Chapter 4: Sergio's Mother

On Tuesday evening a woman in a red wool coat stood outside my cousin's door holding a foil tray in each hand.

"You've lost weight," Sergio's mother said. "Let me in before the eggplant gets cold."

I had not expected her.

I had spent Monday night on one question, and it was still open on my chest: why would Dario's father pay for a hotel room in Gemma's name?

She had come in from Bay Ridge on two trains, and she was seventy-one.

My cousin took the trays, took one look at her face, and found a reason to go to the laundromat downstairs.

"Sit," Sergio's mother told me. "Eat. Then talk."

I ate, because nobody had ever successfully refused her.

She watched me over the table with her hands folded on top of her purse.

"Every Tuesday for six years you cooked for those boys," she said. "Tonight my son tells me there is no dinner, and Justine is being moody."

"I'm not moody."

"I know you're not. I've watched you through a hospital for three nights. You don't get moody. You get quiet, and then you get things done."

I put my fork down.

"I cancelled the wedding," I said.

She did not gasp, and she did not tell me I was being hasty.

She nodded once.

"Why?"

I told her the last part first, the chair I had found moved to the end of the table.

Then I told her about the hotel hold, and she went very still.

It took four minutes, and I did not cry once, which I was a little proud of.

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