Author's notes: As always, thank you to those who've favorited or commented on the story. Reviews, etc., are always, always very welcome.
A note about this chapter: there were differences between the East Coast (NYC) and West Coast (Seattle) variants of COVID-19 in March 2020. I have tried to write the East Coast variant as faithfully as possible.
Chapter 5: Friday the 13th
Daisy let out a cross between a moan and a groan, twisting and turning in her crumpled, moist bed sheets. Once semi-conscious, she felt sweat coating her skin and glimpsed the beginnings of Brooklyn twilight through the window. The pain that had nested within her temples had migrated into her stomach and intestines. A powerful wave of nausea passed over her, and her right hand reactively flew to her mouth to stifle a gag. Rolling to the right side of the bed to avoid disturbing the inactive men – one in the corner and the other against the night table – she tried to creep to the ensuite yet was forced to tiptoe-run from the erupting vomit that was moving steadily up her esophagus. Managing to click the door shut, an amalgamation of orange, red, and brown fountained past her lips over the toilet seat and onto the floor. On all fours, she was frozen in front of the lavatory, heaving as she evacuated her gastrointestinal tract. In what seemed like minutes afterward, she spat the last of it and flushed what had ended up in the water. Wheezing a little, she looked around to the biohazard streaking the seat, part of the sink, and floor. In an effort to clean it up, she grabbed a dark towel and saturated it in the sink. The retching as well as the sound of the faucet turning on alerted the occupants in the bedroom area. As she continued to mop her vomit and bile, footsteps approached the door.
"Cat-face, are you in there?"
The ill woman winced upon hearing Luigi's concerned voice. Summoning the little strength that she had, Daisy whispered, "I'm okay, kerido. Go back to sleep. Just ... using the toilet."
A soft thud, as if he had put his hand on the wood, echoed in the chamber. "I ... I heard retching."
She focused on cleaning up the last of the putrid puddle on the floor. "Go back to sleep, love."
From underneath the door, she saw a faint light flicker on; realizing that Salvatore had awaken, she worked faster to finish erasing any remnant of what had occurred. With every scrub, the jostling of her body, combined with the pain in both stomach and head, provoked another heave, and she could not hide her cry from the next wave of nausea. As she lifted the seat for better access, the door pushed open and light turned on to reveal a panicked Luigi and unreadable Salvatore. She tried to put out her hand to keep either from coming closer, but it ended up slamming against the left side of the porcelain bowl.
"Jesus Christ, Daisy!" cried Luigi who took a step forward toward her kneeling figure when a pair of masculine hands kept him in place. Angered by his maternal uncle's action, he spun around, ready to yell, only for him to be dragged backward. Salvatore stepped forward, shut the door, and locked it from the inside. "What the hell are you doing, Zio?!" he rasped from the bedroom. "Let me in! Now!" The doorknob clicked back and forth, powerless to properly turn.
The former priest, who had tossed off his black suitcoat in the corner, ignored the younger man's demands and sank next to the moaning woman. "Rilassati, sobrinha ..." he murmured, putting his hand to her forehead. He reclined Daisy's weakened body against the drawers underneath the sink, slid the thermometer into her mouth, and finished washing the acidic streaks that had begun to dry. Even though he heard Luigi's footsteps move away from door, Salvatore inwardly winced at his inevitable and immediate return. The high-pitched beep had brought him out of his mental preparations for a forced entry by an irate, frightened plumber.
He did not need to hold the number to the light – one hundred three point six.
Rapid footsteps returned and, as he had predicted, Luigi's drill bit began to clink and whirr against the screws of the knob. "Niputi, stop!" he commanded firmly. "You're scaring Daisy."
"Like hell," he bit out as he recommenced unbolting the first of two fastenings.
"Luigi, you cannot come in here. You'll be exposed!" The plumber let the clink of the first screw landing on the floor be his reply. Making sure that Daisy's body would not slump to the ground or against the sharp edges of the cabinet, Salvatore stood up and calmly approached the door so that his lips were millimeters from it. "Luigi Gabriele Isidoro Masciarelli, I will give you one warning. Do not continue."
"You think I'm afraid, Sal? Huh? That might work at the shop or with your compari, but not when you have my Daisy!"
"You should be," he retorted in a chilly, almost unrecognizable tone.
Undeterred, Luigi set to work on the second and final screw, inserting the drill bit into its small cross. The drill birred to life as Daisy gasped loudly, "Please, kerido, stop."
Releasing the power drill trigger, he responded in a high-pitched tone, "Sweetie, I can't! You're sick! We ... we need to get you to a hospital! I'm tired of dancing around the fucking truth here ... You have it! There're a thousand cases now in New York and it's killed another thousand in Italy. You want to be a fucking statistic?!"
"Precisely, niputi," interjected Sal who moved to grab a washcloth from the bathroom rack and wet it with ice-cold water. "It's contagious. You ... have to take care of your house." He bent down to place it on Daisy's forehead.
They both heard the other man scoff incredulously. "Oh, fuck – You know, I am so sick of the goddamned Italian patriarch bullshit! You know what, Salvatore Rigassi, why don't you take care of your famiglia, huh? I'm sure Joey-B and the Nosepicker are gonna button down the hatches in contaminated New York! In fact, I hear he's got a lovely property in Florida, right next to fuckin' Mar-a-Lago! Hats off to them 'cause they're taking paesani now!"
Though he subdued a chuckle at his nephew's colorful description of Fat Tony and the Padrino, Salvatore barked an obligatory, "Mind your tone, kid. And you're the one who wanted to get married. It's not all wedded bliss."
"Yeah, no shit! But you have my fiancée in there! Mind your family, and I'll mind mine!"
Salvatore's neutral face immediately shifted, putting a calming, almost apologetic hand on Daisy's face before leaping to his feet to move within an inch of the door. "Chiudi quella cazzo di bocca! È la mia casa, allora mostra rispetto per me, bambino!" he exploded. Both Luigi and Daisy became quiet at the mafioso's outburst, the latter being especially stunned at the Giuseppesque rebuke of his nephew. Recognizing that he had upset the ailing woman on the floor, he took several deep breaths and, in his pants pocket, fingered the pack of cigarettes and lighter next to his rosary. "Luigi," he started again in a more normal voice, "I am taking care of my ... famiglia. But I will not have you sick, nor will I have you waking up Josh! He's a child ... let him be one." Quickly glancing at the fatigued woman on the floor, he added, "And Daisy ... needs to rest now. That's the only thing that can help her."
Several thumps suddenly emanated from somewhere nearby, and both the Sicilian and the clammy, auburn-haired lawyer could perceive whispers and pleads from Luigi and the high-pitched inquiries from a sleepy Josh. The older man's brown eyes focalized on the appearance of cat paws underneath the door, followed by the meows of a troubled Sasha and Fyodor. A second, heavier pair of footsteps came closer, and they recognized Miles's worried voice asking what's going on and who's in the bathroom – it's not even six thirty. Letting out a few swear words in Sicilian, Salvatore called out, "Miles, it's alright; Luigi will take Josh back to bed."
"Screw you, I'm not going anywhere!" snapped Luigi.
"Damn it, niputi!" hissed Salvatore.
