Chapter 5: Sunday Table

"Remember you from where?" I said.

But Livia was already out the door, and the Escalade pulled away from the curb with her inside it.

Nathaniel shut the door.

He looked at the torn petition on his drafting table.

"So," he said. "Sunday?"

"Sunday."

"Do you want company?"

"No. If I walk in with you, they'll say you're why I left."

"Fair." He picked up a torn piece and squinted at it. "For the record, your handwriting has gotten worse."

"Shut up, Adler."

Sunday dinner at Nonna Corsi's started at two and never ended before seven.

The brick house on Taylor Street had been in the family since before the war.

The front window still had lace curtains Mama had mended twice.

I came up the front steps at three, in Marisa's black dress with Mama's pins at the waist.

The cousin at the door was nineteen and too startled to stop me.

The dining room was full.

Two long tables pushed together under the old brass light. Aunts, uncles, cousins, a baby in a high chair, a priest at the far end.

Platters of rigatoni and braciole and a tray of cannoli nobody had touched yet.

Santino sat at Nonna's right hand.

Livia sat at his right, in a cream silk blouse.

She'd been coming to Sundays for six years.

I'd never once asked why a secretary sat with the family.

The room went quiet in pieces, from the doorway to the head of the table.

Nonna was eighty-four and four foot ten.

She set down her fork.

"Mira," she said. "Sit. Eat. You're thin."

"I'm not staying, Nonna. I came to give you something back."

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