His Ring on Her Finger, My Name on the Door novel · Chapter 16 of 32
Chapter 16: The Room Upstairs
Francesca read the whole letter sitting on the concrete step.
"I knew the night she was born. I decided she was mine. I never took it back."
"That is why you each have half. I won't have one of my girls weighed against the other."
"If you are reading this, I didn't get to say it at the table myself. The ledger will say it for me. Give it to the five districts. Not to the elders."
"Michael asked me for you in March. I told him no. I'll tell you why when you come home for Christmas."
"Your mother calls you strong. You were nine years old the first time she said it. I should have stopped her."
At the bottom, in the same pencil, he had signed it.
"Papa."
She folded it along its old creases and put it inside her coat, against her ribs.
On Tuesday night it rained.
The restaurant on Hanover Street was full of families and birthday candles and steam from the kitchen.
The stairs were narrow and lined with photographs of men in hats.
Her father was in six of them.
At the top was a plain wooden door.
Two men stood in front of it with their hands crossed.
One of them was the driver from the cemetery.
"Restaurant's downstairs, miss," he said.
"I know where the restaurant is."
"Then you know women don't go up."
"I'm already up."
The driver didn't smile.
He moved half a step to fill the doorway.
Behind the door, the port captain's rough voice was arguing with Ottavio's soft one.
"Move," Francesca said.
"Go home, Miss Ruggiero."
Footsteps came up the stairs behind her, two at a time.
Michael stopped on the step below her, rain on his shoulders.
He didn't look at her.
He looked at the two men.
"Open it," he said.
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