The blond engineer let out a heavy sigh. "Look, I don't know what's going on here. I ..."
"Daisy's ill! Miles, we need to get her to Mount Sinai. Sal can watch Josh, and I'll get the car ready."
The former priest sighed while Miles fell silent to weight all options, unwilling to make a rash decision in the heat of the moment. "Luigi, I won't open this door. Don't test my resolve."
Unable to control himself further, Luigi yelled, "Don't test mine! Because, right now, I have three weapons at my disposal: first, that thermometer that I know you have; second, a phone call to the cops; third and most important, I have one Giuseppe Masciarelli on speed dial!"
They heard another sigh come from Salvatore, this time from the ground next to Daisy as he had bent down to readjust the slipping cold cloth upon her brow. "Do what you have to do."
Steeping his hands together in the living room, Miles asked the man behind the door, "Just ... so I understand your reasoning, why won't you take Daisy to a hospital? What was her temperature this morning? Also, you, uh, do realize that Luigi's already been exposed."
At the angry and terse exchanges in English between the adults, Josh's lip began to tremble, and he let out a wail, alarming the now circling cats at the door. Luigi immediately picked the distraught child up and tried to calm him in soft Italian. From his position on the bathroom floor, the older man said in a tired voice, "Miles, in my ... current profession, I do a lot of listening. Making judgments on what the other guy doesn't say. Like you, I listened to the press conferences from yesterday and a couple days ago. You're a kid that functions a lot in binaries – ones and zeroes. It's probably what makes you phenomenal in mechanics and tech. It's no different in politics."
Despite continuing to calm a crying Josh, Luigi failed to suppress an eye roll at his maternal uncle's cryptic response. "What a crock of Mafia shit ..." he muttered indignantly in English.
Ignoring his friend, Miles considered the mafioso's words, hands still steepled in thought. "I've been following the numbers on the West Coast, Italy, and Spain. I'd follow China's if the government wasn't lying through its teeth about its count. After roughly two weeks from the first reported cases, there's a doubling effect; after three weeks, it's exponential. Same with the number of deaths. If ... If the math's consistent, then it's about to get ugly in New York and throughout the country. Really ugly." The occupants in both the master bedroom, save the sniffling Josh, and bathroom became eerily quiet. He went on after a minute, "Even with Presbyterian, NYU, and Mount Sinai, there's going to be triage. There has to be. And, like you, Salvatore, I heard the, uh, distinction between the 'young and healthy' versus the 'old and vulnerable.'"
"They're all lying, kid," mumbled the older man.
Having followed both men's independent, yet shared conclusion, the plumber stared caustically at Miles and the closed bathroom door. "Wait, let me get this straight: you don't even want to try to get help? Oh, Daisy's thirty, so, what, go with God?!"
"Lou," enjoined the blond engineer softly, "what I think Salvatore's saying ... what I am saying ... is that no one's coming. When the numbers have doubled, it's the threshold – the point of no return. You sat in the same statistics class that I did. You know the math as well as I do. And because it's now statistical, the doctors ... are not going to use limited equipment for someone whom they're counting on to survive without it."
Luigi shook his head violently in response. "No. NO. I – I – I refuse ... I refuse to accept that! We ... We don't know that for sure! Plenty of young people have died from this thing – just, just, just look at Italy! Viruses don't distinguish between young and old. You sat in the same history class that I did, Miles! I seem to recall some shit about the Spanish flu, measles, polio, smallpox," he suddenly turned toward the door, "AIDS! And each goddamned time, everyone thought that there was some magical population who didn't get it!"
"No, we'll all get it eventually. You've been exposed, and so have I. So has Salvatore. The virus's spreading way too fast to be contained. But the numbers show that most people will recover. They won't die. The immuno- or cardio-compromised and the elderly are, right now, the most susceptible of dying. That's what the math is showing right now." He exhaled, looking at young Josh who was laying his head against his uncle's shoulder, "There's no data on kids yet."
"Fucking perfetto," spat the taller man.
"That being said," he added, who took a few steps closer to the door, "we're not doctors, Salvatore. Daisy's sick, and I don't know how even to begin to treat her. My doctorate's in computer engineering, not virology."
"And that's why we need a hospital!" snapped Luigi, who glared once more at the bathroom door. "You can pray to Saint Luke all you fucking want, Zio, but even he's saying, 'Jesus, man, heal thyself!'"
"Can we ask someone?" interjected the blond again. "You know, a healthcare provider?"
The plumber rolled his eyes once more, rocking the now quiet Josh against him. "Yeah, that's an idea." Narrowing his eyes toward the closed door, he commented, "I hear hospitals have one or two of them on staff."
"We can't risk the population. I won't allow Daisy to leave this house, and I won't allow either of you to be exposed more than you already have," answered Salvatore calmly, whose voice seemed closer to them. "I had to ... leave yesterday. I've got that on my conscience. But I'm old enough where one regret among many means little."
"There are virtual ways." Abruptly, Miles held up a finger and ran downstairs, returning under ninety seconds with his open laptop and Linux phone in his hands. "Daisy's law firm gave her an insurance package, I'd imagine. So let's see ... Mount Sinai. Yeah, they have ..." His hopeful face fell. "Their appointments are currently limited to those unable to see doctors in person. But they do have a phone number to call." Setting his laptop on the dresser, he dialed the number and pressed both the green key and speaker.
"Hello, you've reached the Mount Sinai Information Number for the SARS-CoV-2019 virus, known currently as COVID-19. For English, press 1; para español, oprima 2; 中文服务 请按3 ..." Immediately, Miles pushed the "1" key. "Thank you. If you would like to speak with a healthcare provider for symptoms such as headache, fever greater than one hundred one degrees Fahrenheit, chills, and sore throat, press 9. Please note that in order to better service those in greatest need, a healthcare provider's referral will be required for all in-person or emergency room visits." Without waiting for approval, he selected "9" and waited. "Thank you. Your current wait time is seven hours and seventeen minutes. Please stay on the line, and someone will assist you as soon as possible."
Luigi's pupils enlarged in horror. "Seven hours at six-thirty in the morning?! T-Try dialing again in either Italian or Spanish. New Yorkers tend to panic at a sneeze."
Miles repeated the action, waiting an extra thirty seconds for Italian. " … Grazie. Il suo tempo di attesa attuale è di cinque ore e tri minuti. Per favore, rimanga in linea e qualcuno lo aiuterà il prima possibile."
"Jesus Christ, the whole goddamn city's on the line," rasped the tall man.
Hanging up the Italian-language line, his friend twisted toward him and the uncomprehending Josh. "Do you want to try Spanish?"
Defeated, he shook his head. "No. It'll probably be even worse. Even in New York, fewer people speak Italian than Spanish." Needing to walk away for a moment, the plumber gently carried his nephew out of the room to put him back to bed.
Now alone on his side of the door with two chirping cats scratching their demands to enter, Miles inched up to the door. "Daisy can't be in the bathroom for days on end."
