The old man removed his fedora and tossed it away in front of him.

"Nonno!"

A somewhat weary yet fulfilled smile took root at his old cheeks, embracing his face as she did the same to him, reaching up and grabbing at his waist.

"I missed you!" She said, gripping tight and locking her hands around the small of his back.

"My sweet Evelyn!" He said with a pat on her blonde thin hair, all the while trying not to mess up the bright red bow that adorned her small head.

"I've missed you too!"

He embraced his granddaughter back before attempting to break free, yet struggled to. She had a tight grip and made an exerted effort to keep her hug locked in. He played along.

"Now how am I suppose to tell you about what happened in '33 when you've grown so strong?"

She didn't respond at first, getting as much as she could from his visit. She loved him like the sun arose and set around his very being.

"I've missed you." She said again.

"I know you have." He put his arm over her shoulder and gave it an appreciative rub.

He wasn't usually the affectionate type. Which is why she probably was the way she was towards him. She saw him as that wounded animal that you just wanted to love back to health. She was also still a child. Innocent to the world. Not unlike he was at one stage. Yet being back home in the old country, away from the troubles he'd seen and from the slums he'd grown up in, she had a life sheltered from it all. And the bones he made, and buried, helped to make it so. For her and her parents.

"Papa."

"Francesco."

"Come on pop, why can't you call me Franky like everyone else."

"Because unlike everyone else, you're my son."

He couldn't argue with the guy. Never did. Never tried to. Never really needed to. Not just because he was his father. Life was good. And his father had helped them out more than he could show in kind.

Franky grabbed the fedora off the dusty driveway that lead up to the large house. It was fit for a king, or a semi-retired mobster. Most of the old man's money was now tied up in real estate and had been moved over from the United States. This was just one of many cottages that he'd paid for, but technically didn't own. A gift and at the same time a means to shed some of his paper weight as the authorities looked into him.

Franky dusted off the fedora, smacking it against his thigh as he neared the two.

"Come now, Eve. Let Nonno breathe. He must be tired from his trip."

Evelyn glanced up at her grandfather with a frown. Her scrunched up nose still unable to show anything but a cute face to the old man. He smiled back which only had her dig her head into his leg and hug tighter. He let out a laugh.

"Come, let us go inside." The old man said as he reached down and picked up the little one. He was old, but not too old. He still had strength in him. He figured he'd never lose that fight in him that came with growing up in poverty. And he always did his utmost to keep himself fit over the years, even after the times when breaking other people's jaws was just a bonus. He still walked everyday, through the vineyards of his various places in Montemarano.

"I have much to tell you!"

"Come on Pop, she doesn't need to hear about your stories. Isn't there some code against that stuff?" Franky said with a cheeky grin as the three of them began walking towards the patio.

"I want to hear them, Pappa!" She said as she looked down at her father from the perch on her grandfather's shoulders.

"No you don't." Her father replied with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"I do, I do!" She exclaimed as she kicked her feet about like a child at play on a wooden horse, her hands tapping away on the old man's grey head of hair. He still had most of it minus the usual thinning and slight balding that came with old age, but nothing like the need for a toupee or the like that he'd seen rampant among men his age in the States on his most recent visit, all wanting to appear younger than their body would naturally allow.

"Omerta is that code, dear boy. But to tell you the truth, it's less about being silent, and more about being a man of honor."

He'd heard it all before. Many times. The same way his grandfather would tell his own father when he was young as they worked together at the markets in New York.

Franky smirked. He enjoyed the stories growing up. And believed they somehow allowed his father to keep his sanity after leaving the life. And in some way, he also recognized his own growth into the man he'd become through them.

Franky had realized this later in life, of course, yet was always just as fascinated as Eve was when listening to her father tell his life's tale, and at about the same age. He couldn't help but smile, as Evelyn reminded him so much of himself. He just hoped she would take the same route he did and do something more civil. Stories were just stories, but sometimes they also became a spark for something more.

