Chapter 20: The Boat and the Ticket

The boat left from the same kind of dock, in the same kind of grey light, at six on Sunday morning.

It was a small freighter with a Palermo flag, and eight of the old family heads stood on the pier to watch it load.

Carmine walked up the gangway between two Ruggieri men.

He didn't look back.

Cinzia came after him, alone, carrying one suitcase.

She had changed out of the champagne gown into a plain navy coat, and without the pearls she looked her age.

She stopped at the foot of the gangway when she saw me.

I stood on the pier in a plain black coat of my own.

"You came," she said, in English.

"I wanted to see it."

"Of course you did."

The gulls were loud.

Cinzia put down her suitcase.

"I'm going to say something in Sicilian," she said. "And you can decide whether to listen."

"Say it."

She said it slowly, in the dialect of our old street, the one her mother had used to call us in for dinner.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be only your friend."

I waited for the feeling I'd had at every dinner for fourteen years, the careful blankness, the face I kept for her.

She watched my eyes.

She was watching for it, I thought, from sheer habit.

For the first time in my life I did not stop my face.

I let her see everything.

I let her see that I had loved her, and that it was over, and that I was glad to be done.

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