"I agree, kid. Once you and Luigi leave, I will take her back to bed. We will need to section off this area. Luigi and you can take the downstairs; I'll remain with her. I've been the most exposed at this point, and I do know a thing or two about caring for the sick. Priesthood 101, as you kids say." He halted at the approaching, angry footsteps of his maternal nephew who had paused inches from the door. "Luigi," he addressed him, "you ... need to keep the shop running. For all of us. Now that there are no sports or major social gatherings, you're my hope. D'you understand, niputi? And as for me, I will make certain Daisy makes it out of this. Right now, she ismy priority, followed closely by you, Josh, and Miles." When Luigi failed to respond, Salvatore went on, "Miles, you're right that ... I'm not a doctor. I will need help – knowledge. We can't risk bringing someone to her, otherwise I would. And even then, I don't think regular doctors really know more than we do. But what I can do is get whatever we need. Whatever you need, niputi."
"Zio, I've been exposed as much as you have," Luigi growled, albeit less harshly that had been his previous rejoinders.
"The money that you'll need to support Daisy, the money I'll need to use for our survival depend on you keeping the shop running. There are no alternatives. I tried. Last night."
He closed his blue eyes in realization. "Joey-B."
"The less you're exposed in the future, the better. Right now, niputi, you – the both of you – need to trust me."
Miles and the plumber exchanged a mutually uncertain look, wordlessly expressing their fears and mentally listing potential options. "Alright," the latter conceded. "We'll try it your way, Zio. We'll need to keep Josh calm, though; if you ... isolate completely, he may react ... badly."
"Agreed. The cats, too. I'll do my best to limit his exposure. However, he can't be around Daisy."
Luigi sighed, nodding. "And ... the guys at the shop – several have quit because they have impaired family members at home. I anticipate more once this starts getting really bad. We're going to need sanitizer and protective gear. I'm not going to expose them to the virus without some sort of protection, and I guarantee that the union won't give us shit." He turned to Miles, "Can you find out where to get this stuff?"
The blond gave a faint nod. "Yeah. We may ... have to bend the rules by pretending to be medical suppliers or something, but I think I can figure something out." His eyes then fixated on an imaginary point along the floor, which signaled to his best friend that he was mulling over another issue. "Lou, you still have that ticketing system that I implemented, right?"
"Yeah, we've been using it. Why?"
He stared meaningfully at Luigi. "Everything can be and needs to be contactless."
"Understood."
Exhausted, amber-colored eyes blinked open to scan the empty master bedroom in the gray daylight. Groaning from the bone-crushing fatigue, body aches, and violent shivers that had begun at the very moment of awareness, Daisy tried to sit up when she felt a warm hand keep her in place. Pivoting her neck toward it, she spied Salvatore, who was sitting in one of the dining room chairs, a Greek-language copy of Sextus Empiricus's Pros mathematikous in his lap. Her gaze then fixated upon a pair of black reading glasses slumped lowly across the bridge of his narrow nose.
"I thought I was going to get lucky enough not to need a pair," he attempted to joke. "Alas, God gave me the bad news last fall."
She nodded a little, then croaked, "What's the book about?"
Gesturing to the object in question, he shrugged. "Absolute skepticism of sorts; suspend judgment about everything. Don't take anything for granted."
"Even God?" she teased.
Salvatore chuckled good-naturedly, though Daisy thought that she detected a hint of bitterness sandwiched between his giggles. Placing his red satin ribbon bookmark into the gutter, he gently closed the text. "How are you feeling, sobrinha?"
"I'm …" she winced in pain, alarming the man seated next to her bed. As she decided that moving was ill-advised and settled back onto the pillows, he retrieved the ever-present thermometer. Like a petulant child, she whined upon seeing it, "Do I have to?"
"Humor me," he merely replied, inching closer to insert it into her mouth. Permitting it entry, she held still while the device measured her internal temperature. Nevertheless, her amber orbs wandered along the walls and furniture of the room, zeroing on the shut door, unidentified suitcases in the corner, and a pile of pillows and a comforter next to them. Once the thermometer signaled that it had a final reading, Sal provided a reassuring upturn of his lips and reclaimed it. His eyes became unreadable as he glanced at the number.
"What is it?" asked Daisy.
"One hundred two." He rose to clean it in the bathroom sink. Letting her eyes close to rest, she heard him turn on the faucet to sanitize the device and to wash his hands thoroughly. A moment later, he re-emerged with a glass of water and sat down next to her in the chair. Handing her the glass, he ordered in a soft voice, "Drink. With your fever, you need the fluids."
Sipping the water and flinching at the cool contact against the burning in her esophagus, she queried, "Wh-Where's Luigi? Miles? And what time is it?"
"Miles's downstairs with Josh, Luigi's at work," he answered, checking his designer watch, "and it's a little past one in the afternoon."
"Work," she repeated, setting the glass on the night table. "S-Salvatore, would you please hand me my phone? I need to make sure ... that there are no emergency calls."
Salvatore stared at her over his dime-store reading glasses. "Sobrinha, you are no condition. You ... we are in quarantine. Even if you wanted to work, you have a hundred-and-two-degree fever. Your job is to recover." In response, she eyed him with an annoyed look. "Luigi will be back at dinner time."
"You weren't here last night. Where were you?" she queried with a hint of resentment.
"Out," he answered cryptically. "It doesn't concern you, so don't worry about it. Just rest now."
"On the contrary," rasped Daisy, abruptly switching to her native Judeo-Spanish, twisting her head to glower at the man displaying a neutral expression. "Why isn't Luigi here? I know him; he'd never have left my side ... willingly." Her eyes narrowed in defiance. "Fever or no, virus or no, I will make your life hell if you've sent him away to be exposed. You are in my house."
Although he said nothing in response, the mafioso's eyes changed from chocolate brown to near black. Daisy, however, rebuffed his subtle attempt at intimidation, matching his silent intensity and waiting for him to make his move. The Sicilian patriarch studied the stubborn woman; her forebearers were legendary for their ingenuity as well as obduracy, thousands of years of resistance to assimilation and conversion being vital to their history and culture. As even the most anti-Semitic of priests, whom he had had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting decades ago at Carroll College, acknowledged, there was a distinct reason why Jesus Christ had originated from the descendants of King David and the Jews. If the men were the public faces of Judaism, the women were their moral and spiritual backbones. Jewish rumor or joke, depending on who told it, asserted that the women ruled the home and thus the culture with either a velvet glove or an iron fist.
Nonetheless, his Sicilian male pride refused to back down to a woman.
Scratching on the door ended the Cold War between the two. Salvatore deliberately rose to let the cat in the room. The Russian Empress stretched along her spine, then sauntered past the threshold and, observing where the humans had been located, hopped onto the bed. While the older man returned to his chair, Sasha found a warm space around the woman's knees and elongated herself to cover them. Satisfied that she was comfortable, the feline draped her black, bushy tail over Daisy's right thigh and began to purr softly.
Their attentions having been redirected to the Tsarina, the Sicilian inched closer to give her a few welcomed pets. "I think she's found a new spot," he spoke in English, moving to stroke the fur underneath her chin. "And Fyodor's going to get fat from the scraps that Josh feeds him." Daisy did not reply; instead, she looked blankly at Sasha's relaxed form. After a few scratches of her black ears, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I'm not your enemy, mujer. I'm not Luigi's enemy, either. Far from it. I ..." He lifted his eyes to her hardened ones. "You're my family. I would never knowingly or willingly put you – any of you – at risk."
