Page 46 of The Enforcer

Zoe

I spend the next hour in the kitchen with Alfonso and Maria. Dario changes, but before he can come back to investigate me, he’s called away to visit one of the neighbors. Apparently, there’s an elderly woman who won’t be able to make it to mass. Maria sends Dario off to check in on her and take her confession. She sends a fruit tart with him on a thin white plate that looks like an oversized doily.

Ugo brings in small baskets of fruits and vegetables from the garden and takes pitchers of citrus-infused water back with him. Their mother shows me how to make pie dough and pasta, carefully explaining each step to me. She promises that next time, we’ll do it together. I nod, knowing there’s no way in hell.

Alfonso and I peel peaches, apples, and potatoes. I pretend as if I’ll remember her recipes, but I don’t have to pretend to be excited to eat them. When Dario returns, he has another doily with half a cake on top in one hand and a basket with bottles of olive oil and wine in the other. And then Nicola arrives out of nowhere with a cooler of fish freshly caught from the sea.

All of a sudden, there’s a tart in the oven, and we’re preparing to have lunch together at the long table in the middle of the garden.

Maria creates a production line. She passes each colorful and unique plate or bowl into my hands and tells me the name of the dish atop it in that same slow Italian. Alfonso translates for me, and I take it out to the long, rustic wooden table with two benches running along each side and matching chairs at either end. Apparently, Ugo made this set as well.

Dario and Ugo set the table and fetch more bottles of wine from the cellar. Their father can make one dish, a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and capers with a simple lemon and olive oil dressing using some of the olive oil Dario returned with. Everything is either pulled from their garden or the valley, and he makes it at the table. I catch snippets of the preparation as I bring the dishes outside, fascinated. Ugo catches me up on the steps I miss.

It’s a surprisingly calm afternoon. For at least an hour and a half, I don’t worry about wherever Shae is and what Zahra is doing in Naples. For an hour, Alfonso and I get so good at working together that when his mother asks me to try saying pesce all’acqua pazza, I do, and we’re both pleasantly surprised that I don’t mangle every word, even though I have to wait for Alfonso to translate the name of the dish. I don’t even flinch when he throws his arm around my shoulders and tells me that his mother thinks I’ll be fluent in a year.

I won’t, but we both beam at her as if there’s hope.

I don’t want to think about them, but I can’t help but remember those few holidays I spent with Kevin’s family, where I was his and Tyrone’s awkward third wheel. Where Kevin’s mother looked at me in confusion — because she’d already come to grips with her son being gay, so who the hell was this woman on his arm — and his uncle tried to play footsie with me under the table — because if I’d fuck his nephew and nephew-in-law, surely I wanted to fuck him too.

This lunch, however fake, is nothing like that, and so, I give myself permission to enjoy it for whatever it is, but that good feeling only lasts so long.

Alfonso

Lunch goes well. Very well.

But I feel Zoe pulling away long before Nicola and Dario begin to clear the table.

She still smiles and tells my mother how lovely everything was and keeps smiling while I translate. She lets my father pour her another small glass of wine, but she sips it without any of the enjoyment from earlier in the day.

“Mamma, I think she’s tired.”

“Oh,” my mother exclaims, looking at Zoe as if she hadn’t been staring at her for hours. She nods. “She needs some rest. Don’t pester her too much at night.”

Ugo chokes on his sip of water, and even my father smiles around his wine glass.

“Mamma—” She waves off the rest of my sentence.

“I’ll make you some food to take, okay?” she says and pats Zoe’s cheek sweetly.

“What’s happening?” Zoe asks. “What’d she say?”

Ugo laughs. “Si. Cosa ha detto? What’d she say?” he asks. Stronzo.

“I told her you were tired, and she’s going to give us some food for home.”

“Oh,” Zoe says, her shoulders slumping forward in relief. “I think I am tired. I think the jet lag is catching up to me.”

I nod at her, but Dario speaks before I can.

“When did you arrive, Zoe?”

“Last night,” Nicola adds helpfully, stacking more empty plates.

“In Italy, I mean,” Dario clarifies.

“Yesterday,” I bite out. I reach for Zoe’s leg, ready to resume our secret system again, but as soon as I touch her, she shudders and pushes my hand away.

“And how did you meet?” Dario asks.

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