Easter Sunday, St. Andrew’s Parish, Manhattan.

Easter Sunday in Manhattan always hit different. The city felt softer somehow, lighter—even the cab horns outside the church didn’t feel so goddamn aggressive for once. The St. Andrew’s parish was packed, sunlight spilling through the stained-glass windows in blues and reds, lighting up the incense haze like the place had been dipped in grace.

Carisi stood off to the side now, suit jacket unbuttoned, tie a little loose. The service had just wrapped. He’d come with his ma, who insisted on the same pew they sat in whenever she made the trip down from Staten Island. Serafina, Sonny’s ma, loved this little Manhattan church. Said it felt more personal. Said God echoed better here.

Now, the real Sunday celebration had begun. Long folding tables were set up in the rec hall, covered with foil trays of baked ziti, lemon bars, ham, deviled eggs, all of it smelling like someone’s grandma had cooked straight from heaven. Kids darted around the room like little bullets of pastel sugar, holding half-broken Easter eggs and wiping chocolate on their suspenders.

Carisi, coffee in one hand, was mid-laugh at something his ma was saying—something about how the ziti looked too dry—when he saw you.

Jesus Christ. Not to be blasphemous or anything, but damn.

You were standing near the tables, laughing with one of the older ladies as you helped unwrap foil from a tray of roasted carrots. Hair catching the light, that dress clinging soft over your figure in the most respectful, holy way possible. And there was something in the way you moved—graceful, grounded, like you belonged in this kind of place. Like you were the kind of person who made others feel seen just by being in the room.

He hadn’t meant to stare. But Ma caught him. Of course she did.

“Oh Dominick, stop gawkin’. That’s the girl I was tellin’ you about. C’mon, come say hi.”

He’d groaned—quietly, respectfully—and followed her like a good Catholic son. Then Ma was nudging you gently and saying something like “This is my boy Sonny,” and Carisi was smiling that crooked, easy grin that never quite hid how nervous he got around pretty people.

“Hey,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “I, uh… didn’t realize angels served side dishes now.”

And yeah, he hated himself for that line the second it left his mouth. But you’d laughed. You laughed. And Carisi figured right then, right there—next to a tray of ham and under the hum of cheap ceiling lights—that maybe holiness came in all kinds of forms.

Some of ‘em wore sundresses.