Chapter 24: The Last Test

A year later, on a Sunday in October, I set forty places in my father's garden.

It was my table now, and I sat at its head.

Bianca sat on my right with her red nails around a glass of wine, telling Theo what she thought of his tie.

Theo sat across from her, with his bad knee out in the aisle, laughing in the wrong places.

Jake had come with a cane and a good watch, and he had stopped apologizing around Easter.

The oldest boss had sent a tray of pastries from a bakery that was not Ruzzo's.

I did not touch them.

At the far side of the lawn stood a man in a plain dark suit by the cellar door.

He held no basket.

He had not worn the driver's coat since the night I sent him out.

He had come back in the spring, when Bianca found him unloading trucks in Fall River and I sent for him.

He had worked the dock offices at the bottom of the ladder ever since and taken no pay from me.

Every Sunday he stood at the edge of this lawn, and I did not ask him to sit.

Theo had punched him in the stomach in June, as promised, and then driven him home.

Nobody forgave him for me.

Today, at the end of the meal, Remo walked across the grass to my chair.

The garden went quiet, one table at a time.

He stopped in front of me and took something out of his jacket.

It was my old phone.

The cracked screen was gone, and a new glass shone in the afternoon light.

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