Chapter 21: Cesare's POV: What Was Left

Cesare's POV

By nine that night I owned the clothes I stood in, a dog, and a folded paper in my coat pocket.

The doctor had cleaned my arm in Renata's kitchen and wrapped it to the elbow.

She had told me to keep it dry and to stop reaching for things.

I sat at the long table with a mug of tea going cold.

The dog lay across my feet, smelling of smoke.

Renata stood at the sink with her back to me.

She had not said much since the Table.

I had not either.

Something had been sitting on my chest since noon, and it was not the burn.

"Say it," she said, without turning around.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been carrying since you took the second chair."

I turned the mug in my hands.

"I lost everything today," I said. "I want you to know it. I'm not complaining."

"Cesare."

"Sabatini's. My mother's recipes on the wall. The flat. Eleven years of my life."

She dried her hands and came and sat across from me.

"I know."

"There's nothing left of the man who picked you up on Thursday night."

I turned the mug again.

"No building. No name that means anything, except what you gave me at noon."

I made myself look up.

"And I don't know if you named me because you wanted me."

I swallowed.

"Or because I ran into a fire for a dog."

She did not smile.

She looked at me for a long moment, and I watched her decide how to answer.

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