He Protected My Baby's Killer, So I Left Him novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Dress

The baker from the corner came into the shop at two that afternoon with a white cake box and her chin up.

She hadn't set foot in my aunt's store in sixteen days, since the first morning of the gossip.

Behind her came the butcher's wife.

After her came a tiny woman in a cardigan who sewed hems for the whole parish.

She carried a garment bag over her arm.

My aunt put down the invoice she was pretending to read.

"Well," she said.

"Don't start," said the baker.

She set the box on the counter and opened it.

Inside were six sfogliatelle, still warm.

"My nephew drives for the Caprio boy," she said. "He came home at noon and told his mother everything."

"A man in a navy coat put a bag of money on the gravel in front of six witnesses," she went on. "He asked this girl to forget something. And she said no."

"She said a good deal more than no," said the butcher's wife.

"Nobody pays that much for nothing," the baker said.

"I've kept my own books for forty years. I know what a number like that is. It's what you pay when you're afraid."

She looked at my aunt, and her mouth wobbled.

"I wrote you a nasty note, and I took my account elsewhere."

"You've known me since the second grade. I'm an old fool. I'm sorry."

My aunt came around the counter.

They stood for a moment with their arms at their sides.

Then my aunt said, "You can pay the forty-two dollars you owe me for the caulk."

The baker burst into tears and hugged her.

I stood with my hand on the register and could not seem to move.

"Now you," said the woman with the garment bag, and pointed at me with a pin cushion. "In the back. Take your sweater off."

"What is this?"

"This," the baker said, wiping her face, "is a dress."

"My daughter wore it to a gala in Newport," the seamstress said. "She grew out of it by Christmas."

"Not black," said the butcher's wife. "You're not going to a funeral."

"And not white," said the seamstress, and unzipped the bag.

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