Chapter 10: Sunday at Aldo's Table

Rocco told me all of it that morning, standing in my shop.

The photograph, the payments, the blank line on the birth record, and that he had read every page twice before he came to me.

I didn't forgive him, and I didn't send him out.

I told him to sit, and we went through the folder together until the light came up.

On Sunday I put on my mother's gold hoops and drove to Aldo Corsetti's house myself.

Rocco had asked to come.

I told him term three, and he had looked at me for a long time and then given me the keys to his car.

The Corsetti house stood behind an iron fence in Elmwood Park, with stone lions on the steps.

Through the open front door I could hear forty people laughing.

A woman in an apron took my coat and did not ask my name.

The dining room was the size of a church hall.

A long table ran down it, crowded with platters.

At the head sat Aldo in a velvet jacket.

At his right sat Bianca, white-faced, holding a fork she was not using.

The woman from the engagement dinner sat halfway down with her husband.

She saw me and her mouth went flat.

The talk dropped away one voice at a time.

Aldo rose.

"Serra," he said warmly. "What a pleasure. Come. Sit. We'll make room."

"Thank you, no."

I walked down the length of the table.

Every head turned as I passed.

I stopped at his chair and took one white rose out of my coat pocket.

It was a little crushed, and its card was still tied to the stem by green thread.

I laid it on the cloth beside his plate.

"Your florist has been delivering to the wrong woman," I said.

My voice carried.

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