Chapter 16: Teresa at the Door

Gianna's POV

Dario had told me about the tea, and the petition, and the word he had said to the old woman.

"Say yes," I had told him. "Say yes all week. Let them hand you the microphone."

He had stared at me, and then he had kissed my forehead.

Now it was Thursday evening, and my mother was standing at the foot of the Landolfi steps in her gray travel coat.

She had flown in from Chicago an hour ago.

She had a shoebox under one arm and a manila envelope in her hand.

"You do not have to come in with me," I said.

"I have wanted to walk through that door for eight years," Teresa said.

"I would like to do it with you beside me."

We rang the bell.

The housekeeper opened it, and her eyes went wide.

"Signora Ferraro," she whispered.

"Hello, my friend." My mother kissed her cheek. "Is he in?"

"The dining room, signora. With the florist."

"Good. Have everyone come out."

"Everyone?"

"The kitchen, the garden, the drivers," my mother said. "I would like my husband's household to hear this."

My father was standing at the head of the long table with a clipboard.

Two women were arranging white roses along the sideboard. He looked up, and the clipboard slid out of his hand.

"Teresa."

"Salvatore."

"You are not welcome in this house."

"I know. I used to be the one who paid the roofer."

The staff began to fill the doorway. The cook, the maids, the old gardener, three drivers with their caps in their hands.

My father saw them.

"Go back to work," he said sharply.

Nobody moved.

My mother set the shoebox on the table.

"Seventy-two letters," she said. "I wrote one a month for six years."

"Each came back stamped Not at this address, in your handwriting."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Mocked the Voice I Ruined to Save Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.