Not tonight.
Tonight, you’re Eleanor.
“That’s why you said my full name.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I promised him I wouldn’t.”
The car turned onto a quieter street.
I folded my arms tightly across myself.
“What promise?”
Dante looked out the window before answering.
“The last time I saw your father, he was already sick.”
Dad had apparently agreed to meet Dante only after weeks of refusing his calls.
He would not let Dante visit our home.
He would not let him come into the hospital where I might see him.
They met outside, in a nearly empty parking area.
Dante brought an envelope full of money.
My father never touched it.
“He said if I respected anything he had ever done for me, I would put it away.”
My eyes burned.
“What else?”
“He told me you had already lost enough of your life taking care of him.
He did not want you waking up one morning to discover that his illness had put you in debt to someone you were afraid of.”
That silenced me.
Dad had worried about that constantly—what his illness was doing to my life.
Even while dying, apparently, he had been building walls around me that I never knew existed.
Dante continued.
“He made me promise not to approach you.
Not to offer you a job.
Not to send money through someone else.
Not to turn gratitude into a chain around your ankle.”
I swallowed.
“And you agreed?”
“I owed him my life.”
“Then why am I in your car?”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“Because tonight the danger reached you first.”
The warmth disappeared from the conversation.
Marco.
The syringe.
His face when he realized I had seen him.
You should’ve stayed invisible.
Dante’s phone vibrated.
He answered immediately.
I heard only his side.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“No.
Nobody touches him.”
Another pause.
“Turn him over to the police with everything from the restaurant.”
Dante ended the call.
I stared at him.
“That was about Marco?”
“Yes.”
“He’s alive?”
Dante gave me a look.
