Chapter 1 - THE FIRST SPOONFUL
Gabriel lifted the spoon.
Every man in Benny’s diner watched.
Even the rain seemed quieter against the windows.
Norah remained beside the booth, hands clasped behind her back because she did not know what else to do with them.
Gabriel studied the dark gravy.
Then smelled it again.
Thyme.
Garlic.
Red wine.
And that faint trace of cinnamon.
Something changed in his face.
Not suspicion.
Pain.
He brought the spoon to his mouth.
Leo actually stopped breathing.
Gabriel tasted.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then his eyes closed.
Norah expected him to spit it out.
Instead, he swallowed.
His hand began trembling harder.
Not from weakness this time.
Emotion.
He took another spoonful.
Then another.
By the fifth, Leo whispered:
“Jesus.”
Gabriel ignored him.
He tore open the oyster crackers himself.
Ate those too.
The entire diner remained frozen while the most feared man in the city consumed cheap pot roast from a chipped ceramic bowl.
Halfway through, he stopped.
His eyes lifted toward Norah.
“Who taught you this?”
She hesitated.
“A woman who lived upstairs from us when I was a kid.”
“What woman?”
“Rosa.”
The spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.
Gabriel’s face emptied.
“Last name.”
Norah frowned.
“DeLuca.”
The spoon fell.
Metal hit ceramic.
Leo immediately moved.
“Boss?”
Gabriel did not look at him.
“Rosa DeLuca?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know. Seventies when I knew her.”
“Where?”
“Apartment building on Mercer Street.”
His eyes became darker.
“South Narrows?”
Norah nodded.
Gabriel stood too quickly.
The room tilted under him.
Leo caught his shoulder.
Gabriel shoved him away.
“Don’t.”
He looked at Norah again.
“When did you last see her?”
“About four years ago.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, alive?”
Norah’s confusion deepened.
“She died three years ago.”
Something in Gabriel broke.
He sat down again.
Leo stared at him.
“Gabriel.”
Gabriel whispered:
“My mother had a sister.”
Norah did not move.
“Her name was Rosa.”
The diner suddenly felt smaller.
Gabriel continued:
“She disappeared after my mother died.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Elena Hayes.”
Norah shook her head.
“Rosa never mentioned her.”
“Of course she didn’t.”
Gabriel looked down at the bowl.
“My mother made this.”
Norah’s chest tightened.
“The same recipe?”
“The cinnamon.”
His voice changed.
“When I was six, I told her cinnamon didn’t belong in meat.”
For the first time, he smiled.
Barely.
“She told me poor people couldn’t afford rules.”
Norah remembered Rosa saying almost the same thing.
Cheap food tastes expensive when you stop being afraid of it.
Gabriel looked up.
“What did Rosa tell you about her family?”
“Nothing.”
“Did she ever mention Chicago?”
“We lived in Chicago.”
“You know what I mean.”
Norah thought.
Then:
“She had a photograph.”
Gabriel went still.
“What photograph?”
“Three children outside a brick house.”
“Describe them.”
“One girl. Two boys.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel reached for his phone.
His fingers were steadier now.
He opened an old image.
Three children outside a brick row house.
A teenage girl.
A younger girl.
A boy.
Norah stared.
“I’ve seen that.”
Leo whispered:
“Boss…”
Gabriel ignored him.
“Where?”
“Rosa’s kitchen.”
Gabriel looked at the picture.
“That’s Rosa.”
He touched the older girl.
Then the younger.
“My mother.”
Then himself.
Norah looked from the image to the starving man sitting in the booth.
“You knew Rosa.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“She knew you.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Apparently.”
Norah remembered something else.
The week before Rosa died, the old woman had given her a battered recipe notebook.
Norah still owned it.
She had never read most of it.
Recipes.
Shopping lists.
Strange numbers.
Names she did not recognize.
Then Rosa had said something Norah dismissed at the time.
If a man named Gabriel ever tastes the stew, give him the blue page.
Norah’s blood went cold.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“There’s a notebook.”
His face hardened.
“What notebook?”
“Rosa’s.”
“And what’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Norah whispered:
“But apparently there’s a page she wanted me to give to you.”
Gabriel stared.
“What page?”
Norah swallowed.
May you like
“Blue.”
And for the first time in eight days, Gabriel forgot to be afraid of the food.
