I could hear the bass from the bar through the floor.
The same music that had been playing while a stranger told me he knew my mother’s address.
“What did you know when you offered me the job?”
“Nothing about your father.”
“Then why did you react like that?”
“Because I remember his name.”
“From where?”
He looked toward the dark window.
“A construction file.”
I folded my arms tightly across my chest.
“Whose construction file?”
He did not soften it.
“Ours.”
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.
I looked down through the glass at the bar, the expensive bottles, the floor I crossed every night carrying trays.
“Did he work here?”
“Not here. A separate project. The Bell Street development.”
I remembered the name.
My mother used to stop talking when advertisements for those apartments appeared on television.
I had assumed grief attached itself to ordinary things.
Now I wondered how many things she had been refusing to explain.
“Call her,” I said.
Enzo looked at me.
“My mother. Call her now.”
He pushed the telephone toward me.
“You should make that call.”
I used my own phone.
She answered on the second ring.
“Clara?”
“Are you home?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Lock the door.”
There was a pause.
“What happened?”
“A man came into work. Victor Sloane.”
The silence lasted so long I thought the call had dropped.
“Mom.”
“Leave the bar.”
“I’m with my boss.”
“Leave.”
“His name is Enzo Moretti.”
Something fell on the other end.
A cup, perhaps.
Then I heard her breathing.
“You work for a Moretti?”
I looked at Enzo.
He had gone very still.
“You knew where I worked.”
“You said Vincenzo’s.”
“Mom.”
