"Are you ready?"
I looked at the ivy hedge and at the pink house behind the white gate.
I thought of Matteo at eleven, in my mother's kitchen in Mondello, teaching me to make arancini. I thought of the closed coffin in Palermo. I thought of the seven years of not knowing.
"I'm not ready," I said. "But I won't be any readier waiting out here."
Luca squeezed my waist.
"Brava."
He reached out and rang the bell at the gate.
CHAPTER 17
"A Don doesn't weep in someone's arms. A Don settles scores."
VALENTINA ROSSI
The bell rang three times before the door opened.
The one who opened it was a small woman in her eighties, a black dress to the ankle, a gray apron, white hair pinned in a low bun. Very pale blue eyes, the kind of eyes that no longer see what they saw at forty.
Donna Carmela.
She looked at Luca and took only three seconds to recognize him.
"Madonna santa."
"Good morning, Donna Carmela."
"Luca."
It was her only word; I saw her hand trembling on the doorknob.
"We're coming in."
She stepped back. Without saying anything more, without asking who I was, without excusing herself. She backed down the entrance hall with the obedience of a woman who had known Luca's grandfather when Luca's grandfather was still young enough to keep a mistress.
We went in.
Inside, the house was small, low ceilings, old stone floor. It smelled of fresh basil and wax.
There was a narrow corridor about twenty-five feet long that ended in a white wooden door. To the left of the corridor, a staircase rose to the upper floor.
Luca put his hand on my waist. Squeezed a centimeter—steady, bella.
"Donna Carmela. Where is he?"
The old woman pointed at the staircase with her chin, without another word.
Luca looked at me.
"Bella. You go up behind me. Not in front."
"Okay."
He went up first. Me, three steps behind. Donna Carmela stayed in the hall below, holding the edge of her apron the way a nun holds a rosary.
