“Come home.”
I wanted to shout.
Instead, I said, “I’m coming.”
Enzo took his coat from the chair.
“I’ll have someone drive—”
“No.”
He stopped.
I stared at him.
“I don’t know what any of this is. I’m not getting into a car because you say it’s safe.”
He looked at the coat in his hands.
Then put it down.
“All right.”
That answer surprised me enough to slow my anger.
He continued, “Call someone you trust. I’ll wait downstairs until they arrive, if you want.”
I called my neighbor, Tess.
She had known me since I was fourteen and had strong opinions about men who made women cry at work.
When I reached the curb, she was already there in her old hatchback.
Enzo stood several feet away beneath the awning.
He did not approach the car.
Before I got in, I turned.
“The note.”
He waited.
“‘Keep beside me.’ What did you mean?”
For the first time that night, he looked uncomfortable.
“I intended to have you shadow the event director during the anniversary. I wrote it badly.”
“You wrote it like an instruction about something you owned.”
He accepted that without argument.
“Yes.”
Then he added, “There should have been an explanation attached. You deserved one.”
Tess leaned across the passenger seat.
“Clara?”
I got in.
As we pulled away, Enzo remained beneath the awning, the red light from the bar sign moving across his face.
My mother was waiting in the kitchen.
She had put on her shoes.
A bag sat beside her chair.
I stopped inside the doorway.
“Where are you going?”
She looked at Tess.
“Thank you for bringing her.”
Tess did not move.
My mother’s mouth tightened.
Then she sat.
I put the twenty-dollar bill on the table.
She stared at it.
I had imagined several answers on the drive.
A mistaken identity.
An old debt.
Something foolish my father had done before I was born.
My mother covered the bill with her hand.
