On Halloween My Husband Bet I'd Never Leave Him So I Stopped Waiting novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Milan

The Ferraro table in Milan seats fourteen.

It is dark walnut, older than the country's current constitution, and no one under forty had ever been asked to sit at the head.

I sat in my father's chair on Friday at noon, with my mother on my right.

Tommaso stood by the door, because he would not sit unless I told him to.

Twelve relatives looked at me down the length of the wood.

My uncle spoke first.

He was my father's older brother, seventy-one, with a signet ring and a voice like a closing door.

"We have seen the film," he said. "All of Milan has seen the film."

"I know."

"A Ferraro on her knees in a lobby."

"I know that too."

"It is a shame to the name."

The room went very quiet.

I had expected this, and I had decided on the plane how I would answer it.

"Zio," I said. "You are right that there was a shame in that lobby. It belongs to the man who put me there, and to the woman who paid for the screen.

"It belongs to every person who filmed instead of opening the elevator."

"You were the one who..."

"I was the one on her knees," I said. "I was not the one who put myself there. I would like that understood at this table before we go on."

My aunt, at the far end, put down her fork.

"She is correct," she said.

"Nobody asked you."

"I am asking myself."

My uncle turned a page in the folder in front of him.

"The family has a proposal. You return to Milan. You hold your father's trust here, where we can watch it. The American company is sold. The thirty-eight percent comes home, with a fair price."

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