The Soprano house was on a cul-de-sac that ended in a wood line, and Vinnie pulled the Cadillac up the long driveway at five of three with the folder against his thigh on the passenger seat.
He did not get out.
A green Ford Expedition was at the curb with its tailgate up. Two black duffel bags and three cardboard boxes sat on the apron of the driveway. A blue laundry hamper full of folded sheets was at the back bumper. Carmela Soprano was at the driver's-side rear door of the Expedition handing a black canvas bag through the window to her daughter, who was, by the angle of her shoulders, not crying but in the cooled-off place after crying that women in Carmela Soprano's family went to when they did not want to make any more noise than they had already made. A.J. Soprano was on the curb in a Knicks T-shirt with earphones on, drumming on his knees with the heels of his hands, looking at nothing.
Tony was at the back of the Expedition lifting one of the cardboard boxes into the cargo space. He was wearing a polo and slacks and the kind of stiff fixed expression a man kept on when he was lifting a box that had his daughter's books in it.
Vinnie sat in the Cadillac.
He turned the engine off. He set the folder on the passenger seat. He folded his hands on the steering wheel. He did not look at the porch. He looked at the dashboard for ninety seconds, then at the small chip in the windshield he had been meaning to fix for a year, then at his hands. Tony, twenty yards up the driveway, did not see him because Tony was looking at the back of his daughter's head through the rear window.
Meadow opened her door. Got out. Stood in the driveway between her mother and her father. She was eighteen and a half years old, taller than her mother by an inch, wearing a Columbia sweatshirt over jeans. Her hair was up.
She hugged her mother first. The hug took a long time. Carmela's hand was at the back of Meadow's head and stayed there. Meadow's face was over her mother's shoulder. From the Cadillac at the foot of the drive Vinnie could not see what was on Meadow's face but he could see that what was on her face was something Carmela did not need to see.
She broke. Stepped back. Held both of her mother's hands for a second. Said something Vinnie could not hear. Carmela laughed once, the laugh that comes through a stopped-up nose.
She went to A.J. on the curb. Pulled his earphones off. Pulled him off the curb. Hugged him. He was as tall as her now. His arms came up around her stiffly and then less stiffly and then the way a fourteen-year-old hugged a sister he had spent eighteen years pretending not to like. When she stepped back his earphones went back on. He sat back down on the curb. He drummed.
She went to her father.
Tony was at the back of the Expedition with one hand on the tailgate.
He didn't move when she came up.
She stood in front of him.
"Meadow."
"Daddy."
He pulled her in. He held her with both hands flat against her back. His chin was on the top of her head. He kept his face turned toward the wood line at the end of the cul-de-sac.
The hug took thirty seconds.
He let her go. Held her shoulders. Looked at her. Said something quietly that Vinnie could not hear and was not supposed to hear. Meadow nodded. Tony took his hands off her shoulders. Closed the tailgate of the Expedition. Walked her to the driver's side. Opened the door for her. Held it. She got in. He stood with his hand on the top of the door for one second after she was seated and then he pushed the door shut and stepped back.
The engine started.
Carmela came down off the porch to the curb, both hands on her own elbows, and walked the Expedition to the end of the driveway. The brake lights came on at the street. The Expedition turned left. Carmela walked the four steps to the corner of the lawn and stood there with one hand at her mouth and watched it go to the end of the block. The Expedition turned at the stop sign. Carmela watched the spot the Expedition had turned at for ten more seconds. Then she came back up the driveway, past Vinnie's Cadillac without seeing it, up the porch steps, into the house. The screen door closed behind her with the small soft slap a screen door made when it was held on the way in.
A.J. on the curb did not move.
Tony in the driveway did not move.
Vinnie sat in the Cadillac for one more minute. Then he got out. Walked up the driveway. Stopped at the back of the Expedition's empty parking space.
Tony saw him then. Did not act surprised.
"Marchetti."
"Tony."
"You been there."
"I been there."
"How long."
"Twenty minutes."
"Christ."
"It wasn't a thing I wanted to interrupt."
Tony nodded once. Looked at his shoes for a second. Looked back up the driveway.
"Come in. Carmela's at the stove. Don't talk to her, she's gonna do the thing where she pretends she's making a sauce when she's crying. Just nod at her and come back to my office."
He turned and walked up the driveway. Vinnie followed at three paces. A.J. on the curb lifted his hand without looking up. Vinnie said A.J. A.J. said something back through the earphones that was probably Marchetti.
In the front hall the air conditioning was at a setting Tony liked and nobody else in the house ever messed with. The tile underfoot was cold through Vinnie's sneakers. The hall table on the right had three things on it — a small bowl with car keys in it that included the keys to a car that was no longer in the driveway, a stack of unopened mail, and a framed photograph in a silver frame.
