Page 17 of Blood Orange Christmas
“Treat the kitchen like a chapel,” I tell them. “No one enters without a reason. Move the first ring out to the gate and the second to the grove. I want the road by the olive press clean and the ridge manned by someone who can count to ten before he pulls. We’ll lock the chapel and leave the light on. People think witnessed places are safe.”
Rocco nods. “You expecting guests?”
“I’m always expecting guests,” I say, and that’s not humor.
Camilla holds up two phones in clear bags. “New numbers. Yours and Harrison’s. Two taps for me, three for Rocco. If you hear a single long buzz, it’s the ridge. If you hear nothing, it’s worse.”
We’re efficient. That’s our religion. You don’t last long, otherwise. I send Harrison to walk the perimeter because numbers make him calm. I write letters I won’t send and set them in a drawer because paper calms me when I can’t sleep. I meet with two men from Orvieto who think they understand wine and try to teach me to sit down. I sign a delivery manifest for fish with a name I don’t use. I change my shirt because lemon settles into fabric like memory and I don’t want to carry it into a room that will later smell like gun oil.
At dusk the kitchen glows. The oven mouth is a small sun. Serena works without looking to see if I’m watching. She salts shrimp with a hand that knows what it’s doing and slides them into oil that sings just loud enough. She tests a clamshell for grit and nods to herself when it’s right. She shows Gabriella how to hold a knife so your wrist doesn’t give up when you’ve got five more fish to portion. Marco leans on a stool with a bowl of soup, taking it seriously. I stand where you can’t see me and feel the house settle around the sound of spoons.
The guests arrive the way guests do, polite, armed with smiles, ready to make promises they won’t keep. I greet them at the door with a jacket open and hands empty, and we exchange our coats and lies like civilized people. Old Man Corsi kisses my cheeks and smells like cologne made for men who have never used a shovel. His heir stands behind him with a jaw that says he could be useful if someone teaches him the difference between a plan and a wish. Rinaldi does not come. He sends a bottle of something older than my grandfather and a card that saysCordialmentein a hand someone else wrote.
We begin the dance. There’s an order to these nights if you know where to step. You seat the loud ones where the kitchen noise covers boasts and the quiet ones where they can hear you. You give the hungry their food first and the greedy their second plates last. You let men talk about boats they don’t sail. You let women take your measure and decide whether you’re worth the calories. I steer them through the first two courses, let the wine do some of the work, and return to the study between plates to watch the courtyard.
Marco falls asleep on the library couch after dessert. He tried to fight it. He wedged a small car under his thigh like a lifeguard and made it to the last spoon of cloud cream before his eyes forgot how to be open. He sleeps like Serena used to sleep when she believed the roof would hold, heavy and ready to run. Serena drapes her shawl over him and tucks the car into the crook of his arm without waking him. My hands need something to do, so I pour a glass of water I don’t drink.
The mole takes small bites. That’s how you live inside walls. I see it in the way the delivery manifest was missing a line, in the way the outer camera blipped when the wind didn’t blow, in the clean envelope with the invitation that might as well have been adare. Someone inside these circles wants noise. Someone wants my attention on the wrong door. Tonight, they can have my attention and starve.
Between courses, the talk leans toward business because it always does. I give them as much as they deserve and as little as they can weaponize. We discuss docks and routes with words that won’t sound like crimes if repeated. We talk about a port strike two provinces over that means trucks will have to move at night for a week. We talk about a magistrate who has decided he wants to be famous and how fame always makes a man sloppy. I keep a smile that says I’ve already paid for the solution and I came in under budget.
During the third course, my phone buzzes twice. Ridge. A car on the road, slow and theatrical. Waiting for an audience. Harrison doesn’t move. I don’t move. Camilla ghosts down the corridor with an expression that says she’ll make a pot of coffee either way. The car pauses at the gate long enough for the camera to get a face. The face belongs to a man who does work for people who don’t like to see him in the daylight. Camilla sends his name to my screen in the code we settled on years ago, a fish we never serve. I send back the name of a tool, and the car continues past the gate because sometimes, the right thing to do is make a man feel like he got lost honestly.
When the plates are cleared, I leave my guests with coffee and a box of cigarettes they pretend not to want. I find my study empty and the library almost quiet. Serena sits at the end of the couch, one hand on Marco’s ankle the way mothers hold their children without waking them. She watches the fire like it might tell her how to live the next ten minutes. I stand in the doorway and look at them both. They fit in this room. That’s the problem.
“You look like Rome,” I say.
She doesn’t start. She doesn’t turn. “Is that a compliment?”
“It means you learned how to live with noise and make it work for you,” I say. “It means you survived.”
Her mouth goes tight for a heartbeat. “I did the obvious thing,” she says. “I left.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I say, and the truth of how much that hurt arrives late but loud.
“You didn’t make it easy to tell you,” she answers, and she’s right.
We’re quiet for a moment because there’s a boy sleeping between us and because the things we could say would only wake him. She strokes his ankle once, absent, like counting.
“Who invited me?” she asks.
“Someone who wants me distracted,” I say. “Someone who watched you more than I did, and that is saying something.”
“You always did have shadows.”
“I have fewer than I used to,” I say. “I prefer lines of sight and honest locks.”
“And this house?” She glances at the shelves, the old maps, the heavy desk where I sign things that matter. “Can you keep it safe?”
“I can keep most things safe for a while,” I say. “I can’t keep you safe if you don’t want me to.”
She laughs once, short and tired. “That’s not how that works.”
“I know,” I say, and I do.
We stay like that a long time, with the fire settling and the night listening. I want to ask about months I didn’t have, first words I didn’t hear, scraped knees I didn’t clean. I want to say I looked and stopped just short of knocking because I didn’t think I deserved the door. I want to ask her if the boy likes the sea or pretends to because she does. I want to say I’m sorry for everything and nothing because both would be true and both would be cheap.
Harrison appears at the far end of the corridor like a thought you were already having. He gives me a look that says the ridge is quiet, the camera’s reset, the outside world can wait another hour. I nod. He disappears.
