Chapter 6: Dad's Kitchen

My father's kitchen in Bensonhurst had not changed since my mother died.

The same yellow curtains hung over the sink.

The same photo of her on the fridge held a coupon for roof sealant.

Only the table was different, because it was a card table now, and he had put it where hers used to stand.

He sat at the head of it with his reading glasses pushed up and his hands flat on the plastic.

"Sit, Gianna."

"I'll stand."

"You always were stubborn."

"I'm tired, Dad."

"Then sit and be tired."

I sat.

He poured me coffee I didn't want, and for a minute neither of us said anything.

He was a big man who had spent forty years on other people's roofs, and sixty was going to look hard on him.

"Carla lost her father last year," he said finally. "She doesn't have anybody."

"She has her mother. She has Rocco, apparently."

"Don't talk that way."

"She's been sleeping with my boyfriend for six weeks, Dad."

He flinched, and then he looked down at his coffee.

"I heard something about it."

"You heard."

"Lucia told me it was a misunderstanding."

"She posted a coffee with his watch on the cup."

"Gianna." He rubbed his face. "I don't want to fight about the boy. The boy is nothing. I want peace at my table."

"Then Carla should have thought of that."

"One dinner," he said. "My birthday. You come, you say sorry for the live thing, you shake her hand, and we're done."

"Sorry for what? I switched off her phone and I took my mother's table."

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