Blue Smoke Read Free Page A

daughter. “But we’ll need to be careful, for as long as it takes. We’re not going to be able to go to the beach like we planned over Labor Day weekend. If the insurance isn’t enough, then we’ll have to go into our savings, or take out a loan.”
    “Remember this,” Bianca added. “The people who work for us have no job now, not until we can reopen. Some of them have families. We aren’t the only ones hurt by this.”
    “Pete and Theresa and the baby,” Reena said. “They might not have any clothes or furniture or anything. We could give them some.”
    “Good, that’s a positive thing. Alexander, eat your eggs,” Bianca added.
    “I’d rather have Cocoa Puffs.”
    “Well, I’d rather have a mink coat and a diamond tiara. Eat. There’s going to be a lot of work to do. You’ll all do your part.”
    “Nobody. Nobody,” Gibson added with a jab of his finger toward Xander, “goes inside until you have permission.”
    “Poppi,” Fran murmured. “We have to tell him.”
    “It’s too early to call him with news like this.” Bianca pushed food around her plate. “I’ll call him soon, and my brothers.”
    “How could it have happened? How can they tell how?” Bella asked.
    “I don’t know. It’s their job. Ours is to put it back together.” Gibson lifted his coffee cup. “And we will.”

    “The door was open.”
    Gibson turned his gaze to Reena. “What?”
    “The door, the front door, was open.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I saw. I saw the door was open, and the lights—the fire in the window. Maybe Pete forgot to lock it.”
    This time it was Bianca’s hand that reached out and covered her husband’s. Before she could speak, the doorbell rang.
    “I’ll get it.” She rose. “I think it’s going to be a very long day. If anyone’s tired, they should try to sleep now.”
    “Finish eating,” Gibson ordered. “Take care of the dishes.”
    Fran rose as he did, came around the table to put her arms around him. At sixteen she was slim and graceful, with a femininity Reena recognized and envied.
    “It’s going to be all right. We’ll make it even better than it was before.”
    “That’s my girl. Counting on you. All of you,” he added. “Reena? Come with me a minute.”
    As they walked out of the kitchen together, they heard Bella’s irritated, “Saint Francesca.” Gibson merely sighed, then nudged Reena into the TV room. “Um, listen, baby, if you don’t feel well I can spring you from KP.”
    A part of her wanted to jump at the chance, but guilt was just a little heavier. “I’m okay.”
    “Just say something if you’re . . . not.”
    He gave her an absent pat, then wandered off toward the front of the house.
    She watched him. He always looked so tall to her, but now his shoulders were bowed. She wanted to do what Fran had done—say the right thing, put her arms around him, but it was too late.

2
    She meant to go right back into the kitchen, to be good. Like Fran. But she heard Pete’s voice, and it sounded like he was crying. She heard her father, too, but couldn’t understand the words.
    So she moved quietly forward toward the living room.
    Pete wasn’t crying, but he looked like he might, any second. His long hair fell over the sides of his face as he stared down at the hands he clenched in his lap.
    He was twenty-one years old—they’d given him a little party at Sirico’s, just the family. Because he’d worked there since he was fifteen, he was family. And when he’d gotten Theresa pregnant and had to get married, her parents had let them have the upstairs apartment dirt cheap.
    She knew that because she’d heard Uncle Paul talking about it with her mother. Eavesdropping was something she had to do penance for—a lot. But it always seemed worth a couple extra Hail Marys.
    Now she could see her mother sitting beside Pete, her hand on his leg. Her father sat on the coffee table—which they were never allowed to do—facing him. She still couldn’t