hard at that, suspiciously. Hazel looks around again, eyes narrowed, clearly suspecting something.
Finally, the waiters come out and the conversation flows without me. I recede into the background, sipping my wine, ignoring Emily’s teasing glares. We eat, we laugh, and I am content to sit back and watch it all.
“Are you okay?” Hazel asks me quietly after we’ve eaten. In front of us, Emily interrogates the waiter about all the different flavors of ice cream. “You seem … quiet.”
“Right as rain,” I say.
She frowns. That’s not something I’d ever normally say. But nothing feels normal anymore.
I smile. “I’m good, I mean. Doing well.”
“So you don’t think you’re acting, like, irrevocably strange right now?”
“Irrevocably,” Emily says, impressed. “And I thought I was the writer in this family.”
When the waiter comes around to take my and Hazel’s orders, I shake my head. “Just bring the book now,” I sigh. “I can’t take this any longer.”
Suddenly, the table goes dead-silent. Mother already has her hands at her throat like she’s barely holding back sobs. Emily just grins widely. Lucille does, too. Nario gives me a supportive nod, and for a split second, it’s like we’re kids again.
“The book?” Hazel says.
The waiter brings out an ESOL textbook and lays it on the table in front of Hazel.
“It’s the latest edition,” I tell her.
She smiles shakily. I wonder if she senses something. “Okay …”
“Take a look inside,” Emily says. “You know, to make sure it’s, like—Just take a look inside!”
She opens the book and the diamond ring falls into her lap. At the same time, I fall to one knee, catching the ring and holding it up for her to study, not even feeling the twinge of my many injuries. She turns in her chair, her mouth falling open, her bright green eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers.
There are tears in my eyes, too. I can’t help it. I’m not even ashamed.
“Hazel Conway,” I say, using the name she lives by, not the one that was thrust on her. “All my life I thought marriage was for weaker men. No offense, Nario.”
He laughs, giving me a go-on gesture.
“But now I know how wrong I was. You make me a better person. You make me understand that I can be good, I can love, I can—but I don’t want to make this all about me. Because it’s you, Hazel. It’s how fierce you can be, how loving. It’s how talented you are. Cooking, painting, your teaching, your running—just one of these things and you’d be amazing. I’m not saying you’re a prize dog or anything like that. Shit, this isn’t coming out right. I should’ve written it down.”
She touches my face, lifting my chin. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, Carlo. Yes.”
“Yes?” I whisper. “You mean it? You’ll marry me before I have even asked properly? I want to say the words: will you marry me? You’re about to make me the happiest man alive, Hazel, so you better not be screwing me around.”
“Yes! Now put that ring on my finger so I can kiss you!”
I slide the ring on and clamber to my feet, wrapping my arms around Hazel and lifting her off the ground. I’m spinning her around and around, both of us lost in our own little world, and then she finds my lips. Or maybe I find hers. I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter.
She tastes like the past. She tastes like the future. She tastes like home.
“I love you so much,” she gasps. “I can’t believe I’m going to be Mrs. De Maggio. Y’know …” She turns to Alda with a wink. “The Mrs. De Maggio.”
Mother laughs. Emily laughs. Hazel is smiling like she wouldn’t stop for all the money in the world. When she turns back to me, I catch her in another passionate kiss.
My woman. My wife. My fire. My snow.
Epilogue
Hazel
Two Years Later
I guess I’m getting married. I’m walking down the aisle on Ubert’s arm—Ubert, because he’s the closest thing to a true father figure I’ve ever really had—with Carlo standing at the altar and about one hundred mafioso men and their wives watching me from either side of the aisle. Alda and Emily and Sil are already up there, my bridesmaids.
We’re in Holy Light Cathedral, a Catholic church, at Alda’s insistence. I turn to give Lucille a small smile. She’s the one holding my dress because, it’s extravagant billowing. “Do you think it’s too much?” I asked Alda and Emily as we picked it out together.