Page 12 of The Honest Affair
“Bit early for that, isn’t it?” Frankie asked, glancing at my hidden breast pocket as they approached.
See, this was why I didn’t want to go home. My sister was a third-grade teacher at a school in Carroll Gardens—she spent half her days tracking down forbidden crap her students brought to class.
I shrugged as I gave Sofia a quick kiss. “I’m just getting off work, right? Call it my nightcap.” I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice. “Time doesn’t exist anymore anyway.”
“Well, if that’s the case, you won’t want your birthday present.”
“What?” Sofia looked between us, aghast. “Why wouldn’t Zio want his birthday gift?”
I glared at Frankie. “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”
She frowned, then turned to Sofia. “Sof, go throw rocks for a second, okay? Can you count ten and see how far they’ll go?”
“I can count twenty!” she shouted jubilantly, scampering to the small beach next to us. “Watch!”
“Kid’s got it made,” I remarked. “If we could all just be happy skipping rocks, maybe the world would be a better place.”
“Hmph.” Frankie frowned as she came to stand next to me. “Well, while you feel sorry for yourself, open that. Happy birthday, big brother.”
I looked down to find a small package pressed onto my lap. “What’s this?”
“Just something little. And unmedicated. Open it.”
Obediently, I pulled the ribbon off the small black box, then opened it to find a scarlet paisley tie folded neatly inside.
“It’s—” Something thick lodged in my throat as I saw a similar fabric tightly binding a pair of snow-white wrists to a headboard. “It’s nice, Frankie. Thank you.”
“You burned that other red tie, so I figured you could use a new one. Sofia helped me pick it out.”
I blinked, taken back to the day I’d arrived home from Boston, gone straight to the kitchen, and burned the red tie in my pocket. The one that had still singed for four hours from the remnants of passion and rage all at once.
“It’s great, Frankie. Thank you.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it. That’s real silk, you know.”
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I’m a little down, that’s all.”
“I’d say down is an understatement.” She sank to the cement block beside me, keeping one eye on Sofia. “Everyone’s worried about you. Nonna told me to drag you to Mass this weekend kicking and screaming if I had to. I told her I can only manage one toddler at a time.”
I shrugged, my hand moving automatically to the cross dangling over my shirt. I hadn’t been to confession in months. I hadn’t stepped foot in a church in just as long, and had been avoiding the calls from Nonna, Lea, and just about everyone else I was related to for more than eight weeks.
“This just isn’t where I expected to be at thirty-fuckin’-seven, you know?” I said. “A disgraced lawyer, bartending while I’m on unpaid administrative leave. And for what? A fuckin’ broad.”
Frankie snorted. “Okay, now I know you need to lay off the hard stuff. You keep talking like Sinatra, and I’m going to drag you over to AA.”
“No, no, no,” I said, but allowed her to reach into my jacket pocket and remove the flask. She was right. It only made me that much more pathetic.
“Have you heard from her?”
“Who?”
Frankie rolled her eyes. “Hilary Clinton. Who do you think? It is your birthday.”
“You think she’s going to, what, send me a card? Drop off some balloons?” I snorted. The idea of a princess like Nina de Vries strolling down our cracked sidewalk with a dozen multicolored balloons was laughable. “Nah, that’s all done with.”
Frankie glanced at the paper on my lap, then back at me. “It is?”
I scowled, crumpled the paper, and hurled it toward a garbage can a few feet away. It missed.