Epilogue
Four Months Later
Henry stands next to the table where his father and Maxine are seated. In each of Henry’s hands is a plate. The aromas wafting up from them just about eclipse the nervousness Henry’s feeling because, well, the braciole just smells so damn good, it’s hard to think about anything else.
And yet it’s not enough.
He sets the first plate down before Maxine, who looks up at him with tears in her eyes.
“What? Food makes you cry now?” Henry says to his parents’ housekeeper and his surrogate mother. He says the words in a mocking way because the expression on her face—the pride, the love, the joy all jumbled together in her damp eyes and crooked smile—is making him want to cry and this is the only way he can think to stop from shedding a few tears himself. And he want
