Chapter 7: Guests Don't Get Lectured

Ugo drove me back to South Philadelphia in his old Buick, with the burned gown in the trunk.

He didn't talk the whole way, and I didn't ask him to.

At two in the morning he stopped at Fausta's curb.

I got out of the car the way I had gotten into it, one hand on the roof, and my foot slipped on the wet curb.

I grabbed the door.

Something tore under my ribs, with a soft sound I felt more than heard.

I didn't cry out.

I stood there with my hand pressed to my side, and when I took it away, my fingers were red.

"Go in," Ugo said. "Quickly."

He pulled the garment bag out of the trunk and put it in my arms, and drove off.

The front door was open before I reached the stoop.

Pietro stood in the light of the hall in his shirtsleeves, with his tie pulled loose.

He had been home an hour.

I could tell from the way he held the doorframe that he had spent all of it at the window.

"You're bleeding," he said.

"It's nothing."

"You're bleeding on my grandmother's steps."

He took the bag out of my arms and dropped it on the hall chair.

Then he took my elbow and brought me into the kitchen, and sat me on a chair under the light.

He pulled up my shirt without asking and looked at the dressing, and his face went the color of paper.

"Three stitches," he said. "Three of them let go."

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