Chapter 3 - The Brother Anthony Remembered
Sal DeLuca laughed when Anthony introduced himself.
It wasn't a happy laugh.
"Vincent Caruso's boy."
"I'm forty-six, Sal."
"You're still somebody's boy."
Anthony leaned back in his chair.
It was nearly one in the morning.
"Tell me about Michael."
Silence.
Then another laugh.
This one shorter.
"No."
Anthony's jaw tightened.
"I'm not asking."
"That's exactly how your father used to talk."
Anthony said nothing.
Sal apparently heard the silence.
"Still doing that thing too?"
"What thing?"
"Getting quiet so everybody else gets nervous."
"I'm not interested in discussing my personality."
"Then why call?"
Anthony looked at the letters.
"Because you were there."
"At a lot of things."
"October twenty-three years ago."
The line went silent.
Not dead.
Just silent.
Anthony leaned forward.
"You remember."
"I remember enough."
"Michael betrayed my father."
"That what Vincent told you?"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Sal exhaled.
"Anthony, I'm seventy-one. I got grandchildren who think the worst thing I ever did was smoke cigarettes. I don't dig up graves anymore."
"I'm not asking you to."
"Yes, you are."
Anthony rubbed his thumb across the edge of the desk.
"What did Michael do?"
"You should ask Michael."
"I don't know where he is."
"That's a lie."
Anthony's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"Men like you always know where people are. You just haven't decided whether you want to know yet."
Then Sal hung up.
Anthony stared at the phone.
Five seconds later, he called back.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He almost threw the phone.
Instead he opened another letter.
This one had been written fifteen years earlier.
Ma,
Tell Anthony none of it was his fault. No. Forget that. Don't tell him anything. That's the whole point, isn't it?
Anthony closed his eyes.
He remembered Michael before the exile.
The real Michael.
Not the story.
Michael had been the younger one but rarely acted like it.
At twelve, he had broken Anthony's nose after Anthony mocked a boy with a stutter.
At fifteen, he'd stolen their father's car, driven three blocks, panicked, and called Anthony to help push it back after he couldn't restart it.
At seventeen, he told Vincent Caruso he didn't want to work at the social club.
Their father hadn't spoken to him for two weeks.
Michael eventually worked there anyway.
That was the family pattern.
You resisted.
Then you surrendered.
Except, apparently, when Michael hadn't.
Anthony poured himself a drink.
He barely touched it.
At two in the morning, he called his older sister Teresa.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Somebody better be dead."
"Did Ma ever talk to you about Michael?"
Silence.
Anthony sat straighter.
"Teresa?"
"Why are you asking me this now?"
That was not an answer.
"Did she?"
"Anthony."
"Did she?"
A sigh.
"Sometimes."
"What did she say?"
"You know what she said."
"No. Apparently I don't."
Another pause.
"What happened?"
"Noah found letters."
Teresa swore softly.
Anthony's grip tightened around the phone.
"You knew?"
"I knew there were letters."
"You knew she kept them?"
"Yes."
"And you never told me?"
"What exactly would I have told you? You couldn't hear Michael's name without turning into Dad."
Anthony stood.
"Watch yourself."
"There. That."
"What?"
"That voice."
Anthony paced toward the window.
"Did Michael betray the family?"
Teresa didn't answer.
Anthony stopped.
"Teresa."
"I was twenty-eight. I had a baby. I was trying not to know anything."
"That's not what I asked."
"Then ask somebody who was in the room."
"Who?"
Teresa hesitated too long.
Anthony knew the answer before she said it.
"Uncle Ray."
Anthony shut his eyes.
Raymond Caruso.
Their father's younger brother.
Eighty years old now.
Half deaf.
Still mean.
Anthony visited him every other Sunday at a private retirement community outside Princeton.
"Ray told me Michael was a coward."
"Ray told everybody what Dad told him to tell."
"You're saying Dad lied?"
"I'm saying Dad controlled the story."
Anthony's anger rose again.
"You waited twenty-three years to mention that?"
"You never asked."
"I shouldn't have had to."
"No."
Her voice softened.
"You shouldn't have."
That landed harder than if she had yelled.
Anthony sat down.
Teresa continued.
"Ma almost told you several times."
"Why didn't she?"
"Because Michael asked her not to."
Anthony looked toward the cookie tin.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"That's another lie."
"No, Anthony. It isn't."
"You expect me to believe everybody knew something except me?"
