Deano is doing that Deano thing where he presses his snout into Papa’s lap to demand attention. Papa flew home within a week of Jake Plummer getting word to him that his old nemesis from Orsomarso was no longer a concern. The dog abandons my father without so much as a glance back when Brittany settles onto the corner of his doggy bed. He may have lost a step since his Mafia encounter, but he’s on his back in tummy-rub position within seconds. Deano remembers who nursed him back to health. Given the price of his treatment and rehab, I suspect that his vet and her family found lots and lots of goodies under the Christmas tree yesterday. BMWs. Mercedes-Benzes. Diamonds. That sort of thing. Deano’s worth it. Right?
My eyes shift from Deano to Brittany. I’m relieved that she seems to have come through her ordeal in reasonably good shape. She catches me looking, gives me a teasing smile, and rubs her shirt sleeve just about where a couple of buckshot pellets nicked her when the shotgun discharged during the collision with Joe.
“I wonder if anyone would care to make me a cup of hot chocolate?” she wonders aloud. When nobody leaps at the opportunity, she turns her big drama-class eyes on me. “Not even the father who shot me? I might forgive him if he made me some nice hot chocolate.”
As I laugh and get up, she says to the room at large, “My therapist thinks I may eventually get past the trauma of attempted filicide if Dad makes me at least one cup of hot chocolate every day.”
“I had to look filicide up, too,” I say when I notice some blank looks. “Think infanticide for kids and teenagers. Think mercy killing for parents.”
My thoughts stay on Brittany after I put the kettle on to boil. To my immense relief, she’s rebuffed Michelle’s attempts to convince her that she would be better off living in Europe with her mother. Brittany refuses to even visit unless her mother withdraws her legal effort to win custody. While I stand in the kitchen doorway watching, I notice her drifting away with a pained longing on her face that suggests her thoughts have turned to Bobby. She’s pretty much quit mentioning him over the last week or two, but I sense that the loss remains acute and that my daughter is in more emotional pain than she lets on. At least she’s not consumed by guilt, which was a distinct possibility given that the kidnapping was related to our family and that she survived while Bobby did not. The idea that she is in any way responsible for what befell Bobby is ridiculous, of course, but the unfathomable twists and turns that guilt and grief follow are often beyond understanding.
Papa, for instance, was utterly devastated and inconsolable after the death of his newfound friend, Ed Stankowski. My father blamed himself for Ed’s murder and yet, since his return from Italy, he hasn’t seemed to have given his deceased friend a thought. I hope that’s not the case, but sometimes I wonder. Papa is a bit of an enigma to me these days, distant and preoccupied. I’ve seen glimpses this melancholy in him ever since the dramas he went through last year, which left him shaken and scarred. Now that he’s finally free of the specter of retribution for his long-ago crime in Italy, I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s on the verge of decamping to Italy permanently to make up for lost time with his sister and her family. It will do him good to escape the Liberty Street memories that haunt him: the murder, Mama’s death, and the trauma we’ve been through over the past few months.
The doorbell rings, attracting a lazy sideways glance from our watchdog, who promptly nudges Brittany, gives her hand a quick little lick, and sighs in contentment when his tummy rub resumes.
I find Jake Plummer and Max Maxwell on the doorstep. Max holds the screen door open wide while Jake maneuvers a walker over the threshold and shuffles inside. He’s dressed in shiny maroon sweatpants, a matching zip-up hoodie, and a pair of unlaced black sneakers. Nothing difficult to get on and off. There’s even a little stubble on his chin.
“Is that a nascent goatee or a shaving oversight?” I ask while touching a fingertip to the whiskers.
“One or the other,” he replies irritably.
We exchange a handshake and hello before Max pushes inside, flicks a thumb toward the walker, rolls his eyes, and mutters, “Big fuckin’ production for a flesh wound, ain’t it?”
“Fuck you, Max,” Jake answers softly, then lowers his voice barely above a whisper to add, “and watch your fucking language, will you? There’s ladies and a teenager present.”
We all chuckle, and then Max and I follow Jake into the kitchen. Jake suffered considerably more than a flesh wound during the shootout at the farmhouse the night we rescued Brittany. His survival had been touch and go for several hours after he’d caught a couple of slugs. Fortunately, the bullets had missed vital organs and arteries when they tore into him, but Jake is facing a long, painful stretch in rehab and is being pensioned off his detective job with the Cedar Heights PD. Unlike my daughter, who did suffer a flesh wound, Jake doesn’t demand a beverage, so I pour him a nice glass of his favorite Glenfiddich 21-Year-Old Scotch without making him play the guilt card to be served. Brittany slides a plate of Joan Brooks’s terrific chocolate chip cookies under his nose and plants a kiss on his cheek.
“How are you doing?” I ask after setting his drink in front of him at the kitchen table.
“Can’t complain,” he replies.
I
