Carmine, the brother of Donna, held the paper under the light of the Christmas tree and read it twice. He is a big man, a former linebacker, with a face made for laughing, and I watched the laugh drain out of it, line by line. “Frank,” he said, “this is a bill of sale. For Moretti Crane. Nineteen million eight hundred thousand dollars.” I said, “It closed in November, Carmine. Fourteen cranes, forty three operators, and every one of them kept their job.” Behind him, Gina put a hand to her chest. Nobody was holding a fork. The pizzelles sat untouched on the tray, and the tree lights blinked, red, then green, then red.
Vinnie had not sat down. He stood with a glass of anisette in his hand, and the glass trembled. “Pop,” he said, “I can explain.” I said, “Then do it, Vinnie. Explain the Manitex. Explain why my company name is sanded off the door of a truck that I do not own anymore.” He said, “I thought you were selling it for scrap.” I said, “I was selling the whole company, son, and the buyer had already paid for every machine on that list. You took a boom truck, a forklift, and a welder out of the yard on a Tuesday, with a lowboy, and told Stosh I had said yes. I never said yes.”
Gina came around the tree and took her nephew by the wrist. “Vinnie,” she said, in a low, shaking voice, “tell me you did not do this on Christmas Eve, in my house, in front of the family of Donna.” He pulled free. “Zia, he never told me the truth! My own father! I worked in that yard for ten years, and he let me think we were going under. I felt like a fool. I thought, if he does not trust me, I will take care of myself.” I said, “It was never yours to take.” And the room was very still.
A boom truck seen over a neighbor fence led a crane man from a snow shovel to a Christmas Eve table, and gave him the night to bring his son back to the yard.
I put the shovel down. I had carried it in from the garage without noticing, and I leaned it against the tree, where it looked absurd among the presents. “Vinnie,” I said, “you are right about one thing. I should have told you. I was afraid. I wanted to see what kind of man you would be when you thought the family business was finished.” I took a long breath. “Your mother used to say I tested everyone. She said it would cost me someday. I never believed her.” My son stared at me. “She said that?” I said, “Every year, at Christmas.”
Vinnie lowered the glass. He set it on the mantel, beside a photograph of Donna in her good green dress, laughing at something out of frame. He looked at it for a while. “Pop,” he said, “I would have helped you, if you had asked. I would have been there. I did not know you were holding on.” I said, “I know that now.” Tears were running down his face, and he did not wipe them. “I took the truck because I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to be mad. Anything was better than the way you looked at me, like you were waiting for me to fail.”
I gave him my terms right there by the tree, with the whole Galante family as witnesses. The equipment would go back to Old Forge before the new year, every piece. He would sign a statement for the buyer, to protect the sale. And he would work. “The company that bought us needs a crane yard foreman,” I said, “and I recommended you. Not because you are my son, Vinnie. Because for ten years you ran that yard better than I did. You just never knew I thought so.” His mouth fell open. “Pop, they would hire me after this?” I said, “They will if I stand next to you.”
Carmine stood up from his chair, wiping his eyes with a napkin. He came across the carpet in three strides and put his big arms around the two of us, the father and the son, and we stood there like three men at a funeral. Nobody said a word for a long time. Then Gina started to laugh, wetly, and said, “Well, the seven fishes are getting cold.” And all of us laughed, even Vinnie, in a cracked and broken way, and we sat down at the table, and Carmine said grace, and for once he left out the jokes.
The boom truck was back in the yard on the thirtieth. Stosh and I stood there in the cold, drinking coffee from a thermos, watching Vinnie back the lowboy through the gate with a care I had never seen in him. He got out and walked the length of the Manitex, checking the outriggers and the cables, and then he stopped at the door and ran his thumb over the place where the name had been sanded. He said, “Pop, I am going to paint this back.” I said, “The buyer might want it a different color.” He said, “Then I will paint it that color.”
He started in January. The first week, he arrived at the yard at five, before anyone, and stood in the dark with a clipboard. By March, the operators were calling him Vin, and by June, they were asking him to settle their arguments. One afternoon, I stopped by to bring him a sandwich. I found him on the apron of the yard, under a crane boom, explaining something to a boy of twenty with a hard hat too big for his head. He was patient. He drew a diagram in the dust with a stick. I stood back, and I did not interrupt, and my eyes were wet.
Last Christmas Eve, I drove to the Galante house with a shovel in the trunk, out of habit. Carmine met me at the door. “Frank,” he said, “put that thing away. The driveway is done.” I looked past him. Vinnie was out in the snow, in his work coat, with a shovel of his own, clearing the walk for the guests. He waved at me. I waved back. Donna would have laughed at the sight of the two of us, father and son, both of us crazy enough to shovel snow on Christmas Eve, both of us smiling at the cold.