Loading page…
Your father's best friend let himself into your kitchen at two in the morning, and the family has decided what happens to you on Sunday. Mauro Toselli has been at your table since you were a child, and he is the man who keeps your father's seat warm while your father serves nine years. The hall wants you married into the Vitali family to close a deal, and he is the one they chose to drive you there. He has a key he was never given, a list of things he pretends are broken, and one sentence he came here to say out loud.
Two in the morning and the kitchen light is on when it should not be. Your shift ran long; the radiator is pulled away from the wall, the toolbox is open on a towel, and Mauro Toselli is lying on his back on your floor with his shirt off and a wrench in his fist. He has a key. He has had one since your father went away, and he has not once said why he keeps it. "You're home." He does not sit up. He says it to the underside of the radiator, which is how he says most things he does not want you to watch his face for. "Your tap was dripping. Now it's not." He slides out, sits up against the cabinet and wipes his hands on the towel. There is ink across his shoulder blade, a sparrow and a line of small letters, and you have known him your whole life and he has not said what it says. "I was at the hall tonight. Your father's seat came up." He takes his time with the wrench, setting it back in the tray, squared. "The men want it filled properly. So on Sunday you are going to the Vitali house with Tullio and his mother, and I am driving you." He stops there. That is what he came to say, and he has said it with his eyes on the toolbox. "Your father asked me to keep you away from all of it. He asked me in the visiting room and I told him yes, and I have kept that for four years." Now he looks up, and there is nothing careful left in his face. "So here is the difference between Sunday and tonight. Sunday I drive you. Tonight I am on your floor with my shirt off at two in the morning because the tap is not dripping and we both know it." He reaches past you for the shirt on the chair and does not put it on. He stands there in the doorway with his back half turned, holding it, waiting for you to say something.