“That was Giovanni Conti,” she says.
I blink once. “Conti,” I repeat, even though I heard her. The air in the room gets thinner. “As in—”
“As in,” she says. “Yes.”
My brain does a stupid little flip back to the hallway—the quiet steps, the controlled way he had of moving, the eyes that saw everything. Of course.
“Why is a Conti in our office?” I ask, keeping my voice level because otherwise it might do something else. “Why are you talking to a Conti in Nonna’s office in Nonna’s restaurant?”
Mama flinches. I can’t help it if my words are harsh.
Her jaw works once. “Because he’s owed an answer.”
My mouth goes dry. “We owe the Contis money?” I say it too fast. “Is that it? We owe them?”
“Bianca—”
“Mama.” The word lands sharp. “Do we?”
She presses two fingers to the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes. “Yes.”
It feels like someone dropped a pot lid in my chest. “How much?”
“I’m not talking numbers with you tonight.”
“Why not?” I spread my hands. “Because you were going to hide it? Pretend he was selling us a vacuum?”
“I’m not hiding it,” she says, heat clipping the words. “But you were never supposed to know.”
My breath shoots out in one painful huff at those words. “I was never supposed to know? You were never going to tell me? How could you keep something like that from me?”
Her gaze snaps up. “Don’t be dramatic.”
My eyes widen. “Dramatic?” I can’t help the edge in my voice as it rises higher and higher. “I’m being dramatic? It’s dramatic to beupsetthat my mother would keep something like this from me? Me—the person who now owns this restaurant and all the debts that may come with it?
“And how about Mr. Caruso?” My voice is closing in on shrill now. “He said the house is clear, the restaurant has the bank credit line. No mortgage. No debt.”
“There isn’t,” she says. “On the books.”
I laugh once, no humor in it. “So he wasn’t lying, he was just… not talking about this kind of debt.”
“He doesn’t know,” she says.
“Nonna has known him for decades. How could she keep something like that from him? He could’ve help—”
“She didn’t know,” Mama snapped. “And keep your voice down, Bianca. No one else knows either.”
My head jerks like someone pulled a string. “Nonna didn’t know?”
“No.” Her eyes shine, and she blinks hard. “If you take nothing else, take that. I won’t have you think poorly of her because of me. My mistakes.”
“Okay,” I say, even though everything in me is braced for the rest.
“After she stepped back and I took over,” she says, watching a point on the desk instead of me, “everything started falling apart. We had a bad winter. The oven died twice in two months. The city dug up the street, and our lunch business dropped to half for three months because nobody could park. The grease trap needed replacing, and the landlord said it was ours to handle. Insurance went up. We were bleeding. I paid payroll and the tax man and the fish guy and put off everything else I could put off.”
“What about the credit with the bank?” I ask, my voice small. The guilt of being away through all of this eats at me the more she says.
“I needed more than a ‘modest line of credit,’ Bibi. I went to the bank, and they smiled while telling me no. Three times. I went to another. No. I came here and stood in the dining room and looked at your grandmother, and I couldn’t ask her to sign her name to more worry. I couldn’t tell her the restaurant was failing. So I went where people go when the banks say no.”
