Chapter 24: The Door Stays Open

The brass key fit the front door of the house on Dickinson Street, and it turned on the first try.

The lock was new.

So was the little plate beside the bell.

For five years it had said Conte, in letters I had paid a man twelve dollars to engrave.

Now it said Sorrentino.

"I had the lock changed on Tuesday," Dominic said behind me. "The deed is on the hall table."

I pushed the door open.

On the table under the wedding photograph lay a folded paper with a gold seal.

I read it standing in my coat.

Title to the house and the land under it, in the name of Ilaria Sorrentino, signed by a Ferraro.

"It was my father's," he said. "He'd have wanted it to belong to someone who held the family up."

"That's what your mother said."

"My mother is always right."

I looked at the photograph on the wall.

The girl in the plain dress who hadn't known what she was walking into.

I took it down, and Dominic let me.

I put it face down on the table.

On Sunday the long table in the dining room held forty plates, and every chair was full.

The Ferraro captains sat on one side and the Neapolitans on the other.

The four allied heads sat in the middle with their wives, who had stopped looking at me sideways.

Nico sat with his arm still in its sling, eating with his good hand and telling a story about a goat.

Aurelio sat by Rosaria, and the two of them had discovered a shared contempt for American coffee.

"And then the goat," Nico said, "walked into the church."

"Into the church?" asked the gray captain.

"During the mass, Capitano. Up the middle, like a bride."

"Sit down," said Rosaria. "You're not at the front of the church."

"I am a witness."

"You are a hazard."

Everyone laughed.

I laughed too, and it surprised me how easily it came.

Dominic had not eaten.

He stood up at the head of the table with a glass of water in his hand.

The room went quiet.

"I won't make a speech," he said.

"Good," said Rosaria.

"Ma."

"I'm only agreeing with you."

He set the glass down.

He came around the table, past his captains, past the heads of the four houses, and stopped in front of my chair.

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