Chapter 6: His Desk

"He couldn't," I said.

"No." Leandro tapped the word posterior with one floury finger. "Not unless somebody was standing behind him."

I photographed the page.

My hands were cold in that hot room.

"Who was standing behind them that night?" I said.

"That's what I've wanted to know for three years." He put the page back in the folder. "Now there are two of us."

I went home and didn't sleep.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to the townhouse to get my clothes.

Vittorio was supposed to be at the club until six. He was always at the club until six on Tuesdays.

I'd lived there five years. My key still worked.

The house smelled like lemon polish and him.

My mother's sewing box sat on the shelf in the back room.

Her wedding linens were in the hall closet. Her recipe tin was by the stove.

I'd come back with a van for those.

Today was just clothes.

I was folding sweaters into a duffel bag when I heard the front door.

Then his voice, from the bottom of the stairs.

"Noemi?"

I closed my eyes.

He came up slowly. He stopped in the bedroom doorway.

He looked like he hadn't slept since Friday. His shirt was wrinkled. He hadn't shaved.

"The neighbor called," he said. "She saw you come in."

"I'm getting my things."

"I can see that."

He watched me fold a sweater. Then another.

"You took my papers to a Manhattan lawyer," he said.

"You took my husband to a Manhattan clinic."

He flinched.

I zipped the bag and pushed past him and went down to the kitchen for my mother's apron off the hook.

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