Chapter 21: The Seventh Chair

Allegra's POV

I had been in the dark room twice.

I had never seen it with the whole family inside.

Eight capos came down the stairs in their Sunday suits and stood against the concrete walls, shoulder to shoulder, with their hats in their hands.

The widow stood nearest the steps.

The wives waited upstairs, behind a steel door that Teo had wedged open with a folding chair.

My father came last, carried down in Teo's arms.

Teo set him in a wooden armchair at the head of the room, and tucked his blanket around him.

Paolo stood in the corner with his arm pressed to his ribs.

His eye had swollen black.

He looked at nobody.

My uncle came down the stairs smiling.

He saw the work light burning on its cord, and the bare chair, and the little table with its drawer.

He saw me at the table.

"Piccola. This is a strange blessing."

"It's the one Papa asked for," I said.

"Corrado," my father said.

His voice was a thread, and the room leaned toward it.

"You have held the lamp for nine years. Tonight you sit in the chair."

A ripple went along the wall of men.

My uncle laughed.

"Ignazio. This is a child's game."

"Sit."

"I won't be mocked in front of my own family."

"You will sit," said the widow in black, from the foot of the steps, "or you'll leave this room feet first."

Nobody moved.

I watched my uncle count the faces.

I watched him see eight men who had kissed his ring and weren't looking at him now.

He pulled his lips back from his teeth.

Then he walked to the bolted wooden chair and sat down in it, carefully, hitching his trousers at the knee.

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