Chapter 19: What He Owes

"I will answer everything then." Aldo had promised it to a whole room, and I meant to hold him to it.

I decided in the car that I would go to Taylor Street on Sunday, whatever Rocco said.

Friday night I swept the glass out of my own shop.

Rocco did not tell me to stay home on Sunday, and did not offer to hire someone to sweep.

He took the second broom from the closet and swept beside me until the floor was bare.

Then I climbed the stairs to my flat, and he stood in the doorway and did not come in.

"Can I say it now?" he asked.

"Say what?"

"What I owe you."

I sat on the couch where Bianca had slept the first night.

I pulled my feet under me and nodded.

He stayed standing.

"In March I let twenty men decide what you were worth, and I said, the council decides. I knew what they'd decide."

"You knew you were protecting me."

"I knew I was deciding for you." His voice was rough. "That's the part I can't take back. I never asked you."

I said nothing.

"So here's what I'll do," Rocco said. "I'm not asking you to forget it."

"Tomorrow I'm going to the families, and I'm signing the dock contracts over to the longshoremen's own union."

I stared at him.

"Those contracts are the only reason Aldo had any hold on you or me. They're also half of what the Brandolinis earn."

"You'll be poorer."

"We'll be poorer. I'm telling you before I do it, because I should have asked you in March."

"If you say no, I don't sign."

"It's your family's money."

"It's your house," he said. "You've been sitting at the end of that table for five years."

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