Chapter 2

He walked to the entrance of the compound and, without a flicker of expression, dumped every last bite of food into a stray dog's bowl.

The morning light traced his tall, clean profile. To everyone who passed, he was the flawless picture of a respectable made man, the Falcone Family's own polished face.

Even this, dumping her food, earned him a stranger's murmur of praise.

I'd long since forgotten how I felt that day.

Later I finally understood: a cold heart can never be warmed.

That evening I finished my honest work on neutral ground early, meaning to buy my mother a birthday cake so I could celebrate with her.

I'd barely reached the block when I spotted her at her little stall.

She refused to stay under the Falcone roof for long, and she didn't want to invite loose talk by eating and living off us for free, so she'd taught herself to make sticky rice cakes by hand, the way they did in the old country village.

Most evenings she'd carry a little bamboo basket down to the street where the front shops stood and set up her stall.

Wanting to earn a little of her own with her own two hands, owing no one.

She thought I didn't know that every bit of it went right back into the household grocery money.

I was about to walk over when, out of nowhere, I saw Lorenzo.

Valentina was on his arm, and beside them Gloria was dressed to the nines, gold heavy at her throat. The three of them had stopped right in front of my mother's stall.

The instant she saw Lorenzo, her eyes lit up, bright with joy.

Whenever there was something good to eat, the first person she thought of, every single time, was Lorenzo.

Without thinking, she picked out of her insulated basket the finest, most carefully made rice cake and cradled it in both hands.

"Lorenzo, done for the day? I just made these, clean, fresh. Have a taste, you and your friends."

Her tone was warm, softened with a hint of eagerness to please.

But the smile on Lorenzo's face went cold the second he saw who it was.

Passersby on the sidewalk turned to look, and on this street a man's standing was currency; he felt every eye.

Lorenzo recoiled half a step, as if he'd been publicly humiliated.

He put deliberate distance between them, dodging my mother's outstretched hands, one palm smoothing the lapel of his jacket.

Gloria asked, curious, her fingers drifting to the gold at her throat, "Lorenzo, do you know this village woman?"

Lorenzo frowned at my mother.

"Not really."

"Just a servant the Family let go some years back."

Two weightless little sentences, and yet they came down like a hammer.

My mother's hands froze in midair with the cakes, her fingertips trembling so hard she could barely hold the box.

The smile drained from her face, leaving only embarrassment, shame, and panic.

Her face went red, and she stood there at a loss, unable to step forward or back.

Lorenzo let his eyes graze over my mother's mortified figure, then calmly looked away and said gently to Gloria, his hand smoothing the lapel again, harder now, "Aunt Gloria, let's go. It's your birthday. I had a friend hold a table at a fine place, reservation only."

Valentina chimed in with a smile, "Mama, that table's nearly impossible to get. Let's hurry."

Gloria beamed and praised him. "Lorenzo really is something."

Maybe she was too pleased. As she passed, her foot knocked over my mother's whole stall.

An entire afternoon of carefully made cakes spilled across the ground.

Gloria caught herself, and just as she was about to apologize, Lorenzo said, "It's fine. Eating too much of that stuff isn't good for you anyway."

"Besides, it isn't clean. Knocked over is just as well. Now it can go straight in the trash."

With that, he turned and walked off with Gloria and her daughter, his stride unhurried, a man who owned the street beneath his shoes.

The evening wind stirred the white hairs at my mother's temples.

She stood alone in the middle of the crowded street, her frame thin and forlorn.

It was a long while before she slowly lowered her arms and bent to gather the rice cakes off the ground.

I hurried to her side, my chest aching so badly the words choked in my throat.

When she saw me, her eyes misted over, yet she forced a smile and turned it around to comfort me instead. Before she spoke, she wiped her rough, calloused hands once against her apron.

"Adriana, it's fine. It was Mama's fault."

"I shouldn't have gone up to him like that. He's a respected man, he cares about his name, his standing. I can't have some village old woman like me getting in the way of his future."