Chapter 8: Bought

The Table called an emergency lunch for noon, and Domenico told me I didn't have to come.

I put on my cream coat and my mother's pin and went.

The back room on Passyunk Avenue was the same long white table, but the wine was gone and every old man sat very straight.

Fabio stood at the far end with his phone held up.

On the screen was the photograph from the cemetery, blown up, grainy, my face tilted toward Domenico's.

"This is how it started," Fabio said, and his voice was gentle with grief.

"Our boss, who sits at the head of this table, bought himself a woman."

"Bought," said the man with the white mustache.

"With the trial. Her sister is dying, and he opened the clinic door and put his hand out."

"I'm not saying it for cruelty. I'm saying it for the family."

A low murmur went down the table.

"The Giulia Carraro Foundation exists for the sick," Fabio said. "Not for the boss's bed."

I looked at Domenico.

He sat at the head of the table with both hands on the linen and said nothing at all.

His eyes were on the middle distance, and his face was a closed door.

He was going to let them say it.

He was going to let them call me that, in front of eleven old men, because he thought the truth was beneath him.

I stood up.

"Excuse me," I said.

Every head turned.

"Noelle," Domenico said, very low. "Sit."

"I'm sorry. I've been told not to speak until I'm asked a question."

I took the folded typed page out of my coat.

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