My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 09
One year later, Anna’s House reopened on the same old Brooklyn street where my mother had spent most of her career.
It was a small legal-aid center.
The first floor offered free family counseling and emergency legal assistance. Upstairs, we kept the old oak desk my mother had used for years.
Her blue leather notebook sat in a glass display case.
The thread on the cover had been replaced.
I had restitched it myself, following my mother’s original needle holes one by one.
On opening day, people from the neighborhood brought flowers.
The Italian baker down the street made a fresh batch of the lemon cookies my mother used to love.
Ezra came through the door carrying two hot coffees.
“Someone’s waiting outside for you again.”
I looked up.
Dante stood across the street.
He didn’t come in.
Over the past year, he had sold the rest of his shares and compensated every victim.
Every month, another payment arrived in the emergency medical-assistance account.
No name.
No message.
Sometimes he came and stood outside the center for a while.
I never invited him in.
Rain started falling that evening.
One by one, the staff went home.
Eventually, Dante crossed the street and stopped beneath the awning.
He had no umbrella. One shoulder of his coat was soaked dark with rain.
“Can I say something?”
“Go ahead.”
“Today is Anna’s birthday.”
He held out a brown paper bag.
Inside was a box of lemon madeleines, my mother’s favorite.
When she worked late mediating cases, she used to buy two on her way home.
One for me.
One for the next morning.
“I don’t have the right to visit her grave.”
Dante looked toward the glass case where her blue notebook was displayed.
“Would you put one beside her picture for me?”
“No.”
He lowered his head.
“Okay.”
This time, he didn’t ask why.
I switched off the lights on the first floor.
Dante was still standing outside.
“Selene.”
“What?”
“If I had answered that call—”
“There are no what-ifs.”
“I know.”
The rain nearly swallowed his voice.
“I just… think about it every day.”
I pulled the metal security gate halfway down.
Then he reached inside his coat and took out two yellowed appointment slips.
The unused slips from the City Hall appointment we had never made it to.
They had been folded and unfolded so many times that the corners had gone soft.
“Take these.”
“They’re not mine.”
“Your name is on them.”
I glanced at the paper.
“Then tear it off.”
Dante’s hands stayed still for a long time.
Finally, he followed the fold down the middle and slowly tore both appointment slips in half.
He did it carefully, as if he were handling something priceless.
But torn paper is still torn.
No matter how neatly you do it, it never becomes whole again.
I pulled the security gate lower.
Only a thin gap remained when Dante spoke again.
“Selene. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
It was the first time I had ever acknowledged his apology.
It was also the last.
The gate came all the way down.
I carried the box of lemon madeleines to my mother’s photograph and poured a glass of warm water beside it.
In the picture, she was still wearing that faded blue blouse.
Her smile was quiet and gentle.
I opened the blue leather notebook and wrote the date on the last page.
Outside, the rain gradually softened.
Somewhere down the block, a mother called her children home for dinner. Next door, the Italian restaurant lifted the lid from a stockpot, and warm steam drifted through the crack beneath the door.
Under the amber light of the display case, my mother’s old notebook glowed softly.
Every word she had written was still there.
As for the marriage that had never happened—
there was no reason to preserve any part of it.
I closed the notebook and locked the case.
By the time I looked toward the door again, the man outside was gone.
Only two scraps of paper remained on the steps, soaked soft by the rain.
The names printed on them had bled into the paper.
They could no longer be read.
—THE END—