"I think everybody knew a different piece."
Anthony rubbed his forehead.
"What piece did you know?"
Teresa inhaled.
"I knew Michael didn't take money."
Anthony frowned.
"What?"
"The money everyone said disappeared. Michael didn't take it."
"He was never accused of taking it."
"Not to you."
Anthony went still.
"What are you talking about?"
"That was one version Dad used. Depends who he was talking to."
Anthony felt something cold settle in his stomach.
Different versions.
Different lies.
He remembered his father telling him Michael had gone to outsiders.
He remembered Uncle Ray saying Michael had panicked.
He remembered another man once muttering that Michael couldn't be trusted around money.
Anthony had never connected those things.
He had assumed details became distorted over time.
Maybe they hadn't.
Maybe distortion had been the point.
"When are you seeing Ray?" Teresa asked.
"Tomorrow."
"Anthony."
"What?"
"Don't go there wanting him to prove you right."
Anthony looked at the old photograph on his desk.
"Why not?"
"Because you might finally get what you want."
The next afternoon, Uncle Ray was sitting in a wheelchair beside a window, complaining about soup.
Anthony didn't bother with small talk.
"What happened with Michael?"
Ray looked up.
His eyes were still sharp.
"Hello to you too."
"October, twenty-three years ago."
Ray's expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
"Who died?"
"Ma."
"I know Rose died."
"Then answer me."
Ray looked toward his nurse.
"Give us five minutes, sweetheart."
The nurse left.
Ray looked back at Anthony.
"Your father said never talk about that."
"My father has been dead nine years."
"Dead men can still make trouble."
Anthony pulled a photocopy from his jacket.
One of Michael's letters.
He handed it over.
Ray read slowly.
His face changed when he reached the last line.
"Where'd you get this?"
"Ma kept them."
"Of course she did."
"What happened?"
Ray folded the paper.
"Michael made a choice."
"What choice?"
"A stupid one."
"What choice?"
Ray stared out the window.
"Your father had something lined up. Michael didn't like it."
"What?"
"You know enough not to ask details."
"I want the part about Michael."
Ray's jaw moved slightly.
"He said no."
Anthony waited.
"That's it?"
Ray gave a dry laugh.
"No. That's never it in our family."
"What did he do after he said no?"
"He made sure you didn't say yes."
Anthony stopped breathing for a moment.
"What?"
Ray looked at him.
"You weren't supposed to be protected forever, Anthony."
"Protected from what?"
Ray's expression hardened.
"Ask your brother."
Anthony leaned closer.
"Where is he?"
Ray shook his head.
"You haven't earned that yet."
Anthony stood.
The old man didn't flinch.
Then Ray added, almost casually:
"But if you still think Michael betrayed you, there's something you should see."
Anthony turned.
Ray opened the drawer beside his chair and removed a yellowed envelope.
He held it out.
Anthony took it.
Inside was a photocopy of an old statement.
A signature sat at the bottom.
Michael Caruso.
Anthony read the first paragraph.
His heart began pounding.
Michael had given information.
Names.
Dates.
Locations.
Enough information to destroy their father's arrangement.
Anthony looked up.
Ray was watching him carefully.
"You wanted proof," the old man said.
Anthony stared at Michael's signature.
Twenty-three years of anger came rushing back all at once.
Maybe the letters were excuses.
Maybe his mother had spent years trying to forgive a son who really had betrayed them.
Maybe Noah had made a hero out of a coward.
Anthony folded the document.
"Where did you get this?"
"Your father."
"You kept it?"
"Thought someday somebody might ask."
Anthony walked toward the door.
Ray called after him.
"Anthony."
He stopped.
"Read the whole thing before you decide what it means."
Anthony looked over his shoulder.
"I just did."
Ray shook his head slowly.
"No."
Then he tapped one thin finger against his temple.
"You read what your father taught you to see."
Anthony left with Michael's signature burning in his pocket.
For the first time since Noah's essay, he felt relief.
Ugly relief.
The kind that comes from finding evidence that lets you keep hating someone.
But that relief lasted less than six hours.
Because when Anthony handed the document to an attorney he trusted to authenticate it, the man called him before midnight.
"Anthony."
"What?"
"Where did you get this?"
"Doesn't matter."
"It does if you're planning to rely on it."
Anthony's grip tightened.
"Why?"
The attorney hesitated.
May you like
"Because you're missing a page."
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