Chapter 24: The Shoes

Federico did not look at the chairman when he answered.

He looked at me, with our son asleep against my shoulder.

"My wife," he said. "Gianna Orsini sits at my right hand, in the room and at the table.

"Anyone who wants a different answer can ask me for it."

The chairman bowed his head.

"It is written," he said.

The oath was sworn six weeks later in the great hall of the Orsini house, with every family of the Commission standing along the walls.

That morning a flat white box was waiting on my bed.

There was no card.

I lifted the lid, and under the tissue lay a pair of shoes in soft ivory leather, with a low heel and a single strap.

I turned one over.

Inside, in neat black ink, were the initials G.F.O.

I slid my hand into the shoe, and it fit.

I walked down the corridor in my stockings and found Federico in the dressing room, buttoning his cuffs with his left hand.

His right arm had healed to a scar and a stiff shoulder, and he was favoring it.

"You had these made," I said.

"Yes."

"When?"

"The week of the wedding. I took the size from your canvas sneakers the night I dressed your heels."

"Who sewed them?"

"A cobbler in Hartford." He cleared his throat. "I did not sew a stitch. I would have bled on them for no reason."

I laughed.

I laughed until I had to put the box down.

"They're yours," he said. "Nobody else will ever wear them, and nobody put them on you but you."

I sat on the bench and slipped them on.

They did not rub at the heel or pinch at the toe.

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