Chapter 10: The Fourteenth of August

Abby's POV

Rory called at noon.

"Facts only," he said. "My mother wants to see you. She says Domenico came to her house."

"Domenico is in Europe."

"He was in Yonkers in August."

I drove there alone, and I didn't tell Bea until I was already on the Whitestone Bridge.

She called me nine times.

The white colonial had a statue of the Virgin Mary in the garden and a church bulletin on the door.

Rory was waiting on the front step with his hands in his jacket pockets.

He looked at me, and at the road behind me, and didn't say a word about the hit.

"She's nervous," he said. "She's made four pies."

"Is that bad?"

"It's what she does when she's afraid."

The woman who opened the door was small and round, with white hair pinned in a bun and flour on her sleeve.

She was the woman from the Rome photo.

Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were red, and there was nothing wrong with her at all.

"Abby," she said.

She didn't ask me in.

She took both my hands in her floury ones and held on to them for a long time.

"I'm so sorry about your father," she said. "I didn't know. I swear to God I didn't know."

I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Thank you."

"I told Rory. I'd have walked here on my knees."

"It's all right."

"No, it isn't," she said fiercely. "Come and sit down."

The kitchen was warm and yellow, and I sat in the chair Rory pulled out for me.

His mother set a slice of pie in front of me and sat opposite.

"I want to tell you before I lose my nerve," she said. "It's about Domenico."

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