Chapter 7
The last guests had left before ten. I watched their taillights blur down through the floor-to-ceiling windows while I stacked gold chargers in the kitchen that nobody had really eaten from. The chandeliers were dimmed low and the candelabras had burned down to short, soft pools of wax. Someone on the catering staff had pulled the white roses to the side so they could wipe the black marble, and the room smelled like lemon cleaner and cold lobster.
I stayed in the kitchen nook with a dish towel in my hands. I wasn't supposed to hover, but Rosa hadn't left yet and I didn't want her to be alone again.
Luca hadn't asked her to go to the guest room. He'd pulled out the chair at the head of the table, the one he'd stood from an hour earlier, and he'd asked her to sit with him. Just the two of them, with that chipped bowl still in the center on its saucer. The rest of the table was empty, champagne flutes half-full, napkins folded and abandoned.
I kept the kitchen door cracked an inch. I told myself it was so I could hear if they needed anything.
Rosa's hands were in her lap at first. She was a small woman, her hair pulled back neatly, wearing a plain navy dress and a cardigan that she'd kept buttoned all the way up even though the apartment was warm. She looked tired, the kind of tired that sits behind the eyes.
Luca sat beside her, not across from her, and he turned the bowl slightly so the crack caught the low light.
"Ma, this one," he said quietly. "I remember this one from the apartment on Ferry Street. You still have it."
Rosa smiled a little and then her fingers went to the rim. She traced the dark gold vein with her fingertip.
"Oh, that," she said. Her voice was soft and a little hoarse. "You remember when you chipped it. You were eight. You were trying to carry it to the sink for me and you dropped it."
I didn't move. I held the towel tighter.
She kept looking at the bowl. "We couldn't buy a new one that month. Your father was between jobs. So I took it to Mr. Kim at the dentist office where I cleaned. He had that little gold for fillings. He showed me how to mix it and fill the crack so it wouldn't cut anyone. He said it was like the Japanese way. He did it on his lunch break and wouldn't take any money."
Luca didn't say anything for a second. He just breathed in slowly.
"I kept it because it still worked," she said. "It wasn't pretty, but it held soup fine. Better than throwing it away when we had so little."
He touched the gold line with his own tattooed hand, very lightly, like he was afraid he'd smudge it.
"I thought you threw everything away when we moved," he said.
"No," she said. "I kept the things that still worked."
The kitchen faucet dripped behind me. Down here it was quiet enough I could hear the soft hum of the fridge and the faint city traffic eighteen floors below.
Rosa folded her hands again and stared at them. Her shoulders came up just a little.
"I told her I would stay downstairs," she said.
Luca looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"Vanessa," she said. She said the name carefully. "She called me Tuesday. She was very nice. She said you wanted a beautiful night for your friends. She said you had worked so hard to have this nice place and that I would make you embarrassed if I came up in my old shoes and didn't know which fork to use. She said you asked her to tell me to stay in the kitchen and eat later, so you wouldn't have to worry about me."
My chest went tight. I pressed my back against the counter so I wouldn't make a sound.
Luca's jaw shifted. He didn't interrupt her.
"I believed her," Rosa said. "Because it's true, Luca. I don't know these people. I don't know how to act at a table like this. I thought if I stayed downstairs, I was helping you. So I told Emma's girl at the desk to tell you I was sick. Vanessa said that would be easier for everyone."
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his hands clasped. I could see the tattoos on his neck catch the candlelight.
"Ma, I wrote you a card," he said, his voice low. "I left it with Vanessa. I wrote that I wanted you here at the table next to me. That I wanted everyone to meet my mother."
Rosa shook her head slowly, confused. "I didn't get a card. She said you texted. She read it to me. She said you said, 'Mom, rest this time, next time.'"
That was when I saw it land for him. His eyes closed for a second, just a second, and his breathing changed. He wasn't angry in a loud way. It was quieter than that. He opened his eyes and looked at the bowl again, then at his mother.
"She rewrote it," he said. More to himself than to her. "She took the invitation and rewrote it."
Rosa reached over and put her small hand on his forearm. Her hand was shaking a little.
"Don't be mad at her," she whispered. "She thinks like these people think. Maybe she thought she was protecting you."
Luca covered her hand with his. His hand was so much larger, the ink dark against her skin.
"She wasn't protecting me," he said. "She was deciding for me."
They sat there a minute without talking. The chandeliers clicked softly as they cooled. Rosa's eyes were wet but she wasn't crying the way I had earlier. She just looked relieved, like a weight had shifted off her shoulders and left her exhausted.
"I didn't want to eat alone," she said, almost apologetically. "The soup got cold."
Luca stood then, just enough to pull her chair closer, and he kissed the top of her head.
"I know," he said. "You won't ever again."
May you like
I stepped back from the door then, quiet, and turned on the faucet so they wouldn't hear me listening. I rinsed a charger that didn't need rinsing, my hands in the warm water, and I understood what I had just heard. This hadn't been a mix-up about a sick day. Vanessa had planned for Rosa to be hidden. She'd counted on Rosa believing she was a burden and on Luca never checking.
In the dining room, neither of them got up to find Vanessa. The night stayed quiet, and the bowl stayed right where it was, in the middle of the table, holding the light.
