Page 9 of Ruthless Sin
I stand, walk out, and head down the dark stairs.
The estate is dead quiet, everyone asleep or pretending to be.
The kitchen light is on.
Nonna.
Of course.
She is at the sink, her silk robe cinched tight at her waist and her hair wrapped, slowly drying the last of the plates Maria washed hours ago. She doesn’t look up when my bare feet hit the tile.
“Took you long enough to come back downstairs,cher.”
“Didn’t know you were waiting.”
“I wasn’t.”
She sets the plate in the rack, dries her hands on the towel, and pours coffee from the copper pot on the stove. Chicory. Bitter. The blend Mama used to make before mass.
She slides the ceramic cup across the granite toward me.
I sit down.
Don’t drink it, just wrap both hands around the ceramic to let the heat sink into my palms.
“You gonna tell me what you were doing up there?” she asks.
“Reading.”
“To yourself?”
“To the door.”
She doesn’t react, just picks up another plate.
“She hear you?”
“Don’t know.”
“You ask?”
“No.”
“Why not.”
“She doesn’t talk.”
She sets the plate in the rack and picks up the next one.
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t hear.”
I don’t answer.
Nonna sets the plate down, turning her sharp gaze straight onto my face.
“How long you been doing this, Niccolò?”
The coffee is going cold in my hands. She used my full name the way Mama said it when she was pulling truth out of me I didn’t want to give.