The photograph was of the four of them — Tony, Carmela, Meadow, A.J. — on a beach, in what looked like the early nineties by the cut of Carmela's swimsuit and the length of Meadow's hair. They were all squinting at the sun. They were all smiling, the family-photo smile that people wore when a stranger had been handed the camera. A.J. was maybe six. Meadow was maybe ten. Tony had a head of hair he no longer had.
Vinnie looked at it for one second longer than was casual.
Then he walked past.
Carmela was at the stove with her back to him. He nodded at her back. She did not turn. The kitchen smelled like the gravy that was on the back burner because the front burner had a sheet pan of stuffed peppers on it that were not browning yet. Tony went past her and through the doorway on the other side without speaking. Vinnie followed.
Tony's office was a wood-paneled room with a desk and a chair and a leather couch under the window. There were photographs on the wall but they were mostly photographs of Tony with men Vinnie knew and a few photographs of Tony with men Vinnie did not know but recognized from television in a different life. There were two framed plaques of civic recognition Tony had received from charities that Vinnie was not entirely sure Tony knew the names of. There was a humidor on the credenza with cigars in it Tony was no longer allowed to smoke. There was a baseball signed by somebody under a glass dome on the desk.
Tony sat at the desk. Vinnie took the chair across.
"What've you got."
Vinnie opened the folder.
Three pages. The lawyer had marked the signature lines with small pencil x's. The first page was the certificate of formation for Marchetti Construction LLC's wholly-owned subsidiary that was acquiring a residential renovations company in Verona called Verrazzano Builders. The second page was a hold-harmless on the worker's comp policy. The third page was a routine notice the state required when a construction LLC went above a certain employee count threshold.
Vinnie set them on the desk. Pushed them across.
Tony picked up a pen from the cup. Read the first page. Signed. Read the second. Signed. Read the third. Signed. Did not say anything.
He pushed them back.
"Verrazzano," he said.
"Yeah."
"In Verona."
"In Verona."
"Joe Verrazzano had — what — fifteen guys."
"Twelve. Two retired."
"You know what you're getting."
"I think so."
"You'll know in six months. You don't know now. Don't tell yourself you know now."
"All right."
Tony set the pen on the desk.
He looked at the baseball under the glass dome.
"You got kids, Marchetti?"
"No."
"You and that woman of yours — you been together how long."
"A year and change."
"You thinking about it."
"I'm — I'm thinking about it."
Tony nodded. Did not say anything for a few seconds. He picked the pen back up. Spun it once between his fingers. Set it back down.
"They change everything."
"I figured."
"You don't figure. Don't figure. I'm telling you a thing. They change everything. Every decision you make, from the moment they exist, becomes a decision about them. Every dollar you bring in becomes a dollar that is for them. Every man you have to deal with becomes a man you are dealing with so that they don't ever have to. It's not a — it's not an opinion. It's a — it's a fact about how a man's head works after that day. You're a smart guy, Marchetti. You think you're going to make a decision in your office and the kid won't be sitting on the corner of the desk while you make it. You won't. The kid is on the corner of the desk for the rest of your life."
He stopped.
"Don't take this the wrong way."
"I'm not."
"I'm not — I'm not trying to talk you out of it."
"I know."
"I'm telling you that if you do it, you do it knowing what you're doing."
"Yes, Tony."
Tony nodded once. Picked the pen back up. Set it in the cup.
He stood. So did Vinnie.
"Out the back, Marchetti. Carmela won't see you in the front and she's gonna be in a mood for the rest of the day. The yard gate is open. Tommy can pick you up on Cliffside."
"All right."
"And Marchetti — "
"Yeah, Tony."
"Tell Verrazzano I said congratulations on his retirement. He's a good man. He took care of a job for me on the shore in '88."
"I will."
"And Marchetti."
"Yeah."
"You waited in the car."
"I waited in the car."
"Don't be a guy who has to do that twice. Come at four next time."
"I'll come at four."
Tony walked him to the office door. Did not walk him out of the house. The back of the house had a sliding door onto a flagstone patio. Vinnie went through it. The yard was deep. The gate at the back was unlocked. He went out the gate. Came around the side of the lot on Cliffside.
He stood at the curb for two minutes before Tommy's older Cadillac came around the corner.
He got in the back.
"Tommy."
"Yeah."
"The lawyer's office. We're closing Verrazzano on Wednesday."
"It's signed?"
"It's signed."
"All right."
The Cadillac pulled out.
He looked at the folder on his lap. He thought of the photograph in the silver frame on the hall table — the four squinting faces on the beach, all of them smiling, the youngest one with sand on her knees. He thought of a daughter he did not have and a son he did not have and a woman he was going to call from a payphone tomorrow and ask whether she was free for dinner three weeks from Wednesday in a town in Pennsylvania he had not yet chosen.
The Expedition that had Meadow Soprano in it was, at this minute, somewhere on the George Washington Bridge. The afternoon was hot and clear. The light slanted in over the river the way the light slanted in late August in northern New Jersey.
The Cadillac took the avenue south.
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