Chapter 24: The Right Seat

The plane sat on the apron at Midway in the first grey light, with its steps down and its door open.

Declan stood at the foot of the steps in his charcoal overcoat, with his arm out of the sling for good.

It was the same man, the same coat, the same plane.

Only the woman walking toward it had changed.

I carried one bag and my mother's rosary case.

"You came," he said.

"I came with terms."

"I'm listening."

I stopped on the bottom step so we were eye to eye.

"I keep my mother's house, and I keep the Brandolini chair," I said. "I'm in Chicago Monday to Thursday."

"Agreed."

"You keep Boston. I come to you for the weekends."

"And you ask me before you bring a single man across a state line."

"Agreed."

"When you decide something that touches me, you tell me before, not after."

"Giulia, I have been practising that sentence since October."

"And any door in your house is mine."

"Every door," he said. "Every hour."

I opened the rosary case.

I took out the card with the phone number, soft now from eight years of folding, and the slanting line under it.

If you ever want a door.

I had written under it that morning, in pen.

I held it up so he could read the new line.

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