, the side that would one day become an old man who needed me, the part of Pa that no one had ever seen before.

  Neither one of us paid much attention to the limousine that pulled up and stopped just behind the Lincoln. I wouldn’t have noticed it when Pa drove off had it not pulled immediately into the space where Pa’s car had just been. I would’ve turned and walked away if the back door of the car hadn’t flown open, blocking my path for a moment.

  A suit, well-built with a bulge under his shoulder that meant gun, stood just in front of me. Before I could turn and walk around him, another suit emerged from the car, blocking me between the two of them. This was still not a problem, but the gun the second guy stuck between my ribs was. He did it in such a way that no one walking by would notice. He stood so casually that I almost figured I’d been mistaken, but then the first suit smiled and looked at me directly.

  “Ms. Lavotini,” he said, motioning me toward the backseat of the limo, “with Mr. Lavotini’s compliments. He’d appreciate a brief moment of your time.”

  I froze. The only Mr. Lavotini I knew had just driven off in a powder-blue Lincoln Town Car. The only other Mr. Lavotini who would appear in a limousine looking for me was my alleged “uncle,” Big Moose Lavotini of the Cape May, New Jersey, syndicate Lavotinis. In other words, I was up shit’s creek.

  I looked into the dark interior of the snow-white limo. It was all done in deep burgundy leather, with just enough red in the color to let you know it had been personally created for its owner. The leather you see on the showroom floor is always a deep wine color. This red was different. It looked like a booth in La Trattoria or any other Italian bistro in South Philly.

  If the button-tufted leather wasn’t enough to set it apart, the glasses sitting in the burled-wood rack that rimmed the custommade bar were. I was sure I was staring at Waterford crystal.

  I felt a little shove from the snub-nosed revolver that rested uncomfortably in my back and knew the moment of reckoning had arrived. After all, even in a town as small as Panama City, you cannot blindly invoke the name of a major mobster without expecting to one day deal with the ramifications of such blatant namedropping. It was one thing to tell Vincent Gambuzzo that I was connected to “Big Moose.” It was another to use his name to stem a bloodbath involving another northern mob family. I’d done that a mere two months ago, damn the consequences, and now it was time to pay the piper.

  I bent, ducking to enter the back of the limo. I stepped awkwardly into the car and sat down on
the seat directly behind the driver, facing the wide backseat. I stared at the man across from me and knew there had been a mistake. There was no way on earth that this man was “Big Moose” Lavotini. No way could this man have two adult sons and a reputation as one of the most heinous syndicate heads on the East Coast. There was no way. Was there?

  The man leaned back in his seat and stared at me with dark, almost black eyes that seemed to bore right through me. As I watched, he turned away, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. He stubbed out his cigarette with a well-manicured hand and turned his attention back to me. He was tanned, the kind of tan you get when you have a winter home in South Florida. And he was tall. Even in the spacious limousine, he seemed folded up and cramped. If I had to guess, he was about six-foot-five. I studied him, taking into account the way his expensive suit fit his muscular body, and guessed there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

  His hair was thick and very black, without so much as a trace of gray. And here he was supposed to be sixty. Mob life couldn’t be that good. He had a thick black mustache and a smile that, on anyone else, I would’ve found absolutely charismatic, except that this man allegedly killed people for a living. I stared at him, frozen. I guessed he was in his mid-thirties. Upon closer inspection, I figured he was perhaps the most dangerously attractive man I had ever seen. Something in the way he stared back at me communicated a warning, something that let you know that for all his sophistication and worldly manners, this guy would cut your heart out with a butter knife if you messed with him. I had no illusion that he would feel one shred of remorse at committing a crime like that, either.

  “Well,” he said, “you are more beautiful than the pictures they sent me.” His eyes traveled the length of my body slowly, savoring each inch.

  I shivered, but deep inside something stirred. Whatever that something was, it locked on like a homing device and began humming.

  “You have pictures?” I said. The attempt to be casual was blown by Fluffy who yipped when I pinched her against my side.