Father is engaged in conversation with the photographer when I tug at his sleeve. “I need a word with you.”
“Ah, there you are!” He puts an arm around me and draws me to his side. “Smile pretty.”
The flashbulb goes off.
I blink away the bright circle that clouds my vision.
“Perfect!” declares the photographer. “The wedding just wouldn’t have been complete, Mr. Sail, without a photograph of you and your lovely daughter.”
I demure in such a way that would win Emily Post’s approval and then take my father’s offered elbow. My head is so flooded with the words I want to lob at him, I can’t seem to grab hold of a single one.
“I’m glad Walter found you. I wanted to have a moment with you before I left town,” Father says as he leads me to the hall outside the ballroom. “Where have your shoes gone?”
I look down at my stockings. “They were hurting.”
“You women and your impractical shoes.” Father pauses along a row of windows and smiles indulgently at me. “How are you, my dear? I know it hasn’t been the easiest day for you.”
I look into Father’s happy face. “Tired,” is the answer that comes out. “I’m very tired.”
Father nods with sympathy. “It’s been an exhausting month, hasn’t it?”
There’s a war going on within me. I want to stomp my feet and yell and demand answers. Exactly how much of our life is bought by the mafia? How could he let me date Mariano?
And yet, I also find myself wanting to wrap my arms around him and sob against his chest while he reassures me. While he explains all the reasons why his professional choices have been about upholding the safety of our society rather than helping organized crime prosper.
“You’ll be the lady of the house while I’m away, but I expect you to take some time off. Go to the beach. Go to the movies.” Father winks. “Let Mariano spoil you a bit.”
The suggestion stirs the anger brewing in my gut. Is my father in this so deep that he doesn’t mind who Mariano is? “Do you really think he’s the best guy for me to be seeing?”
Father blinks several times. “I thought you liked him.”
“I do. I did. But . . . that was before I realized who his family is.”
Father tucks his hands in his pockets and watches me without speaking. Lawyer trickery.
Lawyer trickery that I can’t help succumbing to. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Father inhales slowly, and then exhales even slower. “Mariano is a good kid. He’s not . . . in the family business.”
I press my eyes closed as a strange mix of relief and confusion rumbles through me. “But don’t you think that detail would’ve been pertinent?”
“These last few weeks have been the worst of your life, Piper. I guess I didn’t want to do anything that might take away the one person who seemed to be making you happy.” Father pitches his voice even lower. “I’ve known his father and uncle a long time. And Mariano is on the right side of the law. I knew you weren’t in any danger.”
“No danger.” I huff a humorless laugh. “It’s just the Sicilian mafia. That’s all.”
“Unless you have some bootleg operation I don’t know about, you’re perfectly safe.” His smile is thin.
“Are you making a joke? Right now?”
Father sighs and looks out the window, at the snarl of shopping traffic on Michigan Avenue. “What should I have done? Banned you from seeing Mariano because of his father and uncle’s business?”
“At the very least, how about some honesty? About Mariano, about you.”
“About me? How have I been dishonest about me?”
“Your line of work.”
Father seems exasperated. “Piper, you’ve known for a long time what kind of work I do. That was no secret.”
“But I didn’t know . . .” I didn’t know what? “I didn’t know you were defending . . . criminals.”
Yep. That sounds exactly as stupid out of my mouth as it did in my head.
“That sounds dumb, I know. But I guess I always imagined that you spent your days defending people who were wrongly accused or didn’t do anything that bad.”
Father again averts his face to the traffic below, and pulls in his lower lip. I expect him to call me on this inconsistency—even to Mariano, I had said that I thought some of Father’s clients were mobsters. The truth is that I had chosen to not think too deeply on it. I had chosen to stay ignorant.
“I’m sorry to be a disappointment. With the boys, their interest in law made it a natural subject to eventually talk about. With you, though . . .” Father turns his gaze to meet mine. “I suppose I wanted you to keep viewing me that way. I never lied, but I certainly omitted.”
That’s much more of an apology than I thought I would get. “Did Mother know?”
He hesitates for a beat. “My involvement wasn’t as extensive when she was alive.”
I blow a loose raspberry. “You’re being evasive. Did she know, or didn’t she?”
“She knew.”