Chapter 10: Hello, Livio

I didn't turn the sign off.

I left it on, half lit, so I could see his face.

Behind me, through the diner window, I heard a stool scrape. Then another.

The whole counter had turned around.

I took my coat off the hook and put it on over my apron.

"Caterina," Orsola said from the kitchen door.

"Stay inside," I said. "Please."

She looked at me for a long second.

Then she stepped back behind the swinging door, out of sight of the window, and let it close.

I went out into the snow.

It was over my shoes at the bottom of the steps.

The wind came straight off the water and hit me in the face.

He was standing by the car with snow in his hair.

Black suit, white shirt open at the neck. No coat. No gloves.

He'd lost weight. Ten days, and there were hollows under his cheekbones I'd never seen.

He started toward me.

"Stop there," I said.

He stopped.

There were maybe twenty feet of snow between us.

"Where's your coat?"

"On a chair in Chestnut Hill." He looked down at himself like he'd only just noticed. "I left in a hurry."

"You drove from Philadelphia in a snowstorm in a suit."

"The car has a heater."

"Your car has a heater," I said. "You don't."

His mouth moved. It wasn't a smile. It was where a smile used to be.

Behind me, the diner door opened a crack.

"You all right out there, Caterina?" the tall lobsterman called.

"I'm fine."

"That the fella?"

"That's the fella."

"Want us to come out?"

"No. Go back inside. It's cold."

"We know it's cold. We live here."

The door closed. But nobody went back to their stools.

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