Page 38 of Be Courageous

“Food’s almost ready, Antonio. Go wash.” His mama shooed him out of the kitchen.

Ruby trailed him into the empty hallway. “Did you manage to fix it?”

He pictured the washing machine he’d worked on all morning while showing her the grease under his nails. “Not really. I gotta get a new part tomorrow when the stores reopen, but at least I know what’s wrong. It needs a new tub bearing. Then the cylinder won’t wobble like it’s demon possessed.”

“You’re so clever.” Ruby slipped her arms around him, using the embrace to whisper, “Did she say anything about her health?”

Figuring out the problem with the washer had been easy. Getting his mother to admit that her heart might be causing the fatigue she complained of wasn’t. “Not really. She tried telling me she was just getting old. When I said I’d pay for her doctor visits, she went all quiet on me.” Ruby didn’t seem to be listening too intently. “How was the parade?”

“Amazing.”

Her averted gaze revived the suspicion that she was hiding something. He searched her pretty face for clues, but she released him, going back into the kitchen to help his mama before he could ask her any more questions. With a shrug, Tony hurried upstairs to shower and change.

By the time he rejoined the women, the only table in the house, just big enough for four, had been set with a lace tablecloth and porcelain dishware brought from Puglia by Tony’s grandparents. Their Thanksgiving feast was set out along the kitchen counter, buffet-style.

“Cut the turkey, Tony,” Mama ordered. “It’s time to eat.”

Tony obliged, slicing up the turkey with a knife in bad need of sharpening. Mama led them in a blessing, and then they piled their plates with food and sat down to enjoy it.

His mother glanced critically at Ruby’s plate. “That’s all you’re gonna eat?”

Ruby looked down at her meal and up at Tony. She had loaded up on green beans and white meat, the kind of lean foods she usually ate to keep her figure trim for the cameras.

He rushed to intervene. “She’ll get seconds, Mama. Have some cranberry sauce on your meat,” he suggested, passing Ruby the cut-glass relish plate.

Ruby took it with an inscrutable expression, dished up a spoonful of sauce, and plopped it next to her meat.

“Potatoes,” Mama insisted, still frowning. “How’re you supposed to make babies when you’re so skinny?”

“Mama,” Tony interjected on a warning note.

Corinna piped up, “I’ll eat her portion of the potatoes. And her portion of pie, too.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Ruby surprised them by jumping up and spooning a heaping mound of mashed potatoes onto her plate, before dousing it with gravy. Tony held his breath as she retook her seat. Was she playing games? Calling his mama’s bluff?

To his surprise, she proceeded to eat every last bite of food on her plate. She even had a slice of pumpkin pie.

An hour later, they lay across his bed, too replete to do anything but take a nap. Ruby lay with her head on Tony’s chest, talking on her cell phone to her sister and then to her two-and-a half-year-old nephew, Ryan, who was astonishingly verbal for a toddler.

Tony wanted to speak to his commander. “Is Monty there?”

With a curious glance at him, Ruby asked Opal if she could put her husband on the phone, and then she relinquished the call to Tony.

“Evening, sir.” Tony greeted his SEAL Team Six commander with a mix of familiarity and formality. As his brother-in-law, he got to call him Monty, but never on Dam Neck Naval Annex where the team trained. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

“Great. And yours?”

“Excellent. My mama outdid herself this year.”

“So did Opal. We’ve got my folks visiting.”

“That’s what I heard.” He cut to the chase. “Actually, I have a question for you. Did you ever know a SEAL named John Staskiewicz?”

The silence on Monty’s end supplied an answer even before his CO confirmed it. “We served in Afghanistan together. Why do you ask?”

“You know he’s dead, right?”

“What?”

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