Chapter 23: Move-In Day, Again

On Monday morning I took the seven o'clock ferry with a suitcase that had a new zipper.

Gianluca had offered to drive me.

I had said I wanted to arrive the way I had left.

He had understood that, and stayed in Miami one more night.

Lucrezia was waiting at the terminal in Staten Island.

She wore a Rossi's apron under her gray cardigan, and her hair was tied back.

She looked smaller without a dress.

"I get thirty minutes for breakfast," she said. "Nonna said I could use them for this."

"For what?"

She held out an envelope.

It was not cream, and it was not typed.

My name was written on it in blue ballpoint, in a hand so uneven I almost didn't know it for hers.

"It's not a forgery," she said. "I did it three times. My writing is awful."

"I know."

"You have better handwriting."

"I had more practice."

I took the envelope and didn't open it.

She watched my hands.

"The crew wives have me on tables and the register," she said.

"Nonna says I get a raise when I stop crying into the napkins."

"Are you crying into the napkins?"

"Only at lunch."

I almost smiled, and I didn't let myself.

"Mama's at Aunt's. In the basement." Her voice shook. "Papa drives for a produce company. He won't talk to me."

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