Chapter 8 - The First Light of the Sun
The bedroom in the penthouse on the sixty-second floor of the Romano Tower did not have a garbage bag on the window. It had three layers of silk curtains that could be retracted by a silver button beside the bed, revealing a view of Central Park that looked like a green velvet carpet spread between the white stone palaces of the Upper West Side.
It was the first week of December.
Sarah sat in the center of the king-sized bed, supported by four feather pillows that were covered in white linen. Her face was still pale, and she had lost twenty pounds that she could not afford to lose, but her eyes were clear—that bright, fierce green that Dante had carried in his memory like an imprint. She wore a soft gray cashmere robe that Dante had ordered from Milan, and her dark blond hair had been washed and tied back with a simple silk ribbon.
Emily was sitting on the edge of the mattress, a large silver tray between her knees. She was carefully spreading butter onto a piece of brioche toast using a small, blunt silver knife, her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth out of pure concentration.
“You have to do it all the way to the crust, Mommy,” Emily said, pointing with her knife. “Otherwise, the crunch is too dry. That’s what the lady in the kitchen told me.”
Sarah smiled, her hand reaching out to touch Emily’s cheek. Her fingers were warm now, her skin completely free of the dry, scaly texture that the Bronx damp had left behind. “The lady in the kitchen knows a lot about toast, sweetie. But you should let her do it. You’re going to get butter on your new dress.”
Emily looked down at her dress—it was a deep forest green, made of thick velvet, with tiny pearl buttons along the collar. It didn't have a split toe or a soaked hem. It looked like something a princess would wear to a winter concert. “Father bought it for me. He bought seven of them. One for every day of the week, so I don't have to wash them in the sink anymore.”
Sarah’s gaze shifted to the doorway, where Dante stood, leaning against the frame with his hands in his pockets. He had taken off his jacket, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his eyes watching the two of them with a quiet, protective satisfaction that felt like a shield around the entire room.
“She’s right, you know,” Dante said, stepping into the space. “The lady in the kitchen has a grand diploma from Paris. If you ruin her crust allocation, she goes on strike.”
Emily giggled, grabbing her piece of toast and jumping off the bed. “I’m going to show the dog the park,” she announced, her little leather shoes clicking loudly on the herringbone floor as she ran past him toward the expansive living room, where a large, clumsy golden retriever puppy was waiting for her by the glass.
Dante closed the door behind her, the noise of her laughter softening through the wood. He walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress, his large frame causing the silk sheets to shift.
Sarah watched him approach. She didn't reach out immediately; she looked at his face, at the small silver threads in his hair, at the white lines of tension around his mouth that hadn't been there when they were twenty-four.
“You look older, Dante,” she said, her voice a low, sweet murmur that carried the old rhythm of their university days.
“I’ve had a difficult six years,” Dante said, his hand reaching out to wrap around her wrist. He didn't squeeze; he just held her, feeling the regular, strong beat of her pulse against his thumb. “I spent most of it thinking I was the king of a graveyard. It turns out I was just an idiot who didn't look in the Bronx.”
Sarah looked down at her lap, her fingers tracing the monogram on her robe. “I thought you were dead, Dante. Albert was... he was very convincing. He had a police report with the state seal on it. He said the blast was meant for me—that if I stayed in your apartment, the next device would be under the floorboards of the nursery. I didn't know anything about your world, Dante. I just knew that you had a lot of men with guns and that your father looked at me like I was an insect he wanted to squash.”
Dante leaned forward, his hand sliding up her arm to cup her jaw, his thumb wiping away a small drop of moisture that had gathered in the corner of her eye. “My father was a monster who died of a rotten liver in a private clinic in Zurich. He didn't win, Sarah. Look around you. We’re sixty floors above his grave. No one can touch you here. Not Silvio Moretti, not the Lucchese crews, not the city council. I spent four years clearing the board so that when you came back, there would be a home left for you.”
“I didn't come back because I was brave,” Sarah whispered, her forehead leaning against his shoulder, her breath warm against his neck. “I came back because I was dying. I looked at Emily’s shoes on the floor on Wednesday night, and I realized that if I didn't wake up on Thursday morning, she’d be alone in that room with the train. I told her the name Dante Romano because it was the only magic word I had left.”
“It’s a good word,” Dante said, his arms closing around her, pulling her thin body into his chest, holding her with a fierce, quiet intensity that had been building inside him since the red light in Midtown. “It’s a word that means you don't have to clean another desk, Sarah. It means you can buy every used bookstore from here to Boston. It means our daughter is going to school in a limousine every morning, and if anyone looks at her wrong, Frank is going to have a conversation with their principal.”
May you like
Sarah laughed, a soft, musical sound that cleared out the last of the Mercy General disinfectant from his mind. “You haven't changed at all, have you? Still trying to buy the hill below the museum.”
“I bought it last week,” Dante said into her hair. “The deeds are in the safe. We’re building the school there, Sarah. The Sarah Harper School for Literature. You can design the library yourself. Just make sure the windows are big enough to see the trees.”
