The Godfather’s Daughter

As we clamber down the cellar stairs, her mood shifts, and she seems happy in the anticipation of cracking open the trunk. First, she sifts through the contents of the boxes atop it, lingering over a picture of a tree painted by her daughter Suangela.

“See,” she says, “the small roots above the ground symbolize her desire to leave me. Long, deep roots would have symbolized a desire to stay with her family.”

She blinks at the picture — the meaning of it for her as clear as if Sue had called to tell her — and visibly slumps a little lower. By now, the trunk is uncovered. But what we find inside is just as meaningless as what remains in the closet upstairs: piles of button-down shirts and books, including an early history of the mob called Mafia, U.S.A., and The F.B.I. Nobody Knows, which intriguingly contains a small Gospel of St. John tucked inside its pages.

It’s tempting to pull some meaning from the juxtaposition, to marvel at whatever piety may have existed in the heart of a man who lived his entire adult life as a criminal. And we could link him in our hearts and minds to the beautiful fiction of The Godfather. But as I stand in the dim basement light with one hand holding up the lid of Angelo Bruno’s trunk, it is his daughter who finally opens up. “Do you really believe your father was never involved in a murder?” I ask.

Jean Bruno leans in close, her red lips just inches from my ear. “You must understand. I know he wasn’t a saint,” she whispers. “But he was to me.”