I inhaled a shallow breath. It wasn’t as easy to talk about as I had hoped. My lip began to quiver. She reached for my hand and held it until I began to speak again.
“He’s a gun dealer. He sells guns. Bad guns. Like what that guy used when Paul got killed. He said he has huge shipments, and it’s difficult to explain. Those are the kinds of things he told me. That is his investment, guns. I asked him what kinds of guns, and they’re like machine guns. Assault weapons. Those kinds of guns are his opportunity.”
I met her gaze.
She stared.
After a long silence, I cleared my throat. “Well?”
She stared back at me in obvious disbelief. “That’s it? That’s your story? You’re done?”
I chewed against my lower lip. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t kill anybody? They weren’t robbing a bank?”
“I don’t know what they were doing. He said it wasn’t bad.”
“He was like a marine or whatever, right? Like some war veteran or something?”
My response lacked enthusiasm. “Yeah.”
“And so was that friend of his? Cap?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Cap there? With a gun or whatever?”
“Yeah.”
“And tell me again, why did you break up with him? The exact reason.”
My eyes fell to the table. “He’s not an investor. He’s a gun dealer.”
“You said that he said large shipments and it’s complicated and he sells assault weapons and machine guns?”
“Yeah.”
She coughed out a laugh. “He’s not a gun dealer. He’s a gun runner.”
“Huh?”
“I heard my dad and Philly Pete talking about a guy. A gun runner. It was a while back. Gun runners bring in guns and sell them to people. Like independent armies and stuff. People that stand up against the government or maybe against people like Saddam Hussein or whatever,” she said excitedly.
“Gun dealer, gun runner. Whatever.”
She raked her fingers through her thick hair and shook it out like something was driving her nuts. “You’re telling me that’s why you broke up? Because he sells guns? I think it’s sexy. It makes him a badass.”
Sometimes Michelle was impossible. I glared back at her. “Excuse me? They’re bad guns.”
“According to you,” she huffed.
“They’re bad. Did you not hear me? They’re like the guns that those two kids used when they shot up that school. When Paul died. Remember?”
She sighed. “I remember. Those kids were fuckin’ evil, Tee. I hate to sound like a bitch, but that wasn’t the gun’s fault. They said on the news that those kids were killing animals when they were little. They’d been seeing psychiatrists since they were ten.”
“Michael sells assault weapons. They’re the same guns that killed my cousin. They’re bad. He’s bad.”
“Tell that to the people who fuckin’ need ‘em,” she said with a laugh.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Who needs assault weapons?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Every capo, soldier or associate under your father, that’s who.”
I forced a sigh. “You know how I feel about that stuff.”
“So you say. You drive a Benz. You wear that ring. You live in your condo. You’re a mafia princess. Trust-fund baby. Whatever you want to call yourself. You don’t have a job. Where’d the money come from, Tee?”
“We’re not talking about my father. We’re talking about Michael. You asked why we broke up, and I told you.”
“Stick your head in the sand. Okay. The whole reason you got with him in the first place is because he was a badass. Now, he shows you he’s a real badass, and you run away?”
I wanted sympathy. I was getting criticized. I felt sick. “I think he deals death,” I said. “And I can’t...I just...if I would have known that at the beginning, I never would have...”
My eyes welled with tears.
When my grandfather died, I cried for a week. I was sixteen at the time. When I thought of Christmas, a birthday, a family gathering—anything—a fond memory of my grandfather came to mind. The realization that he would never again accompany me through any of those events followed, as did the tears.
As time passed, I learned to cherish my memories of him. A year later, at Christmas, when I thought of my grandfather, I smiled. I told stories about his odd sense of humor, the way he farted when he ate pork, and how he snuck cigarettes after the doctor warned him against it.
I wanted my grandfather to accompany me in life for as long as possible. His death, however, was inevitable. In the end, I accepted it and cherished my memories of him.