Chapter 22: Every Piece

Luca came home on the ninth of May, the week he should have been born.

He weighed five pounds and two ounces, and the penthouse had never been so loud.

Nonna moved into the guest room for ten days with her rolling pin and her opinions.

She told Maxim he held the baby wrong, then told him he held the baby right, then asked him to hold the baby while she cooked.

On the eleventh night she went home to Scranton.

"The two of you need the apartment," she said at the door. "Don't look at me like that, Elena. I was married for forty-nine years."

At nine Luca went down in the nursery across the hall, in the crib Maxim had finally finished.

At ten the doctor's clearance sat on the nightstand in a white envelope, with the date circled in red.

I stood in the bedroom doorway in a robe, watching Maxim set the new monitor on the nightstand.

It was a different model from the one in Margot's gift bag, and he'd put it in the trash himself.

He turned and saw me.

His hands stopped.

"You're cleared," he said.

"Nine weeks and two days."

"I kept track."

"I know you did."

"I'm going to knock," he said, and crossed the room and rapped twice on the doorframe above my head.

I laughed.

He kissed the laugh out of my mouth.

It was nothing like the kitchen, or the cemetery night, or September.

It was slow and sure, with his hand spread at the back of my head and his thumb on my jaw.

It went on until I forgot what room we were in.

"I said I was going to take every piece of your clothing off with my teeth," he said against my lips.

"You said it in the lobby."

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