Chapter 12: Gemma's Shoes in a Box

The front door of the house on Dickinson Street opened before I touched the bell.

Rosaria Ferraro stood on the step in her black cardigan with her gold cross outside it and her arms already out.

"Ilaria."

I hadn't expected my throat to close.

"Mamma," I said. It came out before I thought. I had called her that for five years.

She pulled me in so hard that my breath left me.

She smelled of garlic and Chanel and the kitchen of the first house that ever fed me in America.

"You went to bury your parents, and you went alone," she said into my hair. "I'll never forgive my son. I'll never forgive myself."

"It's all right."

"It is not all right."

She held me at arm's length and looked at me with her sharp black eyes.

"You look different," she said. "You look like somebody."

"I am somebody. I'll tell you everything."

"You'll eat first."

She turned her gaze on her son, standing behind me on the pavement.

He held a suitcase in his good hand, and his other arm was in a sling.

"And you," she said. "What did you do?"

"Ma."

"I asked what you did."

He looked at the ground.

"I wasn't there, Ma."

Rosaria slapped him across the face.

It was a small, sharp sound.

He took it without moving.

"That's for the funeral," she said. "The rest of it, we'll discuss at supper."

I went into the house.

It was the same hallway and the same umbrella stand.

The same wedding photo hung on the wall, a girl in a plain white dress who didn't know what she was walking into.

I took off my coat.

Then I saw the shoes.

A pair of low black boots stood on the mat by the door.

A pair of grey running shoes sat neatly beside them.

Not mine.

Not Dominic's.

"Whose are those?" I asked.

Dominic closed the door slowly.

"Gemma stays over when we run late."

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