He asked me on New Year's Eve.
Miami did New Year's with the specific loud beautiful excess of a city that understood celebration. The fireworks over the bay started at eleven and went until past midnight. Victor Romano had invited the family — all of them, the full assembled Romans with their complicated histories and their genuine warmth and the specific quality of people who loved each other in the particular way of families that had been through things together.
I wore the green dress.
Dante had seen it when I came out of the bedroom and had said nothing for a long moment that communicated everything.
The gathering was at Casa Romano. Victor had the garden lit and the bay visible from the back terrace and a specific quality of joy about him that I was beginning to understand came o
