Top Dog

“Julia, I want to tell you a story.”

“Okay.”

“Many, many years ago, there was a young girl that lived in a small village just in Sicily. She was the only girl of nine children, and her family worked her to the bone. In the kitchen. Out with the cows. Working the pastures and the farmland she lived on. She was hardly educated, could barely read, and had no prospects of going anywhere,” she said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“One day, some people came into town Knocking on doors and asking for places to stay. Some of the people asking had guns on their hips and others were wearing wonderful suits made of silky fabrics this young village girl had never laid her eyes on before. She watched her father open his front door to one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. And her mother tasked her with taking care of this man and whatever he needed until he left.”

“Just anything he needed?” I asked.

“Oh yes. Food. Blankets. An ear to listen. Drinks. Anything he could possibly want. She was to wash his clothes in nothing but some soft soap and cold water in a basin before hanging them out to dry. She was to change his sheets on her bed while she slept on the couch. She gave up everything to make sure this man was comfortable, and he stayed for a very long time.”

“How long? Who were they?” I asked.

“Almost a month. Though the girl didn’t know until his third week that everyone else had left.”

“What do you mean?”

“All of the people in the village had done their duty to take care of these men and shipped them back off. But he stayed at this girl’s house twice as long as he should have.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he fell in love with her. Why else?”

“What happened to them?” I asked. “Did you know them?”

“Very well. The man sat her down and had a long talk with her about how a life in America could lead her from the life of servitude she was living. It appalled her to even think about leaving her family, much less the insinuation that she was serving her family instead of living among them. But she was entranced by him. He spoke of houses four times bigger than the one she was living in and food sprawled out on a table that she didn’t have to cook. Amounts of money she could never dream of and days where she could sleep until noon if she wanted.”

“What did the girl say?” I asked.

“She thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. He went to her father and asked for her hand, and her father was more than happy to get rid of her. In that girl’s village, it was hard having a daughter. The father had to oversee marrying her off and making sure she didn’t shame the family. And if the daughter couldn’t produce children, it was in the man’s right to give her back. With a daughter, a father was stuck with the possibility that he would take care of her forever. But when that man approached her father and talked about taking her away to America, he jumped at the chance.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“That girl was me, Julia.”

I dropped my fork, and it clattered against my tray.

“What?” I asked flatly.

“That was me. And that man was Romeo’s father. He took me away from my village and my family, and part of me hated him for it. And when I figured out the kind of work he was involved in, I grew scared of him. I was a small Sicilian girl, no older than nineteen, living with a man who was almost thirty. And despite his kindness, I despised him. But do you know what he did for me?”

“What?” I asked.

“He gave me space and time to process. And when I was ready to accept the life that my father had chosen for me, he was there. He taught me how to read and bought me an entire library of books. He never pressured me into having children. He told me that whenever I was ready, he would be there. We courted. We dated. And despite his lifestyle, I fell in love with him. Despite the business and despite how he first came into my life and despite the anger I felt toward my father for shoving me off onto another man, I fell in love with him. Despite our completely different worlds, he fell in love with me, too.”

I felt tears brewing in my eyes as my gaze fell to my lap.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked breathlessly.

But I knew.

I knew why she was telling me.

“I’m telling you because I understand. And I want you to know I understand. I wanted no part of the lifestyle my husband led, but I did love him despite it. I loved him too much not to marry him when he asked me for my hand. He gave me so much, but I also gave in return. I gave him my heart and my support. I gave him my late nights when I needed to help him clean up after a job. Not because I approved of what he did, but because I loved him more than anything else on this planet. He was my life, Julia. Not the mafia. And the two can be separated.”

I lifted my finger and wiped away my tears.