Chapter 11 - Christmas at Rosa's
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December arrived in Connecticut with early snow and a quiet that Lana had forgotten cities could surrender.
Rosa insisted on a Christmas tree in the front room despite Gabriel arguing the house was a security location.
Lana sided with Rosa and Gabriel returned that evening with a tree so large it scraped the doorway frame.
Marco carried it inside while complaining theatrically about sap and Thomas photographed the disaster for future blackmail.
They decorated it with Rosa's ornaments collected over fifty years of marriage and motherhood and widowhood and joy.
Each ornament carried a story Rosa told while Lana hung them at the heights her growing belly allowed.
Gabriel watched his mother and Lana among the branches and understood his house had never been his penthouse.
His penthouse had glass and silence and views that impressed clients and meant nothing at two in the morning.
This crowded room with crooked tinsel and Marco arguing about lights was the first place he had breathed easily.
Lana caught him watching and hung a small wooden angel directly in his line of sight without comment.
Priya sent a box of baby clothes from the city with a note saying none of them were yellow this time.
Rosa contributed the christening lace she had promised in October and laid it across Lana's knees one afternoon.
The lace was fragile and handmade and had wrapped three generations of Costa babies in church sunlight.
Lana touched it gently and asked Rosa whether she had truly never been angry about the circumstances.
Rosa said she had been angry at Gabriel for August and at Leo for cruelty and at fear for its long reign.
She said she had never wasted anger on a child or on a woman who had carried shame that belonged to men.
That sentence entered Lana's heart and stayed there like a lamp lit in a room she thought was permanently dark.
Gabriel began driving to Connecticut every night instead of sleeping at the penthouse near his office downtown.
Thomas complained about the commute in the fond way of a man who approved entirely of the reason behind it.
The board noticed Gabriel leaving meetings at six and the company survived the scandal of a chairman with evenings.
Lana testified before the grand jury in early January exactly as she had promised the federal agents herself.
She wore a dark green dress Rosa chose and answered questions for three hours with steady and precise detail.
She described the invoice for the cleaning company and Leo's knock and the tiny yellow sweater in his hand.
She described the staircase sentence exactly as Leo had spoken it in her apartment doorway that rainy night.
The prosecutor told her afterward that her clarity had tied the fraud and intimidation cases together beyond repair.
Gabriel waited in the courthouse corridor because he was not permitted inside and held her coat when she emerged.
She was exhausted and hungry and triumphant and he took her directly to a diner she had mentioned weeks earlier.
She ate pancakes at three in the afternoon while lawyers in suits pretended not to recognize Gabriel Costa beside her.
Two days later the grand jury indicted Victor Salerno on fraud and conspiracy and witness intimidation charges in federal court.
Victor was arrested at his marina restaurant during lunch service with cameras from three news stations recording outside.
He maintained his silver smile for the cameras but his lawyers no longer spoke about misunderstandings or traditions.
Leo agreed to testify against Victor in exchange for consideration on his own sentence for fraud and threats.
Gabriel read that news in Rosa's kitchen and felt no triumph beyond a quiet sense of a door closing.
Lana read it over his shoulder and rested her chin there for a moment in unthinking and comfortable intimacy.
He turned his head carefully and kissed her temple and she did not move away from the tenderness.
They had not kissed since August because Gabriel had been waiting for an invitation he would not presume again.
That night after dinner she came to the porch where he sat watching snow fall over Rosa's dark garden.
She sat beside him on the cold bench and took his gloved hand in both of hers with deliberate intention.
She said she had been thinking about the word love since the restaurant meeting with Victor in November.
She said hearing it used as a shield had frightened her because shields get dropped when wars end.
He promised the war ending would not change it and she studied his face in the porch light for proof.
She told him she loved him too and had loved him through August and October and the train ticket she never used.
Gabriel closed his eyes because joy at his age arrived with the force of grief and needed a moment.
He asked if he could kiss her and she laughed through tears and said that was the correct procedure now.
The kiss on the snowy porch was gentle and certain and entirely different from the desperate night in August.
Rosa opened the front door with hot chocolate and pretended she had not been watching through the curtain.
Marco arrived the next day with champagne he was forbidden to open near Lana and sparkling cider instead.
He toasted his future niece and his brother's improbable education in human feelings with embarrassing and heartfelt speeches.
Thomas raised his cider glass and said he had guarded many things but never a family forming in real time.
Lana looked around Rosa's table at the loud and flawed and loyal people who had gathered around her fear.
She understood her daughter would be born into arguments and laughter and protection rather than silence and shame.
Later Gabriel gave her a small box on the porch where they had kissed the night before under falling snow.
Inside lay no ring but a brass key to the Brooklyn brownstone and a letter in his careful handwriting.
The letter said the house was hers in trust regardless of any decision she ever made about him personally.
It said a woman who had once planned to disappear should own a door no man could take from her.
Lana read it twice while snow settled on the letter's edges and Gabriel waited without filling the silence.
She told him she did not want a house as an apology and he said it was not one but a foundation.
May you like
She accepted the key and then told him she intended to live there with him if he was asking properly.
He said he was asking with his whole life and she hung the key beside her father's keychain that night.
