Rosa is no stranger to the risks of the life she was born into, and so as she kneads the meatball mixture she is visited by a memory of her own mamma making dinner, waiting for her papa. Joey puts himself in danger, and Rosa holds the fear that something might happen to him. She holds it for Joey, who has no time to waste on fear, and for Sofia, who may someday need to hold a family’s worth of fear but who for now is spared. Her heart aches for Lina, who always felt fear but never knew how to contain it within herself, to use it as fuel. Rosa does not feel paralyzed in the face of Lina’s catastrophe; instead, she feels herself expand to hold every note and tremble of worry. She will protect her family. She will fight for them. She will do this at the cost of everything else.

Rosa watches the carrots and tomatoes and beans as they spin in the boiling broth and feels herself settle. She remembers her mother in the kitchen, wrist-deep in ground meat, humming. Her father out, again, working—God knows where. God knows with whom. For God knows how long.

—

Joey knows without even asking that he needs to meet with Tommy Fianzo. There is a swirling, nauseous pit where his stomach and heart should be.

Joey knows Carlo would never have left his family. He also knows Tommy Fianzo would do anything to protect his standing as one of the most powerful men in Brooklyn. Carlo’s ambivalence had been a weakness.

At the mouth of the Red Hook waterfront there is a bedraggled concrete building where the Fianzos hold court. As Joey arrives he can smell the sea and has to stop and hold a hand to his chest to control himself. He saw Carlo just last night. Joey knew this was coming, didn’t he? Somehow, he knew it would be soon. You should have warned him, he tells himself. And in the same moment, I could never have warned him. I would have ended up just like him. Sofia’s face swims to the forefront of his mind. He made his own decisions.

And then, this is your fault.

Tommy is standing by the window of his office. When he sees Joey, he wraps him in a hug. He thumps Joey on the back, a clap that reverberates through Joey’s heart and lungs. “I’m sorry about all this,” he says. Joey can hear Tommy’s voice move out around them in waves. It gets swallowed in the concrete walls. Joey fights an urge to sink into the comforting arms of the man who has guided him since he was a teenager.