No Seat for Me at This Table novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Standing at the Stove

On Monday I worked fourteen hours, and I got back to the garage at midnight with my feet on fire.

Dino wasn't there.

There was a note taped to the table in his square capitals: Late job, Brooklyn Heights. Don't wait.

The leftover lasagna sat in the toaster oven, still warm.

I had eaten a banana at noon.

I stood at the hotplate with the dish in front of me and my stomach folding in on itself, and I took one bite standing up.

It was very good, and I took another.

I was on the third when the roll-up door clattered.

Dino came in with a toolbox in one hand and stopped dead.

His eyes went to the fork in my hand.

"We said both," he said.

"You were late."

"I texted you."

"I didn't check my phone."

"You didn't check it," he said. "You never do. You eat standing at the stove, you eat in the walk-in, you eat the family meal in four minutes. You've always eaten alone, Gia, and you let them call it a dinner."

I put the fork down on the dish with a clink.

"It's lasagna, Dino. It's not a vow."

"It was a rule. Our rule."

"Do not psychoanalyze me because I was hungry."

"I'm not." His voice dropped. "I'm saying you did to yourself what they did to you."

I felt my face go hot.

I wanted to throw the dish at him, and I wanted to cry, and underneath both of those I wanted something else.

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