"Then why are you here? Why now?"
Daisy watched as Salvatore removed his reading glasses and set them next to the book on the night table, his colored bicep becoming momentarily visible from beneath his violet Carroll College-logoed tee-shirt. Facing her squarely, he said, "Because I can be."
Nodding, she looked away, refocusing her attention on Sasha, who was giving herself a bath. "You know, you hurt him," she replied after a few minutes of awkward silence. "Luigi. He'd never say it openly, but ... you've taken the time to visit Mario, Peach, and Josh. You've never done the same with us – him. I realize ... as an outsider, as a Jew, that my presence must ... pose a special problem for you – for the Masciarellis and the, uh, famiglia. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing him."
The Sicilian's mouth slackened, visibly taken aback by the woman's words. "That's ... that's not ..." Unable to verbalize what he was thinking, he turned away a little, and his skin changed from an almostbrown to a pale rose. Daisy leaned back against the pillows and shut her pensive eyes. Her eyelids fluttered rhythmically for a few moments before becoming still. Soundlessly, he slid the chair closer to the bed so that he could adjust the top of the covers. Was that the real reason why she was so hesitant to marry Luigi? While it was true to an extent that her presence did pose a problem for the Famiglia, it had nothing to do with her ethnicity. Unlike previous generations of mafiosi who had resisted assimilation and intercultural matches, many of the so-called 'Snowflakes,' the newest crop of compari, dated Jewish, Slavic, Irish, and Latina girls, some even marrying them with their mafioso fathers' or uncles' blessing. Rather, it was her reputed 'masculine' toughness that gave her the side-eye by Joey-B and some of the capos. Instead of working a simple job to support the family and be home by five per preparare cena, she made more money than her fiancé and worked long hours at a prestigious law firm. They saw it as emasculating and inappropriate for a good Italian ragazzo of his family's pedigree.
Yet having been his teacher, school counselor, and confidant throughout his formative years, he knew his maternal nephew would never have been happy with an Italian housewife.
Mario and Gabby would have been proud of both of their sons.
In one of their last conversations, the bedridden Gabriella, who knew that her end would arrive in a month or two, begged him to help her imagine what her sons' lives would be like in adulthood. Through shared sobs, he speculated that Mario would be into sports of some sort and married to a girl in the neighborhood and Luigi, who was every bit her and Giuseppe's son, would be a successful engineer. He held back on marriage, somehow knowing that the latter could be like him and Joe – different. Despite her natural tendency toward the conservative values of Bensonhurst, Gabriella's answer stunned him, even decades after her death. "Mario's very much like his father and grandfather, fratinu, even if my husband doesn't want to admit it. He'll be a hero like them. And it takes a strong woman to deal with that – no woman in this neighborhood could ever hope to fill those shoes. As for Luigi, he's like ... me, like Joe. Don't ... Don't let this place ... take his mind. He won't be satisfied with someone who won't challenge him."
Someone. Salvatore could not help but note that she had deliberately used a neutral noun instead of the traditional woman, as she had done with Mario. When he had returned to Bensonhurst in 2011, he began to hear rumors of his youngest nephew's Tinder dates – men intermixed with women. At first, he had attributed them to the busybody Napoli donne on 67th Street, as Luigi had not shown the same inclinations that he had as a teenager, though he was a dedicated ballerino prior to going to high school. When he had happened to overhear one of Jackie's guys' wisecracks about Daisy being his beard following her takedown of John Bowser, the normally placid priest retreated to his clerical office to hyperventilate.
Joe was a late bloomer compared to him and Mario.
He watched the sleeping auburn-haired sfacciata for an unknown length of time. Popular Masciarelli and, at times, Rigassi lore had it that his late sister was a simple Sicilian homemaker for the hero firefighter. In reality, her intelligence had so eclipsed Mario's, his, and even Giuseppe's that he felt fury at her 'settling' for the scrawny plumber who built himself up on her labor and loneliness. Had she not married right after high school, had she not felt more pressure to have a family before the Campisi disease claimed its newest victim from at least five or six generations of women, Salvatore was certain that she would have been a distinguished mathematics professor.
Had she not been a Sicilian woman named Rigassi.
He grinned at the precipitous memory of Daisy's introduction to his family at the house on 62nd Street and the shared thought between he and his former lover that she was a more combative Jewish version of a certain curly-haired Siciliana. Peach was prim, proper, even if she matched Mario's Abruzzese temperament, and very Northern; he had nothing against her or their marriage, which had been at once tumultuous and fruitful, but there were times when he questioned whether she was more Franco-British than Italian. Daisy, on the other hand, was the quintessential Amazonian princess; in spite of the dangers, she stood up to hardened mafiosi who balked at a woman's power. She was independent, having her own career, money, and an endless list of options. A lesser man would steer clear of her; a proud man might try to dominate her. Yet a man like Luigi would only appreciate and cultivate the treasure which he had come across.
"Salvatore?"
To his surprise, his brown eyes blinked open to a questioning Miles standing a meter in front of him. Sitting up in his chair properly and stretching from his previously slumped form, the Sicilian briefly glanced through the window, in which the light of the afternoon had changed to the glow of early evening. "Yeah, kid, yeah." Both men glanced at the still sleeping Daisy, whose skin color had once again become pallid.
"Josh's sleeping downstairs," the blond began, running a hand wearily through his hair. "He was grumpy earlier, but the video games and cartoons helped, I think. Luigi's not back yet. I, uh, can't cook to save my life. Normally, I'd order takeout, but ..."
Nodding a little, Sal stared at the sleeping woman and stirring Neva Masquerade, who extended her paw to indicate that the humans had interrupted her nap. "Miles ... you sure that you don't want to be at Yoshi's? Four-year-old boys, let alone Masciarelli boys, can be a handful."
He shrugged. "He's not that bad, honestly. As for Yoshi, he and Birdo would let me in, especially now. But ..." Lifting his brown eyes to look at the older man evenly, he added, "Luigi's my, uh, fratello. And I don't know where my other fratello is."
"It's, uh, Sonic, right?" Miles gave a slight nod in response, to which Salvatore regarded him with sympathy. "It's not easy being separated from family, not knowing where they are. Moving his eyes to the bedridden woman, he went on, "It's a terrible feeling."
"Yeah," he agreed in a small voice.
Before the sitting man could continue the conversation, Daisy's phone buzzed and rang incessantly on the dresser. As he was closer to the device, the engineer ambled across the room to see who was calling; his eyes widened at the ten voicemails from caller ID 'Nimrod' throughout the day and a missed call from 'Papai.' At his subtle change in body language, Sal inquired, "What is it, kid? Who's calling?"
Having a brief internal debate as to how much to tell a mafioso about someone else's private phone messages, he finally spoke, "It's Daisy's family, I think. Perhaps we should ..."
Salvatore brusquely rose from his chair and held out his hand. "She needs rest right now. And aren't they three hours behind in San Francisco? It's," he turned over his wrist for the time, "a little after four here, so it's one o'clock in California."
Miles frowned in confusion, and his heels inched closer to the dresser. "So? Either she or Luigi will call them back later."
The mafioso took two steps forward. "Kid, it's Friday afternoon. Daisy's father's probably calling on his lunch break prior to Shabbat. Give me the phone."
