Chapter 16: The Promised Baby

Renzo took the porch steps in two strides and stood at the top with the boatyard man beside him.

The old man had his goose gun broken open over his arm.

I stood in the doorway behind them with Renzo's sister gripping my sleeve.

The car stopped in the yard and the engine died.

For a long time nobody got out.

Then the door opened, and Gianna Marchetti stepped onto the gravel.

She wore a man's raincoat over a sweatshirt.

Her hair was uncombed, her mouth was bare, and for the first time since I had met her she was not in cream.

"I'm alone," she said, to Renzo. "I swear it. You can search the car."

"Why are you here?"

"Adele told me to come and get your sister." She held up her phone, face out. "I read it at the bridge. I came anyway."

"For my sister?"

"For her." She looked past him, straight at me. "If she'll hear me."

I stepped out onto the boards.

My knees felt weak, and I put my hand on the post and stood up straight.

"Say it from there," I said. "I'm not coming down."

"All right."

She stayed at the bottom of the steps with the porch light on her face.

Her eyes were swollen, and I thought she had been crying for a day.

"My father took the apartment," she said. "He took the car keys, and then he gave them back."

She swallowed.

"He told me he would rather bury me than see me in the street."

"I know what he said at the table."

"He said it again in private. It was worse."

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