Chapter 9 - The Protection of the Ward
The formal announcement of their wedding was not sent to the society columns of the Chicago Tribune. It was delivered by word of mouth through the bakeries, the butcher shops, and the community centers of the Old Ward, where the name Rossi still meant something to the families who had built the stone houses along Taylor Street.
The ceremony was held on a crisp Saturday morning in April at St. Jude’s Church—the same church where Vincent’s grandfather had been baptized in 1952.
The avenue outside was blocked off with black SUVs, but there were no city councilmen or federal judges in the pews today. The church was filled with three hundred laborers, truck drivers, warehouse workers, and old women in black shawls who had brought jars of homemade fig preserves and embroidered linens for the altar.
Vincent sat in the front row, his black tuxedo immaculate, his hands clasped tightly over his knees. He was not in his wheelchair. He was sitting on the oak bench, his legs braced by two hidden, high-tech carbon splints that were concealed beneath his trousers.
The heavy oak doors at the back of the nave swung wide.
Tessa Rossi stepped into the light of the stained-glass windows. She was wearing a simple, classic gown of white silk that had been handmade by the old tailors in the neighborhood, her only jewelry the gold cicada brooch pinned to her veil. She carried no white orchids; she held a small bouquet of fresh rosemary and winter greens that smelled of the earth.
She didn't walk fast. She moved with a steady, confident grace that assumed ownership of every stone in the floor.
When she reached the steps of the altar, Vincent didn't look at Rocco for help. He reached out, his thick fingers catching the edge of the oak pew, and with a slow, tremendous expenditure of will that turned his face pale beneath his tan, he stood up.
He didn't stand straight—his left knee was trembling slightly against the carbon brace—but he stood on his own two feet, his six-foot-two frame rising above the altar until he was looking straight into her hazel eyes.
The collective gasp from the three hundred people in the pews sounded like a wave hitting the shore.
Tessa didn't scream. She didn't cry. She simply stepped up the last marble stair, her warm hands reaching out to catch his waist, her small frame providing the exact balance he needed to stay upright before the priest.
May you like
“You’re standing, Vincent,” she whispered.
“I told you I would, Tessa,” he murmured, his voice rough with the raw, heavy emotion of a man who had finally found his proper place in the world. “A king doesn't receive his queen while sitting down.”
