Chapter 12: Adele's Basket

I dressed in the bathroom in a hurry and came out with my hair still wet.

Renzo had already opened the door.

His mother stood on the porch with the basket on her arm and her face turned up to him, small and round and mild.

"My son," she said, in Italian. "You look thin."

"Mama."

"You won't ask me in?"

"No," he said.

"Let her in," I said from behind him.

He turned his head to me, and I nodded.

I wanted to see her face in my own kitchen, with nobody at a dining table to play to.

Renzo stepped aside, and Adele came in with the little shuffle she used at funerals.

She looked around the room at the one pan, the two chairs, the couch with the quilt trailing off it.

She did not look at my wet hair or the flush on my neck, and I knew she had seen both.

"So this is where he hides," she said.

"Sit down, Adele."

"Cara, don't be cold. I'm your mother."

"You're Dario's mother."

She sat anyway and set the basket on the table.

She lifted the cloth.

Inside lay a loaf of bread, a jar of broth and a small white baby blanket, knitted in a lace pattern, still in its tissue.

At the bottom was my wedding ring, wrapped in a handkerchief.

"I found it on the cutting board," she said gently. "It would be a shame to lose it."

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