Chapter 8: Say It Again

Rosetta asked him to stay for dinner, and I couldn't think of a reason to say no that she would accept.

So on Saturday night there were four of us at my small table, with spaghetti and a plate of garlic bread Nico had baked at the hotel kitchen at dawn.

Rosetta sat between Sullivan and her uncle and told them about Biscuit, who still wasn't real.

Sullivan listened to every word.

Nico laughed in the right places and left early, saying he had a call with the bakery.

He kissed Rosetta's head and mine, and he shook Sullivan's hand again, and again neither of them looked up.

By nine Rosetta was asleep with the octopus under her chin.

I came out of her room and eased the door closed.

Sullivan was in my kitchen, rinsing the pot.

"You don't have to do that."

"I know."

"The dishwasher's right there."

"I like it," he said. "It's the first thing I've done with my hands in days that wasn't a fist."

I took a dish towel off the oven door and started drying.

For a while neither of us talked.

The water ran and the plates clinked, and the old house ticked around us.

"What did Nico say to you on the porch?"

"That he was glad I was here."

"That's all?"

"He asked me to go easy on you," Sullivan said. "I told him I would."

It was close enough to the truth that I let it go.

I dried a plate.

"What did you tell your family?" I asked. "About me."

"That I'd done something unforgivable and I'd found the one person who could say so."

"Dramatic."

"It's accurate."

I almost smiled.

I put the plate in the cupboard, and when I came back he'd turned off the tap and stood holding the pot in both hands, looking at it.

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