They eventually arrived at the back of the house, rounding the wild yet well looked after gardens and appreciating their time together. They passed a rooster who was clucking and frolicking about after a hen. The birds seemed free, and happy to just be there. Unlike the ones the old man had seen fighting and being bet on at various spots in his travels.

They also passed a cat. A midnight black cat. It didn't want nothing to do with the mother hen or her frivolous companion. Also very unlike what he'd usually seen in the alleyways of the life he'd grown up in. These things captured his attention as his son and his granddaughter conversed. The small things of an old man who'd seen a little of a lot. And sometimes a lot more of the little most never wanted to. He was off in his own world.

"Alright, down you get little one." He said as they neared the open field that ran out back from the house and into a vineyard that was filled with black anglianico grapes.

As he placed her down, Franky slid his father's fedora on top of her head. It was a shade of dark green with a silky black ribbon tightened around the bottom of the crown, which itself seemed to be more pinched than it should otherwise be.

The hat had been through three repair jobs. One on account of a drive-by shooting that left it with a hole through the brim. The other two from simple wear and tear. Although old, it held significant value to him and reminded him of the day he finally got his photo on the wall of a place that held the same kind of value.

"Alright you two. I have to finish off some work in the fields. I'll be back before dusk sets in."

"Alright, Francesco. I'll try keep her out of trouble." The old man said with a wide grin as he pulled the large hat down over her face.

"My bow!" Evelyn grabbed at the hat, taking it off.

"I think she may get you into trouble!" Franky called back as he wheeled away backwards, watching his daughter fix her bow tie, before turning and whistling his way towards his afternoon chores.

The old man laughed as she fixed the ribbon back into the center. Her mother's disapproval of her unkempt attire was what Franky was referring to, and what his father was now laughing at. She was as tough as they came, Evelyn's mother. Would've made a good sort in the world beyond the world, the elderly male thought as he sat his tired body down into a chair.

"Nonno!" Evelyn asserted as she took a seat down next to him, placing the fedora onto the table.

"Tell me a story."

"Ah, you don't want to hear my stories." He replied, with the same humorous sarcasm as his son who had picked it up from him, as he did from his own father. A family character trait that seemed to keep them in high spirits regardless of their circumstances. 

"I do, I do!" She said enthusiastically, her legs kicking about in the large space between the chair and the wooden patio flooring. She grabbed at a piece of orange that had been cut earlier, and that she was just about to get stuck into when her grandfather arrived out front.

"What one did I tell you last time?" He said as he sunk further into the chair. It was a nice day out. The sun was high in the sky, near the highest point it would reach as it made its journey across from one side to the other.

She shrugged as she bit into the orange.

"Well, how about this. How about I tell you the story of the time I met your father's mother."

"Nonna?!"

"Yes, Nonna."

"Okay!"

He trailed off for a moment. His stories were becoming less and less in order. He'd go from one to the other, and back again, as the mood took him. And he really did start forgetting what he'd told his granddaughter and what he hadn't. He may have even told the same one again, and possibly again. He couldn't tell though, not by looking at her. She was just happy to be there with him. Whether or not what he was telling her was of any sense to her, didn't bother either of them. And given her age, he didn't mind making them a little more exciting than they may have actually been.

Come to think of it, he remembers telling his son the same stories, just without as much flash as he did now. And given his state of retirement, he wasn't concerned about who'd come up in the tales. Some were real guys with real names, others were just fleshed out with bits and pieces of who he'd come across in his experiences.

They were both fact and fiction. Both real, and stretched out bits of reality. No matter, though, he always enjoyed telling them and she always enjoyed hearing them. And given his son turned out to be away from the life, he had no care if they would impact her in one way or another.

He also tried his best to keep them clean. To keep most details a glimpse, rather than the whole damn shit show it sometimes was. But sometimes, he just had to say what he had to say. This was one of those times...