Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

Except for a stretch of Virginia, Billy drove the whole way. Francesca did eventually get some sleep, too, before she felt Billy’s hand on her shoulder and awoke, disoriented, to the harsh glare of winter light off fallen snow.

“Thought you’d want to see this.” He pointed at the New York skyline. “Your hometown.”

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Billy was so obviously proud of his accomplishment, of providing this miraculous view for her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen the city from the Jersey side before. It was a stunning view, but nothing about it looked like home. “Pretty.”

“Aren’t you excited?” he said.

“Are you okay? You sleepy? Have you ever driven in snow before? What time is it?”

Yes. No. Often, on ski vacations. Right on schedule. They’d made up all four hours.

“I love you,” she said, leaning over to kiss his stubbly cheek.

“Name’s Junior Johnson, ma’am,” he said, affecting a southern drawl. “At your service.”

“Who’s Junior Johnson?”

A race car driver who’d first developed his skills evading federal agents during bootlegging days. She’d never heard of Junior Johnson ? A distant cousin, it turned out, of Billy’s mother.

“Ah,” said Francesca. “So that’s where the Van Arsdale fortune originated.”

Billy started to say something and stopped himself.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Get it out of your system now.”

“No need,” he said.

“You sure?” They’d discussed it before. She’d told him that her father had rebelled against all that, that he was a legitimate businessman. His import-export company was called The Brothers Corleone, but only out of respect for his father’s wishes. He’d been the only brother involved. “Because this isn’t discussed, okay? Anything you want to ask about all that, you ask it right now, but whatever you do, don’t embarrass me in front of my family.”

He turned toward her, his mouth open. “I don’t believe you think I would-”

“I don’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t. We’re just tired. I’m sorry. Just drive.”

Christmas Eve, yet still the morning traffic was awful. By the time they made it to Long Beach, they’d lost one of the hours they’d regained.

Two squatty men in long overcoats came out of the stone gatehouse at the entrance to the semicircle mall of houses her family owned. Billy rolled down the window. Francesca could smell the food cooking from inside her grandmother’s house, a good fifty yards away. She leaned over Billy’s lap so the guards could see her.

One of the men called her Kathy and said he was sorry, he hadn’t recognized the car, hadn’t recognized her at first either, without her glasses.

Glasses? “I’m Francesca, actually,” she said.

The man nodded. “We were told Silver Hawk, not Thunderbird. Your ma don’t know cars too well, I guess. Better get a move on. She’s been callin’ down here for hours.” The outside of her grandparents’ house-the smallest and least ostentatious on the half-circle mall, all eight of them owned by her family-was entirely undecorated. Her grandmother was still in mourning. With no lights or wreaths, the house seemed smaller. Diminished. Across the street, the bungalow where she and her family had once lived stood dark and empty. Someone had built a snowman in the front yard and hung a wreath the size of a truck tire on the door.

Before Billy could even turn into the driveway, Francesca’s family started pouring out of her grandmother’s house, led-of all people-by her twin sister, the languid bohemian one, wearing big black eyeglasses and bounding across the snowy lawn like, yes, a cheerleader.

“Hungry?” Francesca asked Billy.

“Starving,” Billy said.

“Pace yourself,” Francesca said, “but not too much, or they’ll think you don’t like them.”

She opened her door, blasted first by the shock of the cold -how could she have ever lived here, in this icebox?- and then by Kathy, whose embrace slammed her against the side of the car. They jumped up and down and squealed, none of which had been Kathy’s style for years. Though at Thanksgiving their reunion had been similar. Only when they separated to look at each other and Francesca felt the cold wind in her face did she realize she’d been crying. “You got glasses,” Francesca said.

“You’re pregnant,” Kathy said, then stepped back as the rest of the family descended.

Francesca, stunned, was enveloped in their hugs and kisses. Kathy rocked on her heels, smiling, and gave a little innocent-seeming wave, though the glasses made her expression hard to read. Francesca knew a person could get pregnant the first time, and she knew that what Billy had done wasn’t safe-pulling out of her, grabbing her hand and clutching it over him. But it was hardly a dangerous time of the month. And anyway, twins or not, how could Kathy know?

Billy hoisted a huge mesh bag of Van Arsdale oranges onto one shoulder, grapefruit onto the other. “The tree’s where?” Billy said.

“What tree?” Kathy said. She scooped up Mary, Aunt Kay’s adorable little girl, holding her against her hip, like somebody’s mom. “Wha ’twee?” Mary parroted.

“The Christmas tree,” Billy said. “To put the presents under.”

“We’re Italian, Billy-Boy,” she said. “There is no Christmas tree.”

“We Italian, Bee-Boy!” Mary shouted.

At least this was the Kathy of old. “For God’s sake,” Francesca said, “we have a Christmas tree at home. Grandma doesn’t have a Christmas tree, is all. Put it by the presepe. ”

Her grandmother clucked at the for God’s sake. Billy cocked his head.

“A whaddyacallit,” Francesca said. “A nativity scene, I guess.” She stopped herself and looked at Kathy, who understood the unspoken question and nodded: yes, the presepe was holy enough to be in keeping with Grandma Carmela’s mourning. “In the living room. You’ll see it.”

Francesca’s mother arched an eyebrow, raised her left arm, looked at her wristwatch.

“The snow,” Francesca said. “It slowed us down.”

“All the way it snowed?” her mother said.

“From D.C. on,” Francesca said, just guessing. She’d been asleep.

“No, you made real good time,” blurted a bald guy, who’d introduced himself as “Ed Federici, friend of your auntie’s.” Kathy had mentioned him in a letter; he and Aunt Connie were engaged, even though her annulment hadn’t come through yet. “I’d say. With that much snow.”

Stan Jablonsky agreed. “Don’t mind her,” he said, winking at Sandra, which Francesca always found creepy. “She’s been up since dawn, your ma, looking out the curtains for you.”

The two fiancés loaded themselves up with the rest of the packages and on the way inside began interrogating Billy about the routes he’d taken, the bridges, the shortcuts, the gas mileage.

How is it possible, a family Christmas, and those two outsiders were the only other men? Stan, who’d been engaged to her mother for three years with no date set, and the accountant who did her family’s taxes, engaged to a woman who was still married? The manliest of them all, Francesca’s father, Santino, was dead. Her grandfather, always the laughing, doting epicenter of any family gathering, was dead, too. Uncle Mike wasn’t coming (he was in either Cuba or Sicily on business-she’d heard both, maybe it was both, but for Christmas ? Grandpa Vito must be rolling over in his grave). The Hagens had moved to Las Vegas and weren’t coming either. Uncle Fredo was supposed to have been here yesterday but apparently had called and said he might not make it at all. Uncle Carlo had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.