“Obviously.”
I found the deck in the console table drawer where it lived alongside a bookmark Dominic had been using since 2019. Thiago carried his dishes to the sink and followed us into the courtyard.
The evening had cooled to an almost bearable temperature. The lemon trees cast long shadows across the flagstones. I wiped the iron table with a dish towel while Dominic settled into a chair and accepted the Armagnac I poured for him.
Thiago took the chair facing the gate.
He declined the wine I offered and asked about iced tea. It was always available in the fridge.
We played gin rummy. Dominic dealt after a shuffling performance that made Thiago smile.
Within three hands, it became clear Dominic was enjoying the game. Not competitively. Socially. He would sigh over a perfectly good hand or raise an eyebrow at nothing at all, leaving us to wonder whether it meant something.
Dominic won.
“You’re very gracious,” he told Thiago.
The fountain ran. Somewhere on the avenue a streetcar passed, its bell a single, clean note through the oak canopy. Thiago tracked the groundskeeper crossing the courtyard’s far side to adjust the irrigation valves.
I watched. Thiago was good at his job. He didn’t need to be seen as protecting something, and his understated approach registered as care rather than calculation.
Still, he saw the world in the context of a series of access points. The problem was we didn’t run the house by controlling who entered when and where. We made our decisions based on something more fragile: relationships and loyalties built year over year.
Thiago’s framework had no category for that kind of trust. He wasn’t wrong. His work was incomplete.
Dominic saw the tension on my face. It was the same attention to detail he used to hear a single flagging instrument in the third row of a full orchestra. He raised his glass of Armagnac, swirled it, and said mildly: “Luca believes this house runs on loyalty. Mr. Reyes, you believe it should operate with verification.”
Thiago didn’t look up from his hand. “Loyalty and verification often overlap.”
“Only when one is fortunate,” Dominic said, and drew a card.
The courtyard gate clicked, a metallic note from the latch. I was immediately on my feet. Then I saw a silhouette through the ironwork and stepped forward to open it.
Father Adrien Toussaint entered with a thin folder under one arm. He was in his sixties, tall and slim, with his clerical collar bright white against his black shirt.
He looked at me first, and then at Thiago and the table.
“I heard there was some difficulty,” he said.
“Some,” I agreed. “Join us.”
Dominic rose, and they greeted each other with a warm hug. Father Toussaint took a chair, declined Armagnac, and accepted water.
He settled into a chair and looked around the courtyard with quiet pleasure.
“Those lemons,” he said. “I remember when they were saplings in buckets.”
“You told Luca where to buy them,” Dominic said.
Father Toussaint smiled at me. “That nursery in Gentilly. The owner swore they were descendants of trees his grandfather smuggled back from Sicily.”
“Everything in this city is descended from something smuggled,” Dominic said.
Father Toussaint laughed softly. “True enough.”
He looked toward the fountain, watching it run.
Thiago remained at the table, attentive as always. At the first natural pause, he asked, “When was the last time you visited the house?”
