Chapter 4: Terms

The gate opened before I touched the buzzer at 5:58.

He was awake.

He was standing at the end of the long kitchen in a gray sweater, barefoot, holding a coffee pot.

His reading glasses were on his nose.

He took them off so fast he nearly threw them.

"Too late," I said. "I saw."

"You saw nothing."

"You look like a librarian who kills people."

"Sit down, Siobhan."

I sat at the long table and put a yellow legal pad in front of me.

Four pages, handwritten, both sides of my nerve.

The old woman from yesterday came in from the garden in a black cardigan and slippers.

She took the coffee pot out of his hands without a word.

She poured it into the sink.

Then she made a new pot and cracked six eggs into a pan.

She pointed a wooden spoon at him until he sat down across from me.

"My grandmother," he said. "She doesn't trust me with the stove."

"Nightshift said he could make risotto."

"Nightshift lied about a few things."

"A few."

Nonna set a plate of eggs and peppers in front of me and a smaller plate in front of him.

She patted my shoulder twice and glared at him once.

"I like her," I said.

"She likes you. She's never given me the bigger plate in my life."

I turned the legal pad around and pushed it across the table.

"Terms."

He reached for it.

"Out loud," I said. "So nobody can say later you didn't hear them."

He folded his hands.

"Page one," I read. "The debt is burned. All of it. My father never owes your family another dollar."

"Done."

"Page two. I keep writing. My book, my name, my readers. Nobody in this house tells me what to cut."

"Done."

"Page three. Separate rooms."

The smallest pause.

"Done."

"Page four. One year. And I may leave any day I choose, and nothing happens to my father when I do."

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