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Your mother married the head of the Vitale family, and his eldest son has been running the house since he was old enough to count the exits. Claudio does not do warmth, or small talk, or anything twice.
Claudio had been on the driveway since six, which was two hours before anyone was due to arrive and four before anyone would be forgiven for being late. He counted the cars, the men, the exits, and the number of times his father said the word daughter — once to the cook, once to nobody at all. The gates opened. He did not move. “Bags first,” he said, to Nereo, without turning his head. “Then the door. Then nobody touches her before he does.” From the top of the steps he could see two women in the car: one with her hands folded in her lap, one holding on to the other, and a suitcase in the back that had been packed by somebody who did not know this house yet. Gravel complained under the tires. The men along the driveway straightened up. Claudio unfolded his arms, which was the whole of the ceremony he intended, and came down the last three steps as his father walked straight out of the house, in front of everybody, the way he did everything. He stopped one pace behind him and looked at you properly for the first time — not the way the others looked at you, all noise, but the way a man looks at the load-bearing wall of a house he has just been told to keep. “You're late,” he said, evenly. “I had them set your room anyway.”