"It's locked," he answered semi-truthfully. "And it's Daisy's phone."
"Yes," acknowledged the older man who persisted toward him. "And normally, I wouldn't look in someone else's private messages. However, this isn't normal. I know the family – Harry Abravanel isn't going to back down in a time like this. Daisy's too sick and Luigi may be delayed."
Fear poured into the young man. "Wh-what do you mean by that?!" he demanded while attempting to block Sal's calm path to the phone. "What's happened to Luigi?!"
He raised his hands, gesturing for him to calm down. "Take it easy. Remember this morning – several plumbers have already quit due to the potential risks. And you've acquired the equipment that he asked for, right?" At the other's quiver of a nod, he went on, still orienting himself toward the phone, "Well, he's going to be delayed because he doesn't yet have it. That leaves us." To emphasize his point, Sal stopped just shy of Miles's position and, observing him carefully, waited for him to respond. The latter remained in place, hesitating between a refusal and a fear of moving.
The détente was broken by the sound of an awakening Daisy, who let out a murph, sat up in a semi-reclined position in the bed, and ran a hand through her unwashed strands of auburn hair. The blond engineer let out a sigh of relief when Salvatore retreated to her position, momentarily forgetting about her device. "Sobrinha, what are you doing? Go back to sleep."
"No," she mumbled, scowling at her scratchy throat, "I'm okay. Hungry." Their concerned looks evolved into dismayed ones as she pushed back the covers to stand and, presumably, proceed downstairs to the kitchen.
In a rapid succession of steps, Salvatore intercepted the woman, who attempted to evade him. "Daisy, you're not leaving this room."
Though sapped from fever and early morning nausea, she nonetheless glared at him and put her hand on her hip. "This is my house." Miles observed the scene with a mixture of amusement and apprehension; only Daisy Abravanel could fearlessly stare down a full-fledged made man. Perplexed at her lack of respect for the patriarchy and unwilling to use physical force, the aforementioned mafioso let her get around him; prior to entering the hallway and stairs to the ground floor, the woman snatched the phone from the top of the drawers. Both men exchanged a fatalistic gawk, then followed her to the ground floor to make sure that Josh would remain at a distance.
As they had foreseen, the little boy ran into the kitchen to greet his auntie. Salvatore immediately interceded, leaving Daisy to put the phone to her ear. While he and Miles wrangled with the squirming, combative child, she escaped to her small study and closed the door. Redirecting his attention to avoid a Masciarelli meltdown, the Sicilian suggested that they fix dinner for the poorly woman. Eager to help his zia, Josh forgot about the offense and set to work, bringing the items that his great-uncle requested: vegetable broth, a box of pastina, and Parmigiano Reggiano. After washing his hands well and fetching the heavier items that his great-nephew was a few years' shy of lifting – a can of olive oil and a ceramic pot – he poured the broth into the container and turned up the heat. Miles watched the older man amble toward the study; upon seeing that the door was closed, with an unreadable look on his face, he soundlessly returned to the pastina.
For the next twenty minutes, the house fell quiet except for the sporadic conversation between the adults in the kitchen. Unsure of when Luigi would return and disinclined to order from restaurants due to the potential spread of the virus, Salvatore opted to make a simple pasta c'anciuova e muddica atturrata from their well-stocked pantry for themselves. Although there had been shortages of basic ingredients throughout the tristate area, that morning, the Sicilian found a large box containing good-quality fruits and vegetables, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, raisins, tubes of tomato paste and estratto, pasta, breadcrumbs, anchovies, fresh fish, chicken for the cats, Italian bread, broth, chocolate, several types of cheese, coffee, herbs, and a jar of his favorite blood orange jam. The extra supplies would easily feed four people and two cats for at least two to three weeks.
Miles took a seat at the table and, as the frequent onlooker in whichever group he participated, observed Salvatore directing his great-nephew on gently sliding the pasta into the water and handing him the cut pieces of onion and anchovies as appropriate. He felt something akin to jealousy; his parents were scientists more dedicated to the pursuit of academic knowledge than to teaching him and his brother basic domestic skills. Too busy to actually raise children yet too proud to undergo the physical process of having them, both he and Sonic were each adopted at birth. Whereas he was the quiet boy in the corner, too often bullied by his fellow classmates for his 'weird brain,' Sonic's ADHD manifested in a lack of control and underperformance at school, which took his parents' attention entirely. As a result, he mastered social engineering at a young age when he needed to con the local restaurants into accepting his parents' credit card for takeout. He did not blame his brother who, to his day, remained his hero; his relationship with his parents, however, remained coldly formal. While Josh squealed energetically at helping the adults, Miles took out his phone to check his messages and voicemail for any word from Sonic.
Nothing.
Sighing in distress, he continued to gaze at the home screen of his Linux phone when it flashed to a caller ID that he had not seen in months. Giuseppe Masciarelli. He swore under his breath, knowing that the Italian Inquisition had come for him. Ensuring that the mafioso, whom he was certain had eyes in the back of his head, was distracted by his charge, he quickly slipped from his chair and tiptoed from the kitchen to the backyard. Now alone, he pressed redial and put the phone to his ear.
"Miles, what the fuck is going on in that house?!" demanded Joe without prelude or pleasantries.
"H-H-How did you ...?"
The spectacled man harrumphed. "Process of elimination, kid. You forget that I've known you and Yoshi since youse were true bambinos. Now, don't make me repeat myself." At the few seconds of silence by the blond engineer, who was trying to formulate a plausible trickle-truth, he barked, "Parli!"
Closing his eyes, he murmured, "It's ... Nothing's wrong. Everyone's fine!"
"Bullshit, kid."
"Truly, Giuseppe. I mean," he looked behind him for any sign of the lurking panther known as Salvatore Rigassi, "Josh's well fed. He really likes playing – "
"Miles, even from fuckin' Staten Island, I can and will put my plumber's boot up your ass. You and I fuckin' A well that Luigi's god-knows-where, Daisy's got the virus, and Sal's there! And I'm not gonna even speculate as to where the hell Mario is! I wouldn't exactly call that 'fine!'"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, inwardly acknowledging for the eight-hundredth time why the entire Masciarelli family rolled their eyes at or outrightly ignored Joe. "If you know, then why call me?" he managed, not knowing what else to say.
"Bene, kid," conceded Joe, albeit in a terse voice. "Let's start with Daisy. Do not tell me that she went to work."
"No, she's home," he replied, his words breaking on occasion to keep the information minimal yet plausible. "We aren't letting her into the general population."
There was silence for a full twenty seconds, followed by a ragged sigh. "Jesus ..." swore the older man softly. "I guess it's highly contagious, so ... it's likely that youse will get it. Especially Luigi, as he's the closest to her." To Giuseppe's deduction, Miles did not answer. "And what is Sal really doing there?"
"He's, uh, running the house. I think."
An incredulous laugh echoed on the line. "You think? The fuck's that supposed to mean?"
