Chapter 21: Two Keys

Dino's POV

We carried her mother's table back into the garage at eleven that night.

I set my end down in its place under the hanging lamp.

Marco had stayed at Aunt Lucia's to help clear.

Carla had stayed with her mother.

For the first time since Sunday there was nobody in the garage but the two of us.

Gianna stood with one hand flat on the oak and her eyes closed.

"It came home," she said.

"You carried it."

"We carried it."

I took out my phone.

I had written the email under the tablecloth at the dinner, with my thumb, while Aunt Lucia gave her toast.

I held it up so she could read it.

It said: Thank you for the offer. I'm staying in Brooklyn.

"You didn't wait until Monday," she said.

"I didn't need to."

"Dino."

"I wasn't running toward anything. I thought I was."

I put the phone face down on the bench.

"It turns out I wanted one thing, and she was standing in a doorway holding a tiramisu."

She laughed, and it turned into something else halfway through.

I took a key out of my jacket pocket.

It was brass, newly cut, with a bright ring on it.

I had had it cut at the hardware store on Saturday, and I had carried it in my pocket for two days.

"This is the workshop," I said. "The side door and the roll-up. You don't knock anymore."

She took it from me and turned it over.

"I've had a key to you since I was five," she said.

"Then you can have this one too."

She curled her fingers around it.

Then she walked to the door and hung it on the hook beside mine, and she came back and kissed me.

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