Becoming a mother hasn’t made Aida above anything. Seeing that Dante isn’t going to respond to her teasing anymore, she looks across the table and fixes her bright gray eyes on me.

“Seb has a gift for languages,” she says. “Do you remember when we were coming back from Sardinia, and you thought you were supposed to talk to the customs officers in Italian? And they kept asking you questions to make sure you were actually an American citizen, and you wouldn’t say anything except ‘Il mio nome è Sebastian’?”

That’s true. I was seven years old, and I got flustered with all those adults staring at me, barking at me. I was so deeply tanned from my summer in Italy that I’m sure it looked like my father had snatched some little island boy out of Costa Rei and was trying to bring him back across the Atlantic.

The customs officers kept demanding, “Is this your family? Are you American?” And I, for some reason, had decided that I had to respond in their native language, even though they were speaking English. In the moment, all I could think of to say was “My name is Sebastian,” over and over.

Damn Aida for even remembering that — she was only five herself. But she never forgets something embarrassing she can bring up later at the most inopportune time.

“I wanted to stay on vacation a little longer,” I tell Aida, coolly.

“Good strategy,” she says. “You almost got to stay forever.”

I am going to miss Dante. I miss all my siblings, the more they branch out into their own lives.

They can be infuriating and inconvenient, but they love me. They know all my faults and all my mistakes, and they accept me anyway. I know I can count on them, if I really need them. And I would show up for them, any time, any place. That’s a powerful bond.

“We’ll come visit you,” I say to Dante.

He smiles just a little. “Not all at the same time, please,” he says. “I don’t want to scare Simone away right after we finally got married.”

“Simone loves me,” Aida says. “And I’m already bribing my way into your children’s hearts. You know that’s the path to becoming the favorite aunt — giving them loud and dangerous gifts that their parents wouldn’t allow.”

“That must be why you liked Uncle Francesco,” I say. “He gave you a bow and arrows.”

“That’s right,” Aida says. “And I always adored him.”

So did I. But we lost Uncle Francesco two years after that particular gift. The Bratva cut his fingers off and set him on fire while he was still alive. That sparked a two year bloodbath with the Russians. My father was in a rage like I’ve never seen before. He drove them out of their territory on the west side of the city, killing eight of their men in revenge. I don’t know what he did to the man who threw the match on Uncle Francesco, but I remember him coming home that night with his dress shirt drenched in blood to the point where you couldn’t see a single square inch of white cotton anymore.