Chapter 8: The Choice at the Table
The steel bowl hadn't moved. It sat in the center of the dark wooden table and caught the chandelier light in a hard circle, and I couldn't look away from it. My aunt's hand was on my shoulder. She hadn't let go since Vittorio asked her to hold me back by the doorway.
I remembered that table from a different height. At three and four I only saw it from below, the edge at my chin. That afternoon I saw it from across the room, with Vittorio standing at one end and Bianca seated at the other. The house was so quiet I could hear the air conditioner click on and off.
Vittorio didn't raise his voice. He had changed out of his jacket and his sleeves were pushed to his elbows and I could see the tattoos on his hands when he rested them flat on the table. He looked at Bianca for a long time before he spoke. My aunt shifted her weight and pulled me a half step closer to her leg.
"You will not feed her again," he said. "You will not dress her. You will not tell her when to sit, when to speak, where to eat. Not tonight. Not ever again in this house."
Bianca's pink robe had slipped a little at the throat and her choker caught the light. The redness on her cheek had darkened and she kept touching it and then stopping herself. Her eyes kept flicking to the bowl and away, to the hallway, to me.
"I didn't mean —" she started, and then she stopped. Her mouth pressed together.
Vittorio didn't move. "Pick it up," he said.
It took a second for me to realize he meant the bowl. Bianca stared at it like she hadn't understood him either. In the doorway, my aunt's fingers tightened on my shoulder. The other person Vittorio had called, a woman from his family who'd come in a gray suit, stood near the sideboard with her arms crossed and said nothing. No one helped Bianca.
"Pick it up yourself," Vittorio said again, quieter this time. "You put it down for her. You lift it."
Bianca swallowed. She reached forward with both hands the way I'd seen her reach for serving dishes, but slower. Her nails were pale pink and her hands shook a little when they closed around the rim. The steel was cold enough that she paused at the touch.
When she lifted it, the bottom suctioned slightly against the wood and then released with a soft pop. She held it at chest level, not high, and I watched her face change. The inside of the bowl was polished and it threw her reflection back at her, warped and wide. She stared into it. Her chin tipped down without her meaning to, and for a second her eyes found their own eyes in the steel. She blinked hard.
Vittorio watched her look. He didn't grab the bowl from her. He let her hold the weight of it.
"Look at what you gave my daughter to eat from," he said.
Bianca's breath made a small sound. She didn't answer. She held the bowl out a little farther from her robe like she didn't want it to touch the satin. A thin line of water was still inside from where it had been washed and not dried, and it trembled when her hands trembled.
I felt my aunt lean down just enough that her cheek was near my hair. "You okay, sweetheart?" she whispered, and I nodded because I didn't have words yet. I was watching Bianca's hands. I was waiting to see if she would set it back down.
She didn't. Vittorio tipped his head toward the kitchen doorway.
"Take it off this table," he said. "Take it to the sink. You don't set it here again."
Bianca stood. The chair legs scraped. She held the bowl in front of her with both hands and walked past the dark wood and past where I stood with my aunt. She didn't look at me as she passed. I saw the robe move around her legs and I saw the bowl steady in her grip, carrying that circle of light with her.
At the sink she set it down. The steel rang once against the stainless basin and then was silent. She kept her hands on the edge of the counter for a moment and her shoulders rose and held.
Vittorio came to the doorway where I was. He didn't pull me away from my aunt right away. He crouched so his eyes were at my level. His hand hovered near my back and then rested light there.
"From now on, nobody but me or your aunt feeds you, okay?" he said to me, not to Bianca. "Nobody tells you where you can sit."
May you like
I nodded again. Behind him, Bianca stayed at the sink with the bowl in front of her, no longer on the table where everyone had to see it. The table was empty now, just dark wood and the faint ring where the bowl had sat. My aunt's hand was still on my shoulder, and Vittorio's hand was warm on my back, and for the first time that day the room didn't feel like it belonged to Bianca anymore.
She hadn't left the house. Her robe was still in that kitchen and her slippers still on the mat by the door. But she wouldn't be the one to bring me a plate again, and I understood that even at four, in the way a kid understands when a door has been locked from the other side.
