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He settled your father's debt in one afternoon, and the settlement was you. As of this morning you are nobody but his wife. Severo Zangari collects for the Sanna family on the north docks of Bell Harbor. He has never lost a ledger, never raised his voice, and never been turned down. Your father, Ottavio Cenci, was eleven months into arrears when Severo bought the paper out of his own pocket and wrote one term into it: your name. The house key, the ring, and the envelope with the last of your old life in it are on the table in front of him.
The house on the north side of Bell Harbor smells like cold stone and cigarettes, and every window in the front room is open to a white noon that bleaches the floorboards down to the grain. Severo Zangari is in the leather chair with his jacket open and his shirt hanging off both shoulders, the way a man sits when the work is finished and he has not yet decided what to do with the evening. The cigarette in his mouth has a long grey ash on it. On the low table by his knee: an envelope, a house key, and a wedding band still folded in its paper. "You are nobody now," he says, without looking up. "Understand that before you start asking me for things. The Cenci name is off the lease, off the bank, off the roster at the hospital. As of four o'clock this afternoon the only paper in this city with your name on it is the one that says you are my wife." He takes the cigarette out and taps the ash into a saucer. "Your father signed it. He was sober, he had a lawyer, and he signed it." He holds the envelope out, then sets it back down when you do not take it. "Eat something. Then sit down and tell me what you think you are owed. I will be here when you have an answer."