Chapter 23: The Bus Yard

"Where would she go?" I said.

Corrado stood in the middle of the empty room, turning the gold cross over in his hand.

"She has no money," he said. "She has no car and no friends who aren't Papà's. She's never taken a bus."

"Then she's not on one yet."

"Mira." He did not look at me. "Last week she asked me which bay."

"Which bay?"

"At the yard. Where I left you. She wanted to know the exact bay, and I told her." His voice was low. "I thought she was being kind."

I went down the stairs two at a time.

Corrado drove.

The Newark bus yard sat behind a chain-link fence beside the rail line, gray and empty at seven in the morning.

I had last seen it in January, at thirteen, in a coat three sizes too big.

Cosima sat on a concrete bench under a rusted lamp at bay six.

She still had the camel coat.

She had no bag.

She sat with her hands between her knees and her hair uncombed, looking at the spot on the asphalt where a car must once have stood.

I got out and walked across the yard.

She heard my steps and didn't look up.

"I wanted to see it," she said. "I wanted to know what it looked like."

"Now you do."

"It's smaller than I thought."

"It was a lot bigger in January."

She laughed, a single cracked sound.

Then she put her face in her hands.

I stood in front of her.

I had thought about this for five years, though I would have told you I hadn't.

I had thought about putting her on the ground in front of the whole house.

I had thought about her begging.

Now she sat there with her hair in her eyes, and I was only tired.

"I brought you something," I said.

I held out the coat.

It was gray wool, much too large, with a torn lining.

Corrado had put it on my shoulders in this yard when I was thirteen.

I had worn it every winter since, until the sleeves finally reached my fingertips and I could not give it up.

I had taken it off my own door that morning.

Cosima looked at it without understanding.

"It's the one he gave me," I said. "Put it on."

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