Chapter 4: June

I didn't sleep.

At five in the morning I was still sitting in Peg's kitchen with the iPad, scrolling Bella's account back through the whole summer.

A charcoal coat on the back of a chair in July.

A heavy gold watch on the dashboard of a car in August, beside her pink phone.

In February, there was nothing at all.

Her account went dark the day after the crash and came back in April with a photo of a sunset and the caption "Healing."

Peg came in at seven in her robe and looked over my shoulder.

"That's him," she said. "The watch."

"That's him."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to ask him to his face."

Peg put the coffee on. "Then I'm driving."

The Abbates own a restaurant on Taylor Street.

It has red booths, white tablecloths and photos of dead men shaking hands with dead mayors.

It doesn't open until five.

On Monday mornings, the family uses the back room.

The men who work for Gino's father eat breakfast at the long table by the kitchen.

I knew all that because I'd been engaged to it for eighteen months.

Peg parked her Buick in the fire lane.

"Ten minutes," she said. "Then I come in with the tire iron."

"Peg."

"I'm kidding." She patted the seat beside her. "It's under here."

The front door was unlocked.

A waiter folding napkins saw me and dropped one.

I walked past him, past the bar and the empty booths, toward the noise from the back.

My knee hurt worse in the morning. I didn't try to hide the limp.

The back room was full.

Eight men sat at the long table over eggs, espresso and the racing pages.

Two more stood by the door to the alley.

Gino sat at the head of the table in his shirtsleeves, a phone in one hand and a cup in the other.

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