Exiled for Saying No, I Came Back and Took the Boss's Chair novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Papa's Chair

On the first night of the novena Nonna sits Lotta in her father's kitchen chair, the funeral food comes from the Costigan pit, and in the pantry she and the cook call each other's fathers liars, then she tells him to take her to the Pit.

The brick house on the hill smelled of onions and floor wax, exactly as it had when I was nineteen.

Eleven aunts and cousins were in the kitchen, and every one of them stopped talking when I came through the back door.

I still had my father's weight on my shoulder.

Nonna stood at the stove in her black dress and a flowered apron, stirring a pot of broth.

She looked at me once, up and down, and went on stirring.

"Sit," she said.

She pointed her spoon at the chair by the stove, the one with the cracked cushion.

It was my father's chair.

He had eaten his supper in it every night of my life, with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door.

"That's his," I said.

"That's why."

An aunt by the sink drew in a breath through her teeth.

Nonna turned and looked at her until she went back to the potatoes.

I sat.

The cushion was still shaped to him, and I sat in that shape with my coat on.

At six the back bell rang, and two young men in aprons came in with steaming foil pans stacked to their chins.

Ronan Costigan came in behind them with the biggest pan in both arms.

The kitchen went silent for the second time.

"Brisket," he said to Nonna. "Ribs, beans, slaw, and bread from the German bakery on Southwest."

"Irish food in this house," an aunt said, not quietly.

"He ate it every Friday," Nonna said. "So will she."

Ronan set the pans down along the counter without once looking at me.

Then Nonna told him to fetch the long platter from the scullery, and he went.

I got up and followed him.

The scullery was a narrow room with a deep sink and a shelf of platters, and it had one door.

I shut the door behind me.

He turned around with the platter in his hands.

"Why did you open that church door?" I said.

"It wasn't right to shut it."

"It's not your door."

"No," he said. "It's not."

"Your father swore he would take me if I stayed in this city," I said. "That's why I was on that train."

His face did not move.

"My father has never raised a hand to a woman in his life," he said.

"Then he lied," I said.

"And you laughed in my brother's face, and your family sent you off for it," he said.

"I never laughed at anyone."

"That's what was said," he answered.

"Then whoever said it is a liar, and so is whoever told you."

"Then so is whoever told you," Ronan said.

We stood there.

He was close enough that I could count the freckles under his beard.

He set the platter on the shelf behind him, and his forearm came down on the old steam pipe that ran along the wall.

He swore quietly and pulled his arm back.

A red line was rising across the old scars.

I took his wrist, pulled him to the sink and turned the cold tap on over the burn.

I didn't think about it.

I held his wrist under the water with my whole hand around it.

The scar across my palm lay against the pale underside of his arm.

His pulse was going hard against my thumb.

I told myself that was the burn.

"You're cold," he said.

"I've been in Duluth," I said.

"Is that a place or a condition?"

"Both."

The water ran over our hands.

Neither of us moved.

He was looking at my mouth, and I knew it, and I let him.

Then I let go of his wrist and wiped my palm on my coat.

"Go home, Costigan," I said. "You smell like a fire."

His mouth moved at one corner.

"I'll remember you said so," he said.

He took the platter and went out, and I stayed with my hands on the sink until my breathing came down.

The rosary went on in the front room for an hour.

I ate in my father's chair with the whole kitchen watching me.

The brisket was the best I had ever tasted, and I hated that.

At one in the morning the house was finally dark.

I went out the back door in my coat and stood on the porch.

At the curb a pickup sat with its lights off and its engine ticking.

Ronan was leaning on the fender with his arms crossed over his burnt arm.

He had been there two hours.

I walked down the steps and across the wet yard.

"Take me to the Pit," I said. "I want to see where my father got his Friday dinner."

He opened the passenger door.

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