Chapter 24: March

In the first week of March I caught the flu that was going around Federal Hill.

My aunt put me to bed in the apartment over the shop.

She stood in the bedroom door at noon with her purse over her arm.

"The baker's sister is having her hip done," she said. "I promised to sit with her. There's soup on the stove."

"I'm fine, Zia."

"You're gray." She looked at the thermometer on the nightstand. "Take it again in an hour."

"I called that man and told him you're ill, so don't pretend to be well when he comes."

"What man?"

She gave me a look and went out.

I lay under the quilt with my head pounding and watched the light cross the ceiling.

The apartment smelled of paint.

We had finished the kitchen in January, a clean yellow.

Elio had put in a second bookshelf, though I did not have enough books to fill the first.

Down in the shop I could hear the bell on the green door and a customer arguing over the price of grout.

The street had come back, one account at a time.

Carina had pleaded guilty in February to assault with a motor vehicle, with the video and her own words in front of the court.

Her mother had come to the sentencing every day, and sat in the last row, and had not looked at her once.

I had read the number in the paper.

It was a long one, and I did not feel glad, and I did not feel sorry, and I had stopped needing to.

At two o'clock I heard boots on the back stairs.

I knew the weight of the step before the door opened.

Elio came in with a paper bag and the smell of the yard on his jacket.

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