Chapter 4: The Clock

At nine the next morning Bruno drove me back to my mother's house.

I had slept in Silvio's guest room with the lock on my side of the door, and I had not used it.

Two of Silvio's men followed us in a second car.

"Ten minutes," I told Bruno. "I'm getting my things and one other piece of furniture."

"Yes, miss."

My mother opened the front door in her good blue blouse with a pincushion strapped to her wrist.

She looked at Bruno, then at the second car, and then at my face.

"Claire," she said. "We've been so worried."

She hadn't sounded worried in her text.

"I'm here for my things," I said.

The living room was full of morning light and people.

My aunt knelt on the carpet with pins in her mouth.

Tara stood on a kitchen chair in the middle of the room, in my wedding dress.

It was the ivory silk I had chosen over two Saturdays, and the hem had been taken up for me.

On her it dragged an inch on the floor.

"Don't look," Tara said. "It's bad luck."

"It isn't your wedding yet," I said. "So it can't be."

My aunt took the pins out of her mouth.

Tara's chin came up. "You said I could have it."

"I did. I said you'd need heels."

Shane stood in the kitchen doorway with a coffee mug in one hand and his phone held flat against his chest.

He saw Bruno behind me and moved back a step.

"Claire, where were you all night?"

"With my husband," I said. "Or I will be, at four o'clock."

My mother laughed, a small startled laugh, and the pincushion on her wrist rattled.

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