Page 162 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
Down the hall someone startsHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,soft and too high, and for once, the song does not feel like a lie.Make the yuletide gay, the old words say.
Make it gay, make it boring, make it ours.
I touch the back of Elisa’s head and then I put my forehead to hers.
“Thank you,” I say, like an idiot saying grace at his first honest table.
“For what?” she asks, already drifting and stubbornly awake.
“For all of it.” I let my hand fall to the baby’s back where it rises like a tiny tide. “For this. For staying. For making me learn the names of linens and pediatricians and the sound of a safe door.”
She closes her eyes and opens them again.
“You’re welcome,” she says. “Now go tell the nurse I want the good ice chips. The pellet ones.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say. “Anything for the queen.”
I step into the hall and find Rizzo leaning like she’s guarding the door with sarcasm.
“Want me to be mean to the vending machine?” she asks.
“Be mean to the world if it tries the knob,” I say.
She bumps my shoulder with hers.
“Merry Christmas, Riccari.”
“Merry Christmas, Rizzo.”
When I come back, they’re both asleep.
The baby’s mouth is open like she’s telling secrets in a dream.
Elisa’s hand is on her back, light and sure.
The window is a square of white noise.
The paper wreath casts a dumb, perfect shadow.
I sit and keep watch.
That’s my whole job.
The city can do whatever it does.
It can argue with bells and bargains and weather.
In this room, there are three heartbeats and one man who swore on his blood and meant it.
Outside, somewhere, a star nobody believes in still does its stupid, beautiful work over a street that doesn’t look up.
I do.
Then I look down and promise the only thing I know how to keep.
“Welcome home, Luce,” I whisper.
She does not answer.
