Chapter 10 - The Long Table
The Sunday dinner was set for four in the afternoon.
The table in the great hall had been stripped of its dark velvet runners and its formal silver. In their place were bright linen mats, three large ceramic bowls filled with Gianni’s pasta fagioli, and two platters of roast chicken with rosemary that filled the entire ground floor with the scent of garlic and lemon.
There were fourteen people at the table.
Paulie sat at the far end, his sports coat hung over the back of his chair, showing a colorful short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt that Emma had picked out for him at the department store. Gianni was at the center, waving a wooden spoon as he argued with the local grocer about the price of San Marzano tomatoes.
Rachel sat to the right of the head of the table.
Her face was bright, the shadow of fear that had lived in her eyes for seven years completely burned away by six months of safety, of quiet mornings, of sleeping in a bed where no one broke the door down.
And at the head of the table sat Vincent Caruso.
He wore an open-collar shirt of pale blue linen. His hair was silver, his hands were still scarred, but the fine tremor that had haunted his fingers for thirty years was gone.
Emma sat to his left.
She had her jumbo box of ninety-six Crayolas spread out across three napkins, despite Gianni’s constant warnings about sauce splatters.
She was working on a drawing.
It was a picture of a house—a big house made of grey stones, with a garden full of red tomatoes, and four people standing in the front yard.
One was tall and grey, with a big watch.
One had yellow hair and a skirt.
One had pink socks.
And above them, filling the top third of the paper with sweeping, joyful strokes of wax, was the sky.
Vincent leaned over, his spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose.
"What color is that?" he asked, pointing his fork at the paper.
Emma looked up, her face smeared with a tiny smudge of tomato paste at the corner of her lips.
She grinned—wide, bright, and completely unafraid of the Don, the house, or the world outside the iron gates.
"Periwinkle," she said proudly. "I told you. It makes sure it never rains."
Vincent Caruso looked around the table.
He looked at Paulie laughing into his napkin; he looked at Gianni pouring another glass of Chianti for the grocer; he looked at Rachel, who met his gaze and smiled with a quiet, certain warmth that reached into the darkest corners of his ancient heart.
May you like
Then he reached out, picked up the bread basket, and broke the crust with his bare hands.
"Eat," the boss said, his voice soft, steady, and full of life. "Before it gets cold."
