Chapter 29 - The Name Romano
My father spent his life teaching me a name was something other people should fear.
By the time Nora entered middle school, the Romano name meant something else entirely.
Mostly paperwork.
Sunlight Group’s buildings.
News articles about Vincent’s conviction.
Occasional whispers from parents who remembered old headlines.
One afternoon Nora came home furious.
A boy at school had called her father a gangster.
“He’s not wrong,” Olivia said.
“Not helping,” Grace replied.
Nora stared at me.
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened.
Apparently we had discussed “criminal past” without using the cinematic noun.
“Like in movies?”
“No.”
“Did you wear suits?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have people killed?”
The room went quiet.
I could lie elegantly.
Instead:
“People were hurt because of decisions I made. Sometimes I knew violence might happen. Sometimes I pretended not knowing details made me less responsible.”
Nora’s eyes filled.
“You never told me that.”
“You were little.”
“I’m not now.”
“No.”
She stood.
“I hate this family.”
Then she ran upstairs.
Grace started after her.
I stopped her.
“Let me.”
Nora’s bedroom door was closed.
Not locked.
We had no locked bedroom doors by family agreement.
I knocked.
“Go away.”
“I can.”
Silence.
“But I’d rather sit outside.”
More silence.
I sat on the floor.
Ten minutes passed.
Then the door opened.
Nora looked angry and exhausted.
“I thought Uncle Vincent was the bad one.”
“He was.”
“And you?”
“I was too, sometimes.”
“Then why does everyone like you now?”
I almost smiled.
“Not everyone does.”
“You know what I mean.”
“People are allowed to change. That doesn’t erase what they did.”
She sat beside me.
“So if you’re sorry, everything is okay?”
“No.”
“What’s the point then?”
I thought about prison.
Restitution.
Isabelle.
Vincent.
“Being sorry changes what you do next. It doesn’t rewrite what you did before.”
Nora leaned against the wall.
“That sucks.”
“Yes.”
“Mom picked a complicated man.”
“Which mom?”
She looked at me.
Then laughed despite herself.
“Both.”
Fair.
Later that week, I spoke at her school after administrators invited parents to discuss ethical decision-making.
I almost refused.
Grace insisted.
“You are uniquely overqualified.”
I stood before sixty teenagers who had already searched my name.
There was no point pretending.
I told them the most dangerous lie I had ever believed was that loyalty meant protecting people from consequences.
I told them fear looked like respect from far away.
I told them money could make consequences slower but not disappear.
I did not glorify crime.
That disappointed several boys.
During questions, one asked:
“Did being powerful feel good?”
“Yes.”
That surprised them.
“It felt excellent.”
Teachers shifted nervously.
I continued.
“That’s why power is dangerous. If doing the wrong thing felt terrible immediately, more people would stop.”
Nora watched from the third row.
Another student asked:
“Do you regret everything?”
“No.”
Silence.
“I regret the harm. I regret fear. I regret what my daughters saw. But if I say I regret every road that brought me here, I would also be wishing away people and truths I love now.”
That night Nora said:
“You didn’t sound like a gangster.”
“I’m devastated.”
“You sounded like someone’s dad.”
That was the greatest title I had ever received.
A month later, news arrived that Vincent had been hospitalized.
Heart problem.
Not immediately fatal.
He asked to see me.
I sat with the request for a week.
Grace did not advise me.
Neither did Miriam.
The girls each had different opinions.
Sophie said no.
Nora said maybe.
Olivia said, “Do whatever lets you sleep afterward.”
So I went.
Vincent looked small in the prison infirmary.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Still deciding.”
He laughed weakly.
We spoke for an hour.
Childhood mostly.
Our mother.
Queens.
Baseball.
The basement.
Father.
Finally Vincent said, “Do you remember what Dad told us after Mom died?”
I did.
“Romano men don’t cry.”
Vincent smiled.
“Idiotic.”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled.
Mine too.
For the first time in our lives, neither of us looked away.
“I’m sorry, Dom.”
I had heard versions before.
This one asked for nothing.
“I know.”
“Does that mean—”
“No.”
He smiled sadly.
“Still you.”
“Unfortunately.”
I stood to leave.
“Tell the girls…”
He stopped.
“No. Don’t.”
I waited.
“They don’t owe me remembrance.”
I nodded.
At the door, I turned.
“Vincent.”
He looked up.
“I remember you before Father taught us what being Romano meant.”
His face broke.
“So do I.”
I left him crying.
I cried in the parking lot.
Then I drove home.
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Because the name Romano no longer meant never crying.
It meant whatever my daughters chose to make it mean next.
