Page 33 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"It's not," he paused, "but it's enough for me not to pull you out of his house right now."
The sentence hung in the air between the two of us.
"Why not pull me out now?"
"Because you're my daughter. And because as long as you're there, I can know what he knows."
So that was it.
Luca had been right—I was the hook on both sides. The two of them had agreed, without agreeing, that as long as I was in the middle, each could spy on the other through my mouth.
I looked out the window again. The road climbed a slope, and a sign announced Salerno in twelve miles.
"Papà," I said softly, "who's the traitor in the Moretti house?"
He laughed.
"Bella mia. If I knew, the war would have ended in 2019."
"You know there is one."
"I suspect so. The way Luca does."
"Who do you suspect?"
He didn't answer for a whole mile of road. When he answered, it was without looking at me:
"Ask Adelina when she comes for the wedding. The Moretti nonna hasn't forgotten anything. She only pretends."
And he went back to the newspaper.
It was the first useful piece of information my father had given me in twenty-three years of my life.
Palermo welcomed me the way it welcomes all the children who come back: as if they'd never left.
The house in Mondello was just the same. Rosalia hugged me at the kitchen door for thirty seconds without saying anything—I felt her breathing in my hair again, counting how many pounds I'd lost by the ribs she could feel through my blouse.
When she pulled back, her eyes were red.
"Madonna, bambina. You're thin."
"I eat, Rosalia."
"You don't eat. I made arancini. Sit down."
I ate three fried rice balls while she told me what had happened in the house during the three weeks I'd been away: the cat that died, the neighbor who moved to Rome, the pantry pipe that burst on Tuesday.
I ate and listened. The house smelled of tomato and basil, and through the kitchen window I could see the sea at Mondello breaking against the stone of the promenade.
For thirty minutes, I wasn't Luca Moretti's bride.
It was a relief I didn't know I needed.
"Bella!"
Francesca saw me at the gate and came running.
I hadn't expected her to already be at the house when I arrived—the driver dropped me at the door and went to put the car away, and she appeared from the side garden, running in flip-flops, her hair pinned up any old way, a wrinkled cotton dress, the way only she ever showed up for me, ever since we were fourteen.
