Page 28 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
But Tommy heard something else. He looked at him. “You peeped into our bedroom?”
TJ realized he had said too much. “Yes sir,” he said quietly.
Tommy and Grace glanced at each other. Tommy refused to lock his bedroom door whenever he and Grace were in bed because they had rules that had to be followed. “Didn’t we tell you about opening our bedroom door without knocking, Thomas?”
“Yes sir.”
“And why did we tell you that?”
“Because you said you wasn’t locking your door in your own house.”
“And?”
“And because we know the rules,” said TJ. Then he thought up an excuse. “I forgot to stop. So I kept opening it.”
“Don’t even try that, TJ,” said Grace.
“Do it again,” said Tommy, “and I’m going to forget to stop when I start kicking your butt.”
GG laughed, but TJ knew his father was serious. They were a close family, but both of his parents were unrelentingly strict about their children obeying the rules and doing what was expected of them. They didn’t play.
Especially his father, who was still to this day known as the enforcer for the Gabrini Crime Family that was headed up by his Uncle Sal. Although TJ wasn’t supposed to ever know that nor ever mention or acknowledge that. “Yes sir,” he said, but he stopped hugging his father.
“I don’t peep, Daddy,” GG said with her adorable smile as Tommy began carrying her to the breakfast table.
“It’s easy to behave when Mommy and Daddy are around,” said TJ.
“You didn’t behave when Mommy and Daddy were in bed,” GG fired back at her brother.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is the same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“He’s right,” said Tommy. “Your mother and I spoke with Miss Hemsley. She told us about your excessive talking. Have you been behaving since we spoke to her?”
“Yes sir,” said GG, nodding her head vigorously. “I’ve been real good.Mommy’s been checking every day. Haven’t you, Mommy?”
“Yes I have,” Grace said as she began to plate breakfast for Tommy and herself. “Miss Hemsley said she’s been doing much better. She had no issues with her while you were gone.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Tommy. “You have the gift of gab, but not in the classroom when the teacher wants silence. You obey your teacher.”
“Except if the teacher tells me to do something that I know is wrong,” said GG.
Tommy and Grace smiled. That was what he loved most about Grace. He was out of town on business more than he wanted to be, but she was that always-present influence in their children’s lives that taught them well. And even though their oldest daughter Destiny had a baby out of wedlock, she had enough of Grace within her to not let that setback stop her either. She went to college, graduated, and was moving forward still. Though aimlessly at the moment. “You’re absolutely right,” Tommy said to GG. “You’re to always do the right thing.”
“And I do, Daddy, I promise.”
“You’d better,” he said, then smiled at her and kissed her. She beamed as he sat her back down on her feet.
“What time did you get home, Daddy?” TJ asked him as he and GG sat back in their seats while their father sat at thehead of the table. “You weren’t home when I went to sleep last night.”
“I got in . . . What time was it, Grace?”
“Just after two this morning.”
“Just after two.”
