“I’m never touching a gun again for as long as I live.”
Ana stood. “And you can’t be a cop unless you’re packing nine millimeters of heat in your holster.”
Gina closed the other suitcase. Turning to face her younger sister, she straightened the police shield on her chest. There were going to be tears but not quite yet. Instead, she tapped a fingertip to her lower eyelid. “Hey, keep an eye on Mom. I don’t want her having a nervous breakdown over me leaving town.”
“For once, I’m gonna be the number one daughter in the family!” Ana said, giggling.
Gina flicked her fingers under her chin. “I’m ready to go, if you’re still taking me to the airport.”
“Which makes me the bad guy for sending you on your way, thousands of miles from home to where Mom can’t see you.”
“To where Mom can’t scold me and Dad can’t glare, you mean.”
“Did you say goodbye to him before he left for work this morning?” Ana asked.
“We had a scene in the driveway, if that’s what you mean.”
“You need to say goodbye to Mom. She’s in the kitchen waiting for a proper goodbye.”
“Where else would she be? I thought she was coming with to the airport?”
“She’s decided to make porchetta abruzzese for dinner. That’ll take her all day.”
Gina left her suitcases at the front door. “One last jab at me. Making something good for dinner on the day I leave town.”
“You’re the one leaving town on Christmas Eve. First time in your entire life you won’t be home for Christmas.” Ana chuckled. “Yeah, I think Mom is pretty pissed at you.”
Gina went through the house that three generations of Santoros had lived in to find her mother. It wouldn’t be the furniture or the pictures on the walls, but the scent of food being cooked that she would miss the most. When she saw her mother busy at the kitchen woodblock counter removing the bones from lamb, it was a timeless image that she wouldn’t see for a while. She wasn’t even sure of what to say, of how it would be least painful for both of them.
“Mamma, è ora che me ne vada.”
“Get the roasting pan from the cabinet,” her mother commanded.
Gina obeyed. “I need to go now. Ana’s taking me. You don’t want to come with?”
“To so far away? Who would feed your father?”
Gina traded an eye roll with her sister. “To the airport.”
Their mother slammed the meat cleaver into a bone to snap it in half. “I still don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn.”
“Gigi’s always been stubborn, Mamma,” Ana said. “All of Cleveland knows that.”
Their mother slammed the cleaver again, breaking another bone. “This is between me and Gina. You go find something else to do or you’re next on the chopping block.”
Once Ana was gone from the kitchen, Gina tried to smile at her mother. “Mamma, I need to do this. I have a new career now, and those people in Hawaii were nice enough to hire me. I don’t know why you and Dad can’t see that.”
“I don’t care about your career. Too many police in this family already. You won’t find a nice Italian boy in Hawaii, Gigi.”
“Yes, I know how the story goes. You were already married, barefoot, and pregnant with me years before the age I am now. Maybe in a few more years, I’ll meet someone and catch up. But does it have to be a boy from Little Italy?”
“You want a surfer boy instead? What’s wrong with that Joey from the next street?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want to marry an unemployed car washer. Anyway, he’s kinda needy.”
“All boys that age are.”
“Maybe I can find one in Hawaii that’s not so insecure?” Gina offered. She checked her watch when she heard Ana toot the horn.
“Do surfer boys go to Mass?”
“More to life than going to Mass, Mamma.”
Her mother spun on her heels, the meat cleaver clutched firmly in one hand. “For three years, I was always patient with you when you didn’t come to church. Never once did you attend Mass. Now you say such things?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way.” Gina heard her sister’s car horn honking more insistently. “Mamma, I gotta go.”
The cleaver was slammed into the woodblock and her mother turned around. After washing and drying her hands, she took Gina by the shoulders. “Go be stubborn. Get it out of your system. Then come home to your family where you belong.”
They hugged for a moment, until Ana started honking the horn more insistently.
“Keep an eye out for someone at church for me, Mamma,” Gina whispered in her mother’s ear before breaking free from their hug.
Chapter Two
The flights from Cleveland to Honolulu ended up being an endurance test for Gina. The only places she’d gone outside of Ohio in her life were road trips to Pittsburgh and Washington DC, and a flight to New York City for a long weekend with her mother at the end of high school. Here she was, though, walking through the Honolulu Airport late on Christmas Eve, pulling two suitcases behind her.
Gina stopped to remove her wool overcoat. She wished she could remove another layer in the 75-degree open-air airport, with the steady breeze blowing through. There was a light scent in the air, not of food, but of flowers and living green things. A colorful little bird flew overhead, catching her attention for a moment. Walking along an elevated walkway, she looked down to see a Japanese-style garden at ground level.
“Not in Ohio anymore.”
Already having her two suitcases, Gina could bypass baggage claim and went straight to the agreed meeting point at the arrivals curb. A slender Asian lady in her senior citizen years was waiting near a polished sedan. With no one else around that looked like they were waiting for her, Gina went to her.
“Hi. I’m Gina Santoro. Are you from the Tanazawa family?”
“Ta-ni-zawa, yes.” The woman dressed in shorts and
