Chapter 19: Sunday Dinner

The bell rang behind her and the door swung shut.

Through the new glass I watched her walk away down Taylor Street.

The pants lady got back on the platform.

"Well," she said. "Finish my pants."

I finished her pants.

My hands shook through the whole hem, and she pretended not to notice.

The bride hugged me so hard at the end of her fitting that a pin went into my arm.

I didn't tell Damiano what Serena said.

I didn't have to. The girl in the gray sweater had posted the video before I finished the pants.

By dinner it was all over the neighborhood. "I made it up in about four seconds."

Under it she had typed one line: One of them said sorry.

He called at nine.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"Sunday," he said. "Nonno's making lasagna. He says if you don't come he'll die of it."

Sunday the big brick house smelled like garlic from half a block away.

Dad brought a white box of cannoli from the bakery. He'd walked there himself that morning with a cousin trailing ten feet behind.

Pasquale met us at the green door in an apron that said KISS THE COOK, which someone had tried to cross out.

"Who did that?" Dad said.

"My grandson. He has no joy."

Damiano came in from the back yard with his sleeves rolled up and dirt on his hands.

He'd been wrapping the bottom of the fig tree in burlap.

Pasquale put the lasagna in the middle of the table, and it was the size of a suitcase.

Then meatballs. Then a salad nobody touched until he shouted at us. Then bread.

Damiano sat down.

He pulled out the chair next to mine and sat in it and picked up his fork.

Pasquale stared at him.

Then he looked at Dad, and they both looked at the ceiling at the same time.

"What," Damiano said.

"Nothing," Pasquale said. "Eat. You're sitting. It's a miracle. Eat."

We ate.

Dad told the story of the time I sewed a cape for our neighbor's cat and the cat ran into the street wearing it.

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