ELENA
The church bells were too loud.
I stood across the street from St. Anthony's with my hands shoved deep in the pockets of a coat that had been my mother's, watching men in black suits file inside like they were going to a meeting, not a funeral. Their shoes were polished. Their faces were not.
I could see the casket from here. Closed. Of course it was closed.
Antonio was 24. My little brother, who used to steal the cherries off my cannoli when he thought I wasn't looking, who taught himself piano on our father's old upright by watching YouTube videos at 2 a.m., who called me "El" like it was a secret only he knew.
Three weeks ago he'd called me, voice tight. "El, I need to talk to you. I'm getting out."
I'd said, "I'll believe it when I see it."
He'd said, "You'll see it."
I hung up because I was tired of believing him.
Now he was in a box and I was standing on the sidewalk like a stranger.
The Morettis sent flowers. White lilies, huge and obscene, crowding the church steps. A card tucked in the ribbon, written in a man's hand: We are sorry for your loss. — M.
I wanted to rip it up. I wanted to cross the street and throw them in the gutter. I did neither. I just stood there, cold seeping through the thin soles of my shoes, and watched.
A man came out before the service started. Not a mourner slipping out for air — he moved like he owned the air.
Matteo Moretti.
I knew his face from the papers Antonio used to leave around the apartment, folded open to articles about "reorganization" and "increased police presence." In photos Matteo never smiled. He had a scar through his left eyebrow and eyes that looked like they'd seen the end of something and were still waiting for the noise to stop.
He lit a cigarette. Looked directly at me.
I didn't look away. I was too angry to be polite.
He crossed the street. Didn't hurry. The traffic parted for him without him asking.
"You should be inside," he said when he reached me. Not a question. Not an apology. Just a fact, delivered quietly.
"I wasn't invited."
"You're his sister."
"And you're the reason he's dead."
I expected him to deny it. To give me the line about choices and the life and how Antonio knew what he was getting into. Instead he took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke disappear.
"He talked about you," Matteo said. "All the time. Said you made cannoli that could make a priest swear. Said you were the only person who ever told him no and meant it."
My throat closed. Antonio used to say that. Only El tells me no and means it. Everyone else is just scared of me or scared of you.
"He was a kid," I said, and my voice broke on the last word. I hated that.
"He was," Matteo said. "And he was good at math. And he was loyal. And he made a choice. I'm sorry it cost you him."
I wanted him to be a monster. It would have been easier. But he sounded like a man who had said that sentence before, to other sisters, other mothers, and was sick of the taste of it.
"Go home, Elena Russo," he said, and he said my full name like he'd practiced it. "Stay out of our streets. Please."
The please was what did it. It was small and it was real and I hated him for it.
I went home. I locked the door. I cried in the shower so the neighbors wouldn't hear.
I did not stay out of the streets.
That night I went through Antonio's things. He'd hidden a notebook under his mattress, the way he did when we were kids. Inside were numbers. Routes. Names. And on the last page, in his messy handwriting: Moretti - V. He's skimming. I have proof. I'm getting El out.
V. Vincent Moretti. Matteo's cousin.
I sat on the floor of Antonio's room and stared at that page until the sun came up.
I wasn't invited to the funeral.
But I was going to be at the ending.