Chapter 18: Two Votes

The council room above the bakery smelled of coffee and old wood.

Eleven chairs stood around the table, and I sat down in the one that had always been Rocco's.

The ring hung heavy on my thumb.

Rocco stood behind me with his hands at his sides.

Paola stood against the wall.

Bianca took the chair by the door in her blue nurse's coat.

Aldo had a guest's seat at the foot of the table.

The Corsetti family has no chair on the council.

He had never needed one, because he owned seven.

The seven sat along the right side with their eyes on the tabletop.

The old capo hit his cane on the floor once.

"The motion is that the first wife of the Brandolini table be released," he said.

"With a pension and a house."

"It is already counted," Aldo said gently.

"It is not counted until I count it."

"Then count, my friend."

"First," the old man said, "the Donna has asked to speak."

Aldo smiled and spread his hands, a man who could afford to be generous.

I stood up.

My knees felt loose, so I put one palm on the table.

"I am here in my husband's chair, by his hand and by the rule," I said.

"I don't ask the council to like me."

"Then what do you ask?" the old man said.

"To read one page."

I took the council book from the shelf behind the old man's chair, where it had sat all week.

I had first read from it the day I demanded the wife's rule.

That day I had kept reading after they stopped watching me.

I opened it to a page I had marked with a bit of blue thread.

"This is the third article," I said, "written by Rocco's grandfather. It says that a vote taken for money is no vote."

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