The Don's Animal-Talking Little Girl novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: Sunday Sauce
"How?" I said.
"A pillow. No marks." Teo set the phone down in its cradle like it was made of glass. "My man on the door is twenty-six. He says nobody came past him."
"Then somebody had a key."
"Three people knew that apartment. Me. My man. And the man who rented it for me."
"Who rented it?"
He looked at me.
"My uncle's office handles the leases," he said.
He sat down on the top step of the staircase, in yesterday's shirt, and put his face in his hands.
I'd seen him over a dead man on my step. I'd seen him with a car burning behind him.
I'd never seen him like this.
I sat down one step below him and didn't say anything.
After a while he said, through his hands, "I believe you."
"I know."
"I've known since the toast. 'A machine that tips over.' I heard it. I didn't want to hear it."
"I know."
"Stop saying you know."
"Okay."
He lifted his head. His eyes were red.
"He's my father's brother," he said. "He's the last of them."
"He's the one who killed the rest of them."
He flinched.
Then he nodded, slowly.
On Thursday the hospital released Gran.
Teo carried her up the front steps of the Speranza house himself, oxygen tank and all, because she refused the wheelchair ramp on principle.
"Put me down. I've been carried by better-looking men."
"Name one."
"Your grandfather. Bingo night, 1979."
He put her down in the garden room, in a hospital bed by the French doors.
She had a view of the roses and a television bigger than our cottage wall.
She looked around at the gold frames.
"Well," she said. "It's tacky. I'll stay."
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