Summary

Irene remembers how defeated she felt when she returned to her childhood home at the age of thirty-one with her teenage son. She returns home from work, noticing large boxes in the front hallway and her excited son, Matty, begging to open them. Irene speaks with her father about the new computer Matty received and her father’s involvement with Destin Smalls. Teddy leaves to pick up pizza and Irene picks up the newspaper he had been reading, growing worried when she notices that the headline is about Nick Pusateri, the owner of Teddy’s favorite pizza parlor and a well-known mobster.

Irene remembers the day she first met Dustin Smalls, only seven months before her mother’s death. She does not remember why she went looking for her mother in the morning, but Irene finds her mother crying on her bed, a...