Page 173 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

“You got it?” he asks.

“I got it,” I say, and I do.

It tilts a teeny bit, which means it’s alive.

Mama says, “Beautiful,” in her river voice, the one she uses for babies at the hospital and for me when I am a baby again at night when I had a bad dream about a crab in a hat.

We go outside to give Mrs. Ortega next door a loaf with a bow.

The snow is like shaker sugar on everything.

Daddy holds my mitten and my mitten holds his hand and we are a train with two cars.

Bayard Street has paper stars in deli windows and a tiny plastic baby sleeping in straw in front of the church.

One wise man is missing.

I think he went to get cocoa.

I tell Mama this and she says, “Probably,” because she agrees with true things.

Back inside is warm.

The window fogs like a dragon.

There is a problem with the lights because there is always a problem with the lights.

Daddy says a not-for-me word in Italian and then says sorry to the tree.

Uncle Tino pokes the plug.

The lights gowhoomplike applause.

Rafe claps for real.

I clap too because I believe in celebrating electric victories.

We eat long noodles and little fishes and bread that makes crumbs like snow.

Mama sits and smiles and does not jump up to help because we make her sit because she does everything other days.

She lets me steal an olive from her plate and pretends she did not see me.

I am a very sneaky olive robber.

“Word of the day,” Daddy announces, because he works with boxes and forklifts and words now, and words are prizes. “Fulfillment.”

“It means when the boxes get to the people,” I say. I am expert. “And when my tummy gets spaghetti.”

“Smart,” he says.

His eyes do that happy wrinkle like paper fans.

“Also what Daddy feels when the tree doesn’t fall,” Mama says, and everyone laughs like a song.

After dinner we have an important ceremony calledPajamas On Before Chocolate.

I put on the ones with tiny deer and the butt flap that is not real.