Chapter 11: The Fitting

"Get your bag off my bread," Pasquale said.

Serena laughed.

"Nonno, you're so cute."

"I'm not your Nonno."

She moved the garment bag two inches and left a crease in the loaf.

Dad put his fork down.

"Who's this?" he asked me.

"Serena Lazzaro," I said. "Vito's daughter."

Dad's face went gray.

Serena smiled at him and wiggled her fingers.

"Hi, Mr. Morelli. I'm so sorry about your ribs. Daddy's boys get excited."

Dad started to push himself up on his cane.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Sit, Dad."

Footsteps on the front stairs.

Damiano came into the kitchen in a dark sweater, his knuckles taped.

He saw Serena and stopped.

"What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my fiancé." She held up her cheek for a kiss.

He didn't give her one. She kept smiling anyway.

"I came to get my dress fixed," she said. "Since your seamstress walked out on me."

He looked at me.

I waited for him to tell her to leave.

He poured himself coffee.

"The party's next Saturday," Serena said. "I need the hem finished and the waist taken in. Lucia knows what to do. She's had her hands all over it."

She unzipped the bag and pulled out the cream silk.

The pins I'd left were still in the left side of the hem.

"Go on," she said. "Right here. I'll stand on a chair."

"Not on my chairs," Pasquale said.

"Then on the floor. She's used to the floor."

She said it lightly, the way I used to say "Say thank you" to a girl with a pin between her teeth.

I knew every note of it.

I'd written the song.

Damiano drank his coffee.

He didn't say a word.

Pasquale stared at him, furious.

I looked at Damiano too, and he looked back at me over his cup, and he still didn't say anything.

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