Chapter 11: Granted

Luca drove us back to the city with both hands on the wheel and the radio off.

Nonna's sister was asleep in the back seat, snoring softly, with her purse on her lap.

We had dropped her at the bakery in Bayonne first.

She had kissed my forehead on the step and said, "Now the paper has a voice."

Now it was only the two of us and the green hatchback, and the road with its orange lights.

I kept seeing Dad's face when Vincent's father said the word bank.

Dad had looked afraid, and I had never seen that before.

In the morning a man would carry a file into his office, and nothing about that was mine to stop.

I held the blue folder in my lap and I did not cry.

I had not cried in the basement, or in the ER, or in the aid office.

I had not cried when Dad lied to my face.

I thought I was finished with it.

Then, at a red light on the Turnpike, Luca turned his head and said, "You were great."

"I wasn't great."

"You were terrifying. I'd follow you into a fire."

"I'm shaking," I said.

"That's allowed."

It was the kindness that did it.

My whole face crumpled, and I put my hands over it.

I had been so careful for so long, and a stranger in a borrowed blazer had said that was allowed.

He didn't say anything.

The light turned green, and he put on his turn signal and pulled into the lot of a closed gas station.

He turned off the engine.

I cried for a long time.

I cried for the basement, and Nonna's coffee can, and for Franco teaching me to ride a bike.

He left a pack of tissues on the dashboard where I could reach them.

When I could talk, I wiped my face with my sleeve.

"I'm sorry. You must be tired of my family."

"I have a long list of things I'm tired of, and you're not on it."

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