Chapter 6: The Phone

"I told you what that form was," I said. "At the table. I said it to your face."

"Livia read it to me. It was billing."

"It was my mother."

Santino's hand tightened on the napkin.

Nonna said, "Santino. Sit down."

He sat.

I walked out of the brick house on Taylor Street and down the steps, and I didn't feel the cold until I reached the corner.

Leave it till Monday.

Mama had been dead by ten after twelve.

On Tuesday morning Nathaniel drove me to Lake Forest in his old green Volvo, with Tripod taking up the whole back seat.

"You don't have to do this," he said on the Edens.

"It's my phone."

"I meant you don't have to do it alone. I could come in. I'm very intimidating."

I looked at him.

His glasses were held together at one hinge with a twist of wire.

"You're wearing a sweater with a hole in the elbow."

"That's how they know I'm dangerous."

I laughed, and then I stopped, because the gate was coming up.

The guard in the booth knew my face.

He looked at the Volvo, and the dog, and me.

"Mrs. Corsi."

"I'm picking up my things."

He hesitated.

Santino hadn't told them to keep me out.

Santino still thought I was coming back in a week.

The gate rolled open.

Nathaniel parked in the turnaround by the fountain and turned off the engine.

"Ten minutes," I said. "If I'm not out, honk."

"I'll honk the whole song."

The housekeeper opened the front door before I knocked.

She was sixty, and she'd run that house since Santino's father was alive.

She'd brought me tea every morning for three years and never once said more than good morning.

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