Chapter 24: Two Chairs

On Sunday there were twenty guests at the long table in Oak Park, and the lamb came out at one.

I carried it in myself, on the white platter with the chipped rim.

It smelled of rosemary and garlic, and my hands did not shake.

Paola had set the table.

She had put the good silver out, and counted the chairs twice, and then counted them again.

There were twenty-one.

Rocco sat at the head.

At his right was the chair I had sat in for five years.

At his left, for the first time, was a second one.

Bianca stood behind it in a cream blouse, with her nursing lanyard around her neck.

She had come straight from a shift at Mercy.

"Is it all right?" she whispered. "I didn't dress."

"You look like yourself," I said.

"Is that all right?"

"It's the best thing in the room."

She laughed, and her whole face changed.

I set the platter in the middle of the cloth.

Sandro was at the foot of the table, with his jacket off, which was the nearest he came to relaxing.

The older guard sat three chairs down, his jaw healed, eating his first real meal in weeks.

The old capo had a place beside him.

The heavy man was there with his wife.

So was the union representative, in his one good suit, sitting very upright.

Nobody mentioned the name of Corsetti.

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