Chapter 6: The Pantry

Riccardo's POV

By two o'clock on Thanksgiving my father's house held forty-three people and two turkeys.

There was a tray of lasagna, and a pot of Portuguese kale soup that Palmira would not let anyone else touch.

I stood at the front window with a glass of club soda and watched Rebelo come up the walk with a pie.

She wore a dark green sweater and jeans, and her braid hung over one shoulder.

She had her father's ring inside her collar, where she always kept it.

I had not touched her in five days.

She had said Thursday, and I had counted every hour of the week.

I was supposed to be talking to my uncles about the Tuesday trucking schedule.

I said yes to something, and an uncle clapped my shoulder.

Then Rebelo came through the front door and handed her coat to a cousin and looked across the crowded hall at me.

It lasted a moment.

She walked to the kitchen with the pie held out in front of her, and she did not look back.

I knew what that meant.

I waited a minute, put down the club soda, and followed her.

There was one thing I hadn't told her.

I had sworn it in the sacristy, on my knees, to six old men, before she wore the ring.

Then I'd walked out into the church and seen the ring on her neck, and I had understood that it was going to be her.

I told myself that what I felt in her bed was mine, whatever the oath was.

I told myself I would say it the day I was sure she wouldn't walk out.

That day had not come, and it was not coming this week.

The kitchen was full of women and steam.

Palmira, my stepmother for a month and still not a word I could say aloud, was shouting in Portuguese at an aunt about the soup.

Rebelo set the pie on the counter and said something to my aunt, and then she turned, and her eyes found me in the doorway.

She tilted her head at the door to the pantry.

She went in.

I crossed the kitchen at a normal pace, said "Excuse me" to two women, and followed her inside.

The pantry was a narrow room off the kitchen, with a wooden door that closed with a latch.

Shelves ran floor to ceiling on both sides, cans and boxes and a fifty-pound sack of flour.

Rebelo stood at the far end with her back to the shelves and her arms crossed.

"Close the door," she said.

I closed the door.

The kitchen noise dropped to a hum, and I could hear her breathing.

"On your knees," she said.

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