Chapter 13: The Altar

Nobody at the table moved.

An old man's fork slid off his plate and rang on the floor, and nobody bent to pick it up.

Cecilia looked at Adamo.

"He gave you the docks," she said.

Adamo opened his mouth and shut it again.

"The night before our wedding. For me."

"Cecilia, it wasn't like that."

"Did you take the docks?"

He didn't answer.

His silence was an answer, and twenty-two people heard it.

She turned her head to the woman across the table.

Simona had sat back down, with both hands over her mouth.

"You knew for three years," Cecilia said. "You sat in my kitchen and held my hand and gave me your coat."

"I didn't mean for it to come out."

"No. You meant me to go on being the fool."

The eldest of the old men cleared his throat.

"The Don's business with a debt is the Don's business, signora."

"I was not a debt," Cecilia said. "I was a bride."

She stood.

Ettore stood a moment after her, and his chair scraped.

"Cecilia."

"Sit down," she said. "You've done enough standing up at my wedding."

He sat.

She had never in her life seen him obey anyone, and it frightened her more than anything else that night.

She took her bag from the back of the chair.

She walked the length of the room with twenty-two faces turning to follow her, and not one of them said a word.

Behind her Adamo said her name, once, thinly.

Zia's voice cut across it.

"Let her go. Any man who follows her out of this house answers to me."

Nobody followed.

She walked the whole way to Ninth Street in her good shoes.

The brass key turned on the first try.

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