The Don's Wife Never Looks Back novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: The Sewing Box

"Onions," I said.

"Onions," Marisa's mother said to the stove.

"Ma, there are no onions," Marisa said from the doorway.

"Marisa, go get the cannoli."

"I brought the cannoli. They're on the table."

"Then go get them again."

Nathaniel was drying a plate that was already dry.

He didn't look at me.

He was the worst liar I'd ever met, and I'd been married to a man who lived with one.

"Adler."

"Sartori." He put the plate down. "Have you tried the cannoli? I hear they're on the table."

I let it go.

I let it go all afternoon, through the coffee and the anisette, through Nonna's cousin coming back with the Buick, through Marisa's brothers carrying the folding table back down to the basement and dropping it on the stairs.

Nonna kissed me at the door and told me to build the rail.

Marisa's mother kissed me at the door and held my face in both hands for a long time without saying anything.

That was when I knew it was something.

By eight the house was quiet.

The dishes were put away in Mama's cabinets, wrong, and I'd fix them tomorrow.

Tripod was asleep in the parlor in the square of floor where Mama's machine used to stand.

Nathaniel had made two cups of tea and set them on the kitchen table.

Mama's sewing box was sitting between them.

He'd put it there.

"Sit down," he said. "Please. Before I lose my nerve. I've only got about a teaspoon left."

I sat in Mama's chair.

He sat across from me in mine.

He put both his inky hands flat on the lid of the box.

"I asked permission today," he said. "I didn't know who to ask. Your mom's gone. You never had a dad. I wasn't going to ask Nonna Corsi."

"So you asked Marisa's mother."

"She was the nearest thing to the person I should have asked." He swallowed. "She hit me with the towel first. Then she said yes. Then she cried and blamed the onions."

I couldn't speak.

He opened the box.

He lifted out the top tray of spools and needles and set it aside.

Underneath, the big red pincushion sat in its corner.

Mama's pins were still in it, a dozen of them, glass heads in every color.

In the middle of them, pinned through the cushion by its band, was a ring.

It was a thin old gold band with a small square stone, not a diamond.

It was green.

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