Chapter 23: The Red Door, Repainted

On the second Saturday in December, the whole street came to paint my aunt's door.

Nobody had asked them to.

The baker arrived first, at seven, with a thermos of coffee and a can of forest green she had mixed herself.

The butcher's wife came next, carrying brushes in a coffee tin.

The seamstress brought a folding chair so she could supervise.

By eight, six of Elio's drivers stood in a line on the sidewalk with drop cloths, and two of them had brought their mothers.

My aunt stood in the doorway in her robe with her arms folded.

"I don't need help," she said.

"Nobody asked you," said the baker.

"I am the owner of this door."

"Then own it quietly," said the baker, and poured her a coffee anyway. "Drink."

The step still showed a faint red stain in the grain where the paint had gotten in.

Elio crouched on it with a sander, and I knelt beside him, holding the lamp.

"It won't all come out," he said.

"I know."

"It'll be a ghost."

"Then it'll be ours," I said. "I want to see it."

He looked at me for a second, and his hand came up and brushed a curl of sawdust from my cheek.

Behind us the baker said loudly, "Don't mind them," and the whole line of women began to stare at the sky.

At nine, a black sedan pulled up to the curb.

I felt the street go quiet.

Dominic got out in a plain gray coat with a folder under his arm.

He had lost weight.

He stood on the sidewalk and did not come closer, and I saw that he understood perfectly well that he had no right to.

"I won't stay," he said. "I came to bring something."

My aunt looked at him for a long time.

"You signed that eviction letter," she said. "It's the same pen you used on my niece's wedding contract."

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