Page 71 of Ruthless Sin
Between the second and third course, Izzy’s hand disappears under the table. Renzo goes still for half a second. Then his hand covers hers on the tablecloth, visible now, and the set of his jaw eases. Nobody at the table comments. Nobody looks away fast enough not to see.
Dante sees it. Looks at Cassia.
Maria slips in during the clearing. She sets the violin case against the wall behind my chair. Slips out.
I have known it was there since she put it there. I have been not-looking at it the way I don’t look at things that could undo me.
Luca’s eyes move to the case. Then to me. One beat. He looks back at Dante.
Dante is already looking at him.
Neither of them speaks.
Nico doesn’t look at the case. He looks at me. He has been looking at me since I walked through the door and I have been not-looking back and the effort of it is in the press of my thumbs into the seam of my dress.
After the third course, Cassia stands.
She’s holding the wine she hasn’t drunk.
“I have something to say.” She looks at the table, then at her husband. “Not to the table. Not to my husband. He hears me on every other topic.”
She turns.
She looks at me.
“There has been a violin in the music room at Casa Lucia since you’ve been coming. The technician restrung it last week. I think she is asking for you.”
The household stops chewing.
My shoulders move a quarter inch.
The violin case behind me has been waiting all evening and now the whole table is looking at it and at me and there is nowhere else to go.
I push back my chair.
I stand.
I walk to the case, crouch, and open it. The bow has been rehaired, the strings replaced — Cassia’s doing, all of it, every detail. The violin is lighter than I expected when I lift it, lighter than the Conservatory instrument, lighter than I remembered, and before I have decided anything my left thumb has found the neck and my jaw the chin rest.
My hands remember before I do.
I stand and turn to face the table.
Dante at the head, Cassia’s hand in his. Nico three chairs down. Giada across, her eyes already on me. Marco beside her.Renzo with his hand over Izzy’s. Luca across from Nico, dark suit, still hands, watching the way he watches everything. Nonna at the kitchen doorway with Maria behind her. Sofia standing at the edge of the room. She came in during the third course, quiet, the way she moves when she doesn’t want to take up space.
I look at the table — every face turned up, waiting, and not one of them wants a single thing from me but this.
Nico sets his glass down. The cords stand out along his forearms. I see it at the edge of my vision before I lift the bow.
I tuck the violin under my chin.
The chin rest fits the small place under my jaw that has not been filled in five years.
The bow comes up.
I close my eyes. I open them.
Tchaikovsky.
