Chapter 7 - THE LANGUAGE BETWEEN THEM
Our first date was not at The Cathedral.
I refused.
Salvo chose a small Sicilian restaurant in Brooklyn where the owner called him Salvatore and complained that he had gotten too thin.
I liked her immediately.
We spoke English.
Mostly.
Sicilian appeared when either of us became emotional.
Apparently that was genetic for entire islands.
He told me about Caterina.
Not the myth.
The things he remembered.
Her singing while cleaning.
Her hatred of overcooked pasta.
How she tucked money into church envelopes even when Vittorio complained.
I told him about Lucia.
The years after disappearing were coming back in fragments through therapy.
She remembered Montreal.
The bakery.
Trying to return.
The accident remained blank.
Some memory might never return.
We learned to stop treating recovery like a detective story.
She was alive.
That became enough.
I quit The Cathedral six months after the wine incident.
Not because Salvo asked.
He never did.
I returned to school.
Finished the criminal justice degree I had abandoned after my mother disappeared.
Then trained as a court interpreter.
Languages were the one inheritance nobody had successfully stolen from me.
English.
Italian.
Sicilian.
Eventually French.
My mother laughed when I told her.
“You hated French.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You still complained.”
“Apparently you secretly spoke it.”
She smiled.
Memory.
Good day.
Salvo changed too.
Enzo’s prosecution exposed weaknesses inside Romano Holdings.
Hidden contracts.
Informal power arrangements.
Family control disguised as tradition.
Salvo could have consolidated everything.
Instead, he reduced it.
Legitimate businesses separated from old criminal relationships.
Independent accounting.
Union pension funds moved outside Romano influence.
No more cash “security” arrangements in restaurants.
Some older men called him weak.
One disappeared from meetings.
Another moved to Florida.
The world did not end.
Salvo remained feared.
But less interested in proving it.
Gianni returned as adviser after cooperating fully with investigators.
Their relationship changed.
Salvo no longer treated loyalty as silence.
Gianni no longer pretended protection justified withholding truth.
Not perfect.
Better.
Enzo eventually pleaded guilty to several financial and coercion charges rather than face trial.
He served years.
Salvo never visited.
Caterina’s trust transfer was validated.
The twenty percent block became Salvo’s.
He immediately converted part of it into a professionally managed trust with succession rules requiring no family spouse to hold automatic authority.
When I heard, I laughed.
“What?”
“You made marriage financially boring.”
“Best legal decision of my life.”
“Romantic.”
“Deeply.”
He had not proposed.
Good.
We had been dating one year.
Slow.
Some nights I stayed at his townhouse.
Most nights I went home.
He hated my neighborhood parking.
I refused to care.
He once sent a driver without asking.
I sent the driver back.
He apologized.
Once I disappeared into work for three days during an interpreter certification deadline.
He called me on it.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Leaving without leaving.”
I hated that he had learned me well enough to say it.
He was right.
Relationships apparently involved equal-opportunity annoyance.
Lucia liked him.
That surprised Salvo.
She still spoke more easily in Sicilian after the injury.
One Sunday, she looked at him and said:
“You insulted my daughter.”
Salvo almost choked.
“Yes.”
“Badly?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom.”
She waved me off.
Salvo told her.
Almost word for word.
Lucia stared.
Then:
“You were a little bastard.”
I laughed so hard I cried.
Salvo nodded.
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“And you still dated him?”
“Eventually.”
Lucia sighed dramatically.
“America.”
Then she pointed at Salvo.
“Do better.”
He answered:
“Yes, ma’am.”
That became their relationship.
One evening, almost eighteen months after our first date, Salvo took me back to The Cathedral.
The restaurant had changed management.
Anthony Moretti still worked there.
He had apologized to me for treating staff like furniture.
More importantly, he changed policies.
Mandatory carpet maintenance became a running joke.
The loose thread that started everything was gone.
Salvo requested the same private table.
I stared.
“This is either romantic or psychologically concerning.”
“Both?”
“Probably.”
We ordered Barolo.
Different year.
He placed the bottle far from me.
I glared.
He smiled.
Then:
“Mia.”
“What?”
“I need to tell you something.”
I tensed.
He noticed.
“No danger.”
“Good start.”
“I love you.”
Simple.
No ring.
No speech.
My chest tightened.
I had known.
Still.
“I love you too.”
He exhaled.
Then I added in Sicilian:
“But if you ever call me a wooden-headed pig again, I’ll pour the wine deliberately.”
Salvo laughed.
The entire room looked over.
They still knew his silence better than his laughter.
That pleased me.
Then Anthony brought dessert.
He looked at the wine bottle.
“Everything okay?”
I smiled.
“So far.”
Salvo said:
“She’s threatening me.”
Anthony nodded.
May you like
“Good.”
Progress everywhere.
