Chapter 20: The Foot of the Table

"I took it off Dad's place," Marco said. "Nobody else was going to."

He held out the gold plate with both hands.

"I'm not asking to stay," he said. "The lease is up next week, and I have nowhere."

"You can have the couch."

"Gia."

"One week, Marco. You sleep on the couch, and you wash every dish."

He nearly smiled, and he nodded.

The Sunday after next, Dino and I carried my mother's table down the driveway at nine in the morning.

He took the end by the cab and I took the end by the tailgate.

We strapped it into the truck bed with the legs up.

It was the same weight it had always been.

I climbed in beside him and did not look back.

Aunt Lucia's dining room was ready for us by one.

The stone had been unveiled at ten.

Afterward sixty people had stood around the street in black coats, looking for somewhere to put their hands.

We set the oak table in the middle of her room, under the chandelier, and I laid a white cloth over it.

I set every place myself.

At the head I put a plate, a fork and a candle, and a framed photo of Uncle Paulie in his work jacket.

At his right went Aunt Lucia.

At his left went Carla, with my mother's gold-rimmed plate in front of her.

"Gia," Carla said, very quietly, when she saw it.

"It's yours," I said. "She wanted it to be."

Marco, Dino and I went down the side, with a white plate at each place and a fork beside it.

Dino's chair was across from mine, so I could see him.

Keep reading free with an account. Start No Seat for Me at This Table from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.