The family last got together at their family ranch in the spring of ’06. Mike Profaci, tired from a three-hundred-mile drive along I-15 from Calgary to Great Falls, pulled his RV into the yard fronting the house just as a warm May-wind whipped through the Engelmanns lining the packed gravel driveway that cut through the forest from the Interstate to the Lucchese casa-di-famiglia.
His mother stepped onto the porch, her familiar gingham apron flapping in the breeze, a warm smile on her face and arms opened wide.
“Michael, I am so sorry about Julietta.”
He nodded, his eyes narrowing, and waved his children to her. “Say hello to your Nonnina.”
An hour later, feeling hungry, he descended the stairs to the dining room. The kids were in the study playing with his stepfather, who embraced the role of grandfather with enthusiasm, and laughter rang out through the open doors as he teased and cajoled them. Mike stuck his head around the doors.
“Heya, Papa Tony.” He was always Papa Tony, not Papa. He was a big man, with a paunch hanging over his thick belt, and a brown face that smiled a lot, while never looking like it really was smiling.
“Mikey, my boy,” he replied, “sorry, I wasn’t here to greet you. A mare on the south range. You know how it is.”
“Hey, think nothing of it. Let’s eat. Then after, we talk.”
“Michael,” the old man said quietly, “the children. Are they over what happened?”
“It’s six months. They hurt. But you know time. It heals.”
“Terrible business. Did you deal with it?”
“Yeah, one punk took a week to die.”
“I’d have cut his minchia off and fed it to him.”
“I did.”
After dinner, they packed the kids off to bed, and listened to their Nonnina crooning Sicilian songs to them as they sat before the empty fireplace, large tumblers of bourbon in their hands.
“I was meaning to ask you, Papa Tony, did you like my Julietta?”
“Michael, she was your wife. Of course I loved her.”
“Because when I was interrogating those punks, one of them said a curious thing. He called her ‘puttana cagna ebrea’. Which is funny. Only three people knew she was Jewish. Me, mama and you.”
Michael stood and drew his gun. “You had her killed. You couldn’t stand the stain of a Jew in the family.”
“Michael, you have this all wrong.”
A shot rang out.
Michael staggered, blood dripping from a wound in his neck. He turned to see his mother standing there, a Saturday night special smoking in her hand.
“It was me, Michael,” she said. “You brought shame on the family. Tony was a hero for taking us in when your father died, and I will not have his name dragged down by some cagna ebrea.”
“The children. Look after them, Tony. I love you,” she said and turned the gun on herself.
Tony fell to his knees and cried.