The engineer's lips parted to respond when he felt eyes scanning him and, a second later, a hand yanked the phone from him. Dumbfounded, he pivoted to find a placid Salvatore bringing his device to his ear. "Tesoro." Miles watched as the latter rolled his eyes and sarcastically let alone a string of unknown words. Pinching his fingers in the che vuoi, he again retorted in his Sicilian dialect, barked several words in Standard Italian a few seconds afterward, and finally concluded the call with a harsh, "Yeah, well, it's dinner time, you selfish asshole!" A ragged sigh escaped the former priest, who bit his lip and blinked rapidly, then returned the phone to its owner. "A tavola, Miles," he said matter-of-factly before heading indoors.
Eventually, Daisy exited her study for dinner, albeit in a foul mood, cursing in English, Portuguese, and Judeo-Spanish as well as vowing that she would "cut off that man's small dickie and toss it in the East River," much to Salvatore's and Miles's raised eyebrows. Her disposition only worsened when the former pleaded with her to eat a little of the pastina; she only did so once Josh stared at her in confusion. After the evening meal and refusing to take no for an answer, he ordered her upstairs and, putting the food away for a late-arriving Luigi's snack, watched television with the cats, Miles, and Josh until the latter's bedtime. While the blond worked on his ever-present laptop, Sal cajoled his reluctant great-nephew to prepare for bed; the little boy refused to comply until the elder promised a story about Sicily. Having few memories of Palermo, he improvised by telling him the tale of the Trinacria and the nymphs who had created the lush island; satisfied, Josh soon fell asleep.
As he put away the last cleaned dish and shut off the kitchen light, the middle-aged man exhaled in a combination of fatigue and uneasiness. Making his way upstairs to the master bedroom, he glanced at his wristwatch – 9:07 p.m. Concerned about Luigi's uncharacteristic delay, he took out his iPhone from his pocket, halting briefly at the threshold to send him a request for an ETA. He pushed open, then shut the bedroom door, his eyes zigzagging between the chair and the woman in bed. Removing his shoes and socks, placing them next to his suitcases in the corner, Salvatore inched closer to the bed and night table to dim the lights. Though his fingers squeezed the knob, his ears caught a labored moan and his eyes glimpsed the woman shivering violently beneath the covers. Feeble amber met anxious dark brown; hissing a few minor Sicilian curse words, he jogged into the bathroom and, within ten seconds, returned with the thermometer. Without preamble, he threaded the device inside her mouth and waited for the signal.
One hundred four degrees.
Unwilling to alarm the sleeping little boy or the fussy engineer downstairs, the Sicilian feigned normalcy and ambled down the stairs to the kitchen. Having avoided unnecessary attention, he fetched a small bowl and filled it with ice chips from the freezer. Assured that the busy Miles had not noticed the bowl, he crept up the stairs and locked the bedroom door. Bunching Daisy up in the blankets into a burrito, he arranged himself so that he was behind her and held a piece of ice to her lips. "Sobrinha, we have to get your fever down. That's why you're shivering."
"I'm cold. Ice makes me colder," she rasped in protest.
The older man nodded. "I know. But if ... if we don't get this fever down ... Please – for Luigi."
Powerless to refuse his pleas in her fiancé's name, Daisy parted her lips, groaning as the frozen water singed them. Thankful that the stalwart woman had complied, Salvatore enveloped his arms around her. Between drinks of cold-water droplets, she asked, "Where's Luigi?"
"He's coming soon," he whispered reassuringly. "Deskansa, sobrinha."
She erratically shook her head. "No ... This is dangerous. You can get this, Sal ... Don't ..."
Tightening his hold, he responded in a stern tone, "Not a chance, Daisy. I'm not going anywhere."
"C-Call the paramedics ... I know it's bad."
"I will if the fever doesn'tdrop in an hour. Alright?"
"P-P-Please ... keep him away. If he sees me ... like this, he'll ..."
Keeping his left arm secured around the woman's sternum, he shuffled up and down a little so that he could reach into his right pocket for his rosary. Threading it through his fingers, Salvatore clasped his hands together, touching the beads with each unvoiced word.
In spite of the violent tremors racking her body, Daisy peered down the dark blue comforter and managed a chuckle. "Tr-tr-trying to h-heal the J-Jew's illness w-with a-a r-rosary?"
A sad smile passed over his face, momentarily breaking his concentration. "It can't hurt to ask God for help here. Because I got nothing, sobrinha."
Rotating herself to look at the older man directly, she noticed that his normally unreadable visage had shifted to one which she had not seen in almost six years – fear. "Sal ... Miles and Josh are here. You have to be there for them, for Luigi ..."
He shook his head adamantly. "I'm where I need to be. Now stop talking – you're wasting energy."
They fell into an awkward quiet; Daisy closed her eyes to benefit from the little warmth that she could feel while the former priest mouthed the words to prayers supplicating the Almighty for anything. As he finished the Saint Padre Pio Prayer, the pale woman stopped shivering. Salvatore tilted her head to put his hand upon her boiling hot brow. Reaching for the bowl once more, he held a second ice chip to her mouth, which she accepted.
"That bastard ... said he would have me fired if I didn't return to work tomorrow," she gasped.
"Who?" inquired Salvatore.
"My ... supervisor. David Nemirovsky." Letting out a derisive snort, she groused, "He's perhaps the only New Yorker who doesn't know about ... coronavirus."
Eyes immediately shifting to an enraged black, he gazed to the door to hide his reaction from his nephew's fiancée. "Don't worry about him right now."
Daisy, who swallowed the last of the ice cube, expelled another snort. "I always thought that ... I'd have a great career. Like my father. I never thought ..." An uncharacteristic sniffle rebounded throughout the room, and a rare fretfulness slammed into the Sicilian when he noticed liquid falling from the corner of her left eye. "I never thought I'd ... lose everything from a fucking virus that ... a week or two ago, no one had ever heard of."
Moving so that they faced each other, he gently brought her watery eyes to his. "Escucha, miha," he began in Judeo-Spanish, "don't give up because of one idiot. You will not lose everything. You've worked hard; you have a strong will."
Now crying outright, the smaller form shook her head and expelled several wheezes. "I don't know how to fight this. I can't yell, I can't sue it, I can't ... My father will be so disappointed ..."
His hands framing her hot and reddened cheeks, he commanded in Italian and English, "Basta! Focus!" Daisy flinched like a little girl who had just been reprimanded yet discontinued her soliloquy. Once he was certain that she was more controlled, he leaned toward her and murmured, "You have to focus on you. Not your boss, not your father, not even Luigi. You, miha. I ..." He bit his lip and, to his surprise and chagrin, blinked back fresh tears of his own. "Women ... always forget that. They're so worried about everyone else that ... they run out of time for themselves."
"Gabriella," she concluded after a moment. "Your mother, too."
Salvatore turned away, though his grip on her body did not change.
"Funny, but ... I've always thought of myself first," said Daisy to the taciturn man. "And there are times when I wonder ... just why Luigi hasn't left me."
Stunned at her latest confession, his eyes immediately found hers. "What ... what do you mean?" he inquired with a hint of apprehension.
She closed her eyes, swallowing harshly, to which he pushed another ice cube into her mouth. After she had reduced the size to one which would allow her to speak, she answered, "I'm not... a nice Italian ragazza. I know that. And I'm not sure if I'm a good Jewish woman, either. I love Luigi but ..." His eyes remained fixated upon her, waiting. "I can't be ... what the family wants me to be."
