Last night I dreamed I was trying to infiltrate a mob family without getting killed. Tony “The Fist” Barborello, looking a hell of a lot like Tony Soprano, was speaking to me as if everything was copacetic, but I knew about the dead bodies. Despite this, I was trying to befriend him. I figured I was safe as long as he didn’t know I was on to him.

It took me a long time to realize you were going to act as if I didn’t exist, whenever your family was around. There would be no calls or texts, no emails, no effort to meet me for coffee. Our many years together would evaporate like an inconvenient mist and you would succumb to your family’s demands that you have nothing to do with me.

Tony liked me. He was explaining the plans he had for his house, which was half built. I could see blue sky through the open rafters, yet the place felt oddly cozy. I grew close to Tony’s daughter, Alicia. We were about the same age and had similar tastes in music and film, literature and art. She was nothing like her father, and I was sure she had no idea about his underworld activities.

When we were alone, your family hundreds of miles away, our life together was idyllic. We took long walks, ate dinner at our favorite restaurants, and spent hours sitting in your living room, looking at Lake Michigan through your big picture window. I never knew there could be so much contentment just being in the same room with someone you loved. 

Tony invited me to come along on his family’s summer vacation. They were going to Montauk — where I’d never been. We took a limo, driven by a guy named, Hans. Thick trees bordered the road, the sun was citrus bright, the highway, wide and flat. We might have been driving off the edge of the world, for all I knew. There was a crazy moment when I wondered if I was being kidnapped, then I remembered, I chose to come on this trip. Besides, there were no guns or wads of cash or surreptitious phone calls. Instead, Tony began handing out Jelly Bellies and Twizzlers to me and Alicia and his wife, Carmen. Conversation flowed between us like a warm breeze. 

Your son had a habit of interrogating me when you weren’t around. Where did I get my money? Who paid for my food? Did I have a bankruptcy? Was I on disability? What was I doing in his father’s house? Suddenly, I was in a concrete bunker in a third world country, the room, sweltering, the wooden chair, hard and unforgiving, a single light bulb, swung from a long cord above my head. Whenever I tried to talk to you about the misbehavior of your children, you’d make  excuses for them. Often, as if it would solve everything, you’d sing me your favorite song (which made me want to scream) “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t bother with Mr. In Between.”

Tony’s home in Montauk was disappointing. It was a simple, white, one story cottage that sat back from the road, sheltered by tall green hedges that formed an impenetrable wall. Tony trusted me and told me he had millions buried in his back yard. His son, Waldo drank from morning to night and his daughter, Alicia, liked expensive handbags and Palomino ponies. Tony said he admired my independence and ability to take care of myself. I think he hoped my self-sufficiency would rub off on his kids. He was tired of paying off their houses and credit card bills. But his kids had no desire to sever the twisted cord of financial dependence that crippled them all.

I met you shortly after your wife died. You’d spent twelve years taking care of her after she had a stroke. I heard through the town grapevine, that you were completely devoted to her. When your daughter learned you and I were dating, she was outraged and said, “Couldn’t you have waited three years?!” When she visited, she would engage you in drawn out reminiscences about your life with her mother, while I was in the room. Eventually, she launched a kamikaze attack to break us up.

My week with Tony and his family was lovely. There was no creepy tabloid behavior or explosive reputation bombs. I was treated like a member of the family.  We swam and ate barbecued ribs and fresh lobster. In the evenings, we sat on the front porch, in our pink and blue rocking chairs, watching the sun set over the Atlantic, oohing and ahhing over the vivid colors swashing the sky. The last day of our vacation, Tony pulled me aside and said, “How about joining me on a trip to Vatican City?” I fumbled with my ear lobe and wondered if I’d heard him right. But he was serious, and, because of his kindness to me, I agreed. In the intervening days and weeks, I wondered if Tony had had a conversion experience. Maybe he’d finally decided to live a moral life. 

Once you had alzheimers, and before your family moved you away from the little town where we met and lived, they made herculean efforts to separate us  — whisking you off to Europe for a month, then visiting you for weeks on end. During this time I saw you once — briefly, hurriedly, secretly, for ice cream. I don’t remember our good-bye — maybe it happened over the phone — ten years gone in a few words. We thought I might visit you at your new retirement village, but realized it would create an uproar in your family. They believed our relationship was over, now that you had moved. In a recent email, you wrote, “love lasts,” followed by a smiley face. I cried, thinking how hard it is to grow old, subsisting on memories, which, though beautiful, don’t compare to the rich banquet of our brief years.

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