“I appreciated what you did.”
“I raised our girls and educated them. Sat at this table and did their homework with them every night when I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I taught our daughters skills—both of them can iron silk without leaving a press mark, and last I checked, Maxie can type a hundred and four words a minute, and you know, she got the long fingers, and even Mary, with more effort, can type ninety-two words a minute. They are miracles. And you gave them to me. And every day, I say a prayer of gratitude for you, for them.”
“I love our girls.”
“I know you do. And I took care of your mother. I took her into the house to live with us and treated her with the respect I gave my own mother before she passed. I washed your mother’s hair and set it once a week faithfully and took her every Sunday for services at the Everwood AME Church and every Wednesday night to Bible study, even though that wasn’t my church and that wasn’t my Bible group.”
“She appreciated it.”
“I changed out her church hats with every season—straw in the summer, felt in the winter. I placed silk rosebuds on the band in the spring and clusters of green pearl grapes in the fall so she might know that she was special and that her hat backed it up. Whenever she got a compliment on her hat, she’d turn and wink at me. I didn’t do this for me, I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you.”
Louis pushed his chair away from the table.
“Now, I’m not saying you’re a bad man. I don’t know what all you did when you left this house. I didn’t question who you were with and why you were with them and I never asked, not because I wasn’t curious but because the answer would have meant I might have to do something with the knowledge. And the truth is, I was tired. I had enough with my job and taking care of this house and our family. But now the girls have moved out, they are on their way with lives of their own, your mother is gone, and it’s just you and me. And I am neither happy nor unhappy, I am on that island of nothing where dreams aren’t born but they don’t die either. They just aren’t. And that’s not living. You might be fine in neutral, but I’m not.”
“I’m sorry, Hortense.”
“I accept your apology. And please accept mine. I’m responsible here too. I thought we could pick up where we left off before we had the girls. But now I know that youth isn’t waiting for you on the other side of wisdom.”
“It’s not.” Louis put his head in his hands.
“In Roseto, I learned a few things about myself. I learned I could think on my feet, get myself out of hot water. And around here, I’ve been wading in lukewarm since I had Maxie. That’s right. That long. And it wasn’t your fault. Once I made you over, I needed a new project. I didn’t realize it then. I figured a new project would present itself—and when the children were cooked, well, I had nothing on the worktable. And in Roseto, I learned how to make gravy. Not our gravy. Not brown gravy. But gravy the Italians make. So I’m going into business with the Oldfields. And because I stayed with you for all these years and you blessed me with two fine daughters, I’m going to give you half of whatever I make. If I can, as a farewell gift, make you rich, it would be my pleasure. But as your gift to me, you must pack up your things and leave this house. It’s time for you to be with someone who loves you. It’s time for you to share a bed with a woman who faces you when you sleep. Do we have an understanding?”
“We have an understanding.” Louis wiped a tear away.
Hortense had never seen Louis Mooney cry. Never once. Not when his lung was pierced by a falling window when he was working the odd job, not when she lost the baby boy in 1916, not when his mother died or when he was laid off from the railroad. Today, of all days, he cried. But he wasn’t sad; he wept tears of relief, the kind that come after a dry spell, when rain falls after a long drought and the sky opens up and drenches the fields, saving the crop that saves the village, that saves the country, that in turn saves the world. It was like that with Louis in that moment. He was on the brink of happiness before it was too late, before he died without knowing it could be his.
*
Hortense got off the bus in Manhattan at East Sixty-third Street and Madison Avenue. Nicky had promised her that Quo Vadis was easy to find. She looked down at the business card he had sent in her birthday note.
As she descended the steps of the bus, she passed a small group of colored ladies, domestics in uniforms, on their way home from work. Hortense nodded at them in recognition. They returned the acknowledgment.
She pushed through the front door of the restaurant and into ancient Rome. The walls were covered in hand-painted tile mosaics, a series of Doric columns separated the tables, and red velvet wallpaper framed the arches.
Hortense waited at the ma?tre d’ stand. Inside, a sea of white faces looked up at her, taking in her hat, gloves, and coat, and finally her brown face. Hortense patted the gold brooch on her collar as the ma?tre d’ returned. “I’m here to meet Mr. Castone.”
Gino, one of the owners, surveyed the reservation log. “I don’t have a Mr. Castone on the reservation list.”
“But he invited me here for dinner at seven o’clock.”
“Yes, I did!” Nicky bounded through the restaurant and joined Hortense. “She’s with me,” he said to Gino.
“I’m sorry, sir, she asked for a Mr. Castone. I didn’t recognize the name.”
“That’s my given name,” Nicky explained.
“Let me show you to your table.” Gino smiled and escorted Hortense and Nicky back to their table. Gino helped Hortense into her chair.
“If you’re no longer a Castone, what do you call yourself now?” Hortense asked.
“Nick Carl.”
“Sounds like the first and middle of a name, not the entirety of one.”
“Carl is for Carlo, our old pal the ambassador.”
“Why do you want to be reminded of him? He almost ruined you. Or you him. I can’t remember.” Hortense chuckled.
“Either way, he changed my life.”
“Almost ended mine.”
Nicky laughed. “The Ambassador changed everything. When we went to Roseto, we got out of the car, and they loved us and they didn’t even know us. It’s a lot like being on television.”
“They only accepted me because I was with you,” Hortense reminded him. “I’m a bad actress.”
“Not true. You were very imposing on your own. I have a feeling they were on to me from the beginning, but they wanted to believe I was the ambassador, they needed him. He was coming all the way from Italy to honor them. People need to feel important.”
“They do indeed.” Hortense thought of Louis, and that made her eyes fill with tears.
“Are you crying?”
“No. It’s the onions.”
Nicky looked around. “There are no onions here.”
“I said it was the onions. It’s the onions.”
“Mrs. Mooney, I’ve never seen you cry.”
“I’ve been known to weep here and yon. I’ve had some sadness. Some misery.” Hortense opened the menu.