For the first time since her fever had spiked, Salvatore let out a snicker, causing her to stare at him in tired confusion. "Oh, sobrinha. If Luigi wanted a good Italian ragazza, he'd never have left Staten Island." Even though she struggled to maintain consciousness, Daisy raised the patented auburn eyebrow at him. "I think it's the Rigassi lot in life to ... love idiots." At her hurt glare, he appended, "I'm talking about the women, sobrinha. My sister loved Mario, who was a confirmed New York idiot. The men," he leaned back slightly to tilt his head, "well, except for me, get lucky. My father, Luigi, found Audenzia. My nephew, Luigi, found you. And the little that I know of ... Emilia, my grandmother, well, she was no shrinking violet, either. Even Masciarelli men recognize that ... strong women make the family."
"Then why ..."
Sliding a fourth ice cube past her lips, both to quiet her and keep her hydrated, the older man responded, "Because they're afraid that they won't be good enough for you." As she tried to turn away in disbelief, he used his index and middle fingers to readjust her head to its original position. "You forget, miha, that ... for a time ... the Masciarellis were under my roof. Gabriella became Masciarelli but Joe ..." She merely blinked her comprehension. "Anyway, Maria – Luigi's zia – was the exception, maybe because the ... same expectation wasn't there. Mario and Joe were the carriers of the name which had, more or less, become endangered after the War. Like I had become the carrier of the Rigassi name. And I watched the drama play out every time Mario ran away or Joe ... started another asinine argument. Because of loss ... because of fear." Drawing wet auburn strands from her hairline, he went on, "That's not your baggage – yours or Luigi's. It's theirs, sobrinha."
"And ... the Rigassi family?"
His eyes darkened at both the superficial and deeper question. "If you're asking about Audenzia or Gabriella, then it depends. My mother was very, very Catholic. However, I think she'd have respected your convictions. As for Gabby," he raised his eyebrows playfully, "she was more like our father, who was far more liberal." Brushing his fingertips to shut her eyes, he murmured, "Enough for now." Feeding her several more ice chips, he waited until her body relaxed into unconsciousness. Arranging her to recline against the pillows to avoid choking hazards, Salvatore disentangled himself from her and the bed to enter the bathroom. A couple minutes later, he returned to the bed with several cold washcloths which he placed on Daisy's forehead, under her neck and each arm, and behind her knees. For the fifth or sixth time that day, he took her temperature.
One hundred three point eight.
Was a fraction of a degree enough to avoid a 9-1-1 call that would inexorably frighten everyone, especially an absent and self-flagellating Luigi? He felt his hand reach for the legitimate phone, only to retract his hand. Dialing emergency services, even for his family, would almost mean certain death. The vow of omertà – a man can handle his own matters without the authorities' involvement.
There was always the other phone.
The Morano Family had several gambling and car racing-addicted physicians on payroll, just in case an 'intervention' went wrong and the wounded member needed life-saving treatment. Adverse to interfamily warfare, the Five Families preferred the diplomatic solution of paying out debts and beefs instead of resorting to violence and executions which would attract attention from law enforcement and the press. Consequently, these physicians were rarely used, save for a tremendously reduced price on Botox injections or using their office to do business. Slipping the burner phone from his pocket, he pressed a button and put it to his ear. "Si. I need to order a vegetable calzone. Yeah. Grazie."
A forlorn Luigi shuffled into the opaque interior of his brownstone sometime after midnight. Subsequent to an all-hands meeting that the Plumbers' Union had called to brief them on what would be expected in the weeks and possibly months to come, almost half of his journeymen had quit on the spot. Predictably, it had affirmed a continuation of full-time work throughout New York City and had sidestepped the question of available protective equipment, sanitizing fluids, and protocols for quarantined workers or their family members. As the shop manager, he parroted positivity; inwardly, however, he was fuming. At the morning one-on-one with their union representative, the junior Masciarelli duly imitated his Uncle Joe by letting out a string of four-letter words that would have made members of his other side blush. Although he was no longer dealing with the black-hole-level incompetence of John Slaughter and those of the old network, Phil Andretti, whom the master plumbers and senior journeymen referred to as 'Assface Andretti' and 'Slimy Phil,' merely shrugged and promised the incensed man that they "would follow all available guidelines from the CDC and State." Moreover, with more white-collar workers and their private-school children being sent home for the foreseeable future, they had received more calls than ever before about clogged toilets and sinks.
In his typical Ukrainian-Jewish fatalism, Ginsburg changed the name of the shop from 'Brooklyn Plumbing and Mechanical Works' to 'Brooklyn Biorobots and Occasional Plumbing.' Pairing as many journeymen as possible with union-supplied apprentices who desperately needed the money and experience, a heavy-hearted Luigi made the decision that the pusillanimous union had evaded: cover their mouths and noses with bandanas or whatever they had available, use rubber or, if necessary, cloth gloves, and wash their hands at least twice per ticket; all tickets and payments would be, without exception, contactless; finally, they had the right to refuse the job if there was a serious risk of exposure. Each team worked around the clock for an average of twelve-hour shifts, having time for just one meal break in addition to driving time between jobs. Two of his assignments required entry into the homes of senior citizens who had been declined service two or three times prior. Whispering a prayer to Saint Jude, Luigi unclogged the sink and bathtub in record time and, receiving grateful thank-you gratuities, hoped to hell that he had not given them death in return.
Casting off his plumbing boots at the door and proceeding to the laundry room, where he stripped his potentially contaminated clothes directly into the washer, he then walked quietly across the main area to avoid disturbing the occupants. Miles, who was studying something intently on his laptop while tucked inside his sleeping bag, was alerted to his presence from his passing shadow. He lowered his Bose headphones and mumbled a hey to his exhausted friend. The Russian Empress continued to lay curled into her tail atop the right-most sofa cushion.
The plumber turned on the table lamp to see with a minimal amount of light. "Where are the others?" he mouthed.
After running a hand through his blond hair nervously, he pointed up to indicate that Josh was sleeping and Salvatore was with Daisy. Luigi's brow creased at his friend's sudden worried disposition, especially as the latter had not said a word about him missing a full layer of clothing. Abruptly, he moved to and up the staircase where he spied the little boy and Fyodor asleep in bed and the silhouette of dim light emanating from the locked master bedroom. Knocking, he hissed, "Daisy! Sal!" He waited, receiving no response or signal that anyone was inside. Faintly from the ground level, the plumber suddenly heard the ringtone of his iPhone. Vowing to return, he tiptoe-dashed down the steps and ran into the laundry room. Seizing the phone, Luigi saw the missed call from Salvatore which was immediately followed by his text: "Call me, niputi." Exasperated, he pressed the return key and held the phone to his ear.
"As we discussed this morning, for your own safety, I won't let you inside. Tell Miles that he'll need to watch Josh and the cats for a few days. He can Google a few recipes for meals."
Appreciative that he was in an insulated room, the plumber growled lowly, "Okay, just what the fuck is going on? Let me talk to Daisy!"
"Please, just trust ..."
Luigi yanked the phone from his ear and smashed the Facetime key to demand a face-to-face meeting with his maternal uncle. Several disconnects and reattempts later, the video image of a reluctant Salvatore appeared on his screen. Flicking on additional light to make it easier for the Sicilian to see the thunderbolts in his blue eyes, the young man stood in front of the dryer and snarled, "Let. Me. See. Her."
