Page 192 of Ruthless Sin
Nonna is at the kitchen door, wiping her hands on the apron Lucia gave her years ago. Giada leans on the porch railing in jeans and a soft sweater. Not scrubs. Renzo and Izzy stand near the back wall, his hand at the back of her neck, the ring on her left hand catching the light. Marco leans at the gate. Maria hovers on the porch.
Nico is in the doorway. He has not approached. White shirt, sleeves rolled. The cufflinks are on. The watch is on his right wrist. The mask is folded somewhere I have not seen it since the river.
I do not look at him. If I look at him first I will play only for him, and this song is not only for him. I look at the bench.
I walk to the spot in front of the bench where Sofia is sitting. My hands want to shake. I do not let them. I tuck the violin under my chin and the rest fits and for one breath I am eight years old in Mama’s kitchen and she is alive at the stove.
I close my eyes. I open them.
I play.
Tonkaya Ryabina. The full piece. I have never played it whole anywhere but Mama’s kitchen in Moscow, and my hands have been waiting years to do it. The intervals are Russian. Russian for generations. The minor key, the third bar bending into the fourth, the shape my grandmother taught my mother, who taught my sister, who taught me, who taught Sofia. Five of us now. Five voices in one song.
Halfway through the second verse, Sofia hums. The bar I taught her in a music room with the windows shut. Her voice is small. It wavers. It holds.
My eyes sting and I do not stop playing. I do not dare.
Cassia’s hand finds Dante’s. Sofia keeps humming. I keep playing.
The third verse. The fourth.
The household does not move. Nonna wipes her face on her apron once. Giada is still at the porch railing. Dante’s other hand is on Cassia’s belly without him looking. Renzo’s hand stays at the back of Izzy’s neck. Izzy’s hand is on Renzo’s chest. Marco has his hand flat on the iron of the gate. Maria has crossed herself once.
Nico in the doorway has not moved. His hand is at the doorframe. Knuckles white against the wood.
I do not look at him. I play to him anyway. He knows it. I want him to know it.
The last verse. I take the long note at the end. Mama’s note, from the kitchen when I was small and she was alone and thought no one was listening. The note holds as long as my arm holds it.
Then it is done.
Nobody in the garden moves.
I lower the violin. I do not bow or curtsy. My jaw is tight against the sob trying to climb my throat. I will not let it out. Not yet. Not in front of them.
Nonna is the first to break the quiet. She wipes her face with the apron and does not pretend she didn’t.
“Madonna santa.” She shakes her head at the jasmine like it owes her something. “Lucia’s garden ain’t heard nothing that sweet since she planted it, cher. Not once.”
Sofia’s eyes are dry. She is smiling. Small. Real.
“I didn’t plan to do that,” she says. Her voice is rough from the humming.
“You kept it,” I tell her. “I hoped you would.”
The bench. The woman whose bench this is. I say it to her, just loud enough for the man in the doorway to catch the last phrase.
“On nashyol menya.” He found me. “V kontse.” Eventually.
The household does not clap. It is not that kind of household. They hold the silence with me for one full breath. Better than applause. They are holding my dead with me.
Then Cassia moves. She crosses the garden slowly, one hand under her belly, Dante close behind her. She has a small velvet cloth folded in her right hand. They stop at the bench in front of Sofia.
“We were going to wait,” Cassia says. “Dante wanted an occasion.” Her mouth curves. “I told him the occasion would announce itself.”
She unfolds the cloth in Sofia’s lap. Inside is a locket. Gold. Small. Slightly tarnished. The chain that goes with it is the width of the one I have worn for years. The chain at my throat has been waiting for this locket since I was a child.
“It was with his things,” Cassia says. She does not say the name in Lucia’s garden. “I cleaned it myself. No one else touched it.”
