Page 40 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

She eats, and I watch the food put color back in her.

Color is not forgiveness.

It's life returning to a face that deserves it.

I take one bite because I don't want the kitchen to think I forgot them.

The marrow looks up at me, rich and quiet.

I leave it for her.

We talk about small things then because small things keep people from throwing plates.

Whether the church on Prince still rings the right bells.

Whether Sal’s old partner opened a sandwich shop in Queens or just talked about it.

Whether the feasts feel smaller now because the saints got lighter or the men carrying them did.

I tell her a story about the year the bakery hid three boys under flour sacks while two captains shook hands at the front table and pretended not to see the shoes.

I tell her how, before gentrification softened the corners, Christmas Eve was the night debts were settled for real.

Not on paper.

In kitchens with closed doors and too many fish.

The old men took accounts like priests take confession.

By midnight, allies were allies again and enemies went home on their feet or in cars that did not come back.

“You make it sound almost holy,” she says.

“It was only precise,” I say. “Precision looks like holiness when you stand next to chaos.”

She nods.

She eats another forkful of greens.

Her anger has shifted to something less sharp.

It will not leave tonight.

I would not respect it if it did. “Thank you for the food,” she says at last. “And the honesty you could spare.”

“If you never want to see me again, say it,” I answer. “I will not make games where there should be none.”

She looks at me for a long time.

The line of her mouth says she is tired of being reasonable and yet will continue doing it because that is who she is.

“I don't know yet,” she says. “I came because I wanted you to see my face when I told you what it felt like. I will leave because I have to sleep before a shift, and I have stopped being twenty-two.”

“Then I will walk you to your car,” I say, already sliding from the booth because the night outside is not a gentleman.

We leave money that is too much and not enough.

Mario clears our plates with the speed of a man who was waiting to see if a glass would break and is glad it did not.