Chapter 16: Every Room in the House

The iron gates of the Bellandi house opened for us at four in the morning.

Jamie slept against my chest through all of it, the gravel and the dogs and the lights coming on in the windows.

I had last seen that drive from the back of a taxi, in the rain, with one suitcase.

Quentin stepped out of the second car and stood at my elbow without touching me.

"Do you want me to carry him?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No," I said, and was surprised by it.

My old room was still on the second floor, over the kitchen.

Someone had made the bed and put a night-light in the socket, a small brass train.

Rocco stood in the doorway holding my son's bag.

"I did the light," he said. "Jamie likes things that shine."

"He told you that?"

"He told me everything he likes in four minutes," Rocco said. "It's a long list."

I put Jamie in the bed and covered him, and I sat with my hand on his back until his breathing slowed.

Then I went out into the hall.

Rocco was still there.

"I want to show you something," he said. "It will take ten minutes. You can say no."

"Show me."

He took me down the back stairs to the kitchen door.

There was a heavy brass bolt on the outside of it, at the height of my head.

"I put that on when you were sixteen," Rocco said. "So you couldn't come in from the garden after dark."

I said nothing.

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