He sighed. "Kid, she's sleeping right now."
"I don't give a fuck."
The olive-skinned man's dark brown orbs contracted into slits. "You heard me the first time, Luigi Gabriele Isidoro Masciarelli."
"You're in my house! You're being disrespectful – no, disgracious – by not allowing me to see my fiancée! My almost wife, Salvatore!" Though the latter did not interrupt, his eyes narrowed further. "See, you might be King Shit of the Mountain among your little tribe of bastards, but I am number one here!"
Visibly enraged, the mafioso chewed on his lip, either to withhold a comment or to reflect upon the situation, before hissing, "Alright, Luigi. But you will keep calm; I won't have you disturbing either Josh or Daisy." The camera spun to a pale woman in bed whose breathing had become arduous; several washcloths had been laid in vital areas, presumably to cool down her overheated body.
Anger rapidly morphed into terror. "Daisy ..." he whimpered, thudding into the new dryer, which he had momentarily forgotten was behind him. "We need to get her some help! God!"
"As I tried to tell you, niputi," Salvatore retorted, "you need to trust me. But you cannot see her in person."
Luigi ignored his uncle, still transfixed by the sight of his ailing lover. "Daisy ... Daisy, amore della mia vita. Please ..."
His high-pitched pleading roused the auburn-haired woman from a half-sleep. "Lu-Luigi?"
He nodded, inching closer to his iPhone screen. "Yeah, sweetie. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here."
"In the room? No, don't come inside ..."
Shaking his head, he murmured, "No, no, no, kerido. I'm in the laundry room. But I'm here. I'm right here."
Without opening her eyes, she smiled faintly. "Bom. Mario ... was right. This is one hell of a cold, sweetie. Only one of us should be sick right now."
"No one should be sick, least of all you!" he insisted, stroking the surface like a caress.
"Don't ... make me come ... over there, plumber."
Despite the gravity of her condition, he let out a nervous laugh at their familiar banter. Salvatore's face reappeared into his view, causing his free hand to clench into a fist at his side. "Niputi, Daisy needs rest. You can talk to her again tomorrow."
"Kerido, saiba que eu te amo muito!" he shouted, snubbing the mafioso completely. "I love you!"
The last thing that Luigi heard before the call disconnected was Daisy's panted "Ti amo." Now alone in the hazily lit room, he let out the tears that had been threatening to fall during the brief Facetime. How many people are dying in Italy, in China, of this thing? a long-forgotten tenor taunted him. Gee, I wonder how long the spoiled princess has. Care to make a wager?
"No!" he screeched, his hands flying to grab strands of his wavy brown hair. In the distance, he heard the phone clatter against the hard floor. The plumber felt his weight rock back and forth, eventually causing his knees to buckle. Screams echoed in his head, his body felt hot and light at the same time. Their journey could not end this way; they had traveled the world, defeated gangsters, danced at nearly all of the samba clubs in Brooklyn, survived law and engineering school, and built a little brownstone of their own in the heart of Brooklyn.
Six years? That's all I get?! Six instead of sixty?!
At the thought of being cheated decades, Luigi's vision tunneled to a single dot, and his lungs stopped contracting. His hands shifted from his hair to a place above the budding pain in his chest. A second pair of hands brought his limp form upright. As if he were plunged underwater, he could hear a distorted voice calling out to him. Lu-igi! The same pair of hands shook him forcefully, causing him to blink and look up to see a frightened Miles inches from him.
"Lou! Lou! What happened? Is it Mario?!"
"No," he pronounced brokenly.
"D-Daisy? But ..." the blond gestured weakly, waving his hand toward the door. "What's happened to her? I don't understand, I ... She ate dinner, she was even ranting about her boss. I mean, I think it was her boss – some guy called Numbnuts and 'Small dickie ...'"
Luigi's sapphire blue eyes became an almost gray. "Miles ... she, uh, she's not doing well. She ..." Shaking his head, he shut his eyes to hold in the tears.
The other man eased himself and the dazed and crying Italian to a sitting position on the cold floor. "The Mayor's declared a state of emergency in New York. I'm sure you know that already. They're admitting to over a hundred cases, but ... the data doesn't support that. The numbers are in fact much higher. And, if I'm right, the doubling effect will occur in twenty-four to thirty-six hours from now."
"How the fuck does that help me, Miles?!" Luigi retorted angrily into his hands. "Huh? How the flying fuck does that help me deal with the fact that Daisy's ...?"
Staring into space and leaning backward slightly, he responded in a dull tone, "It doesn't. I don't know where my brother is, Lou. He's somewhere trapped in China where the government's gone full-blown lockdown. And my other older brother ... has to risk his life and shop to ... keep the Mafia and the virus from killing us all. Welcome to the end of the world."
The plumber wiped his eyes with the edge of his palms and sat back to match his best friend's posture. "We're all fucked, aren't we?" When Miles failed to reply, he let out a mirthless laugh, adding, "Not even a fuckin' week ago, I was worried about ... pissing off the Family. Daisy and I, we were, uh, going to elope in Hawaii. At the end of the month."
Hurt brown eyes gaped at him. "You ... You weren't going to invite me, Yoshi, or even Mario and Peach to your wedding? I mean, I understand why you wouldn't want to explain it to Giuseppe, who's a bit ..."
"Miles," interrupted the Brooklynite gently, "of course we would have. I'd planned to invite a witness or two, depending on who was available. It's just that Daisy was under so much pressure, you know? Every Sunday dinner became an inquisition as to why we hadn't made wedding plans, why she hadn't invited Lucia, Maria, or the cousins to go dress shopping, yada, yada, yada. A simple exchange of the vows I say to her daily on a beach in Honolulu was the best of all possible worlds."
He nodded comprehendingly. "I understand the logic. Two introverted people being expected to perform for everyone else usually nets a poor outcome. However, it's just as well; I don't think Giuseppe or Lucia would've forgiven you for it."
Luigi scoffed, letting a fresh stream of tears cascade down his cheeks. "Yeah, well ... Plans change, I guess ..."
Twisting to face him, Miles gazed meaningfully at him. "Lou, I'm a stoic and a fatalist. Hunting threats and seeking out vulnerabilities taught me one thing: human stupidity is an absolute certainty, whether it's some asshole CEO who thinks cutting corners is somehow cost-effective or some so-called 'expert' who leaves a client's access credentials on a former employee's phone and somehow doesn't think he'll end up eating Klingon Targ shit later. However, Daisy defies certainty. I ... believe she'll pull through. She's young, healthy, so the odds are in her favor."
This time, his laugh was genuine. "Yeah, you're right. Daisy's ... my wildflower. She ..." Despite his tears, he gave a small grin, "She always has been."
They fell into a discomforting silence, each pondering the uncertain weeks and months ahead. After what seemed like hours, Luigi staggered to his feet and, waiving off his friend's attempts to guide him, exited the laundry room blankly, then carried himself upstairs toward the master bedroom. The blond watched as he stood at the locked door as if wordlessly imploring it to open; when it remained closed after several minutes, he slid to the floor and curled his body against the wood.