He looks up at me, hands on a stack of folders, a lock of hair dropping over one hazel eye as if he’s just woken late for school. “Go get me a cup of coffee, would you?”
My first reaction is to head for the kitchen, but I stop myself.
“You have some right there.” I point at the white mug.
“Then get me water or something.” He turns back to the papers. “Or better yet, Grandma’s doing laundry in the basement. Go help her.”
I come closer, peering over the desk at his folders. “She doesn’t need help.”
He flicks the top one closed and flings it across the room. “Goody. I just need to do this in peace.”
“Do what?”
He flicks through the pages. “If I wanted you to know—”
“You’d tell me. But if you want to find whatever you’re looking for, two sets of eyes are better than one.”
“No.” He flings that folder and opens the next. “Go away.”
“I could be wrong—”
“You probably are.”
“But aren’t we on kinda the same side here?”
“Everyone says they’re on my side.”
“Then why are you doing this by yourself?”
“Because if I find what I think I’m looking for and I don’t like what it says, then I’m alone. I’m on a side of one. Me.”
“And me.”
He lets the folder close and leans back with a sigh. “Fine.”
“Okay!” I resist the urge to clap and jump up and down. I can help. I am useful, and I trust him. Getting a yes makes everything else seem doable. It’s a sliver of sunlight over the horizon. “So besides anything with that date on it, what are we looking for?”
“Dad was teaching me the business, but there were things he was waiting on until I was twenty-one. I don’t know what they are, but if it’s what I think it is…” In frustration, he flips away the folder. “I thought everything important would be in the rectory office. So the next time I think a thing, remind me the opposite is probably true.”
“Have you tried the safe?”
“My combination doesn’t work. He either changed it or never gave me the right one. When I see him in hell, I’ll ask him what the fuck.” He looks at me for a moment, considering a thing he hadn’t. “Do you have it?”
“No.”
“It’s fine. We have a guy who opens safes. He’ll be here in a couple of hours.”
There are plenty of nooks and crannies to look in before then anyway.
“Um… so the 25th.” I draw my finger across the cabinets, trying to remember how they were organized back when I tidied this office. “The archives of past things are here, the stuff he’d need soon, he piled up and told me to put here… but the future-future-day stuff was in this one.” I open a high cabinet and reach for the box on the top shelf.
“Let me help.” Massimo gets up too quickly and barks in pain.
“I have it.” I slide it out and get my hands under the bottom, but the box is shorter than I expect and when it clears the shelf too soon, I lose control. Envelopes bounce everywhere.
Massimo laughs.
Like kids playing in grown-up stuff while their parents’ backs are turned, Massimo and I are on the floor, surrounded by every last scrap our father kept secret. The future dates box has been scoured and found wanting, so we went back through the closet. Now that I’m here, the search is organized. Accounting in a pile to the left. Lists of mysterious names to the right. Things we can’t make head or tail of but seem important on the chair. That’s the biggest pile.
My stomach rumbles. I’m going to have to eat soon.
“What’s this?” Massimo holds up a typewritten list. “Are these names?”
They’re not like any names I’ve ever seen before, but it’s done in the same style as the name lists. I take it and put it on the chair.
“I’m out of folders,” I say.
“Me too.” He grabs his cane.
“Did we find what you were looking for?”
“No. Which means…” He tries to leverage himself on the cane to get up, but strains at it. I scramble up to help him. “Thanks. Which means it’s not here.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good.” His next step makes him cringe. “Means your husband was lying or uninformed.”
Knowing Dario, it’s more likely the first than the second.
“What was he uninformed about?” I don’t expect an answer, so I’m not disappointed when Massimo shakes his head and shrugs to indicate it’s none of a woman’s business. He hops on his cane. His leg must have stiffened up when he was sitting on the floor. “Did the doctor give you anything for the pain?”
“Tylenol. It’s fine. I don’t want to be foggy.” Two steps to the door.
“I think Gram’s in the kitchen.”
She got back upstairs with the laundry hours ago. Massimo chased her away, and like a good Colonia woman, she obeyed.
“God, I hope she’s cooking.”
“Emo,” I say before we’re in earshot. “Did you hear the part about choof off?”
“What?”
“Choof off. He said you’d know what it means?”
“You sure you heard it right?”
I shrug. I’m sure I did, but it’s always possible I didn’t. “Maybe it’s something like fuck off?”
“Your mouth, Sarah. Clean it up.”
I won’t. They can feed me soap for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My mouth. My words.
We get to the kitchen to find Grandma’s not in the process of cooking. She’s already cooked. She’s also baked bread and set the table. She sits us down and sets about serving the meal. When I try to help, Massimo tells me to sit the fuck down. Grandma doesn’t contradict him verbally, but I get a look.
“It’s so nice to have you both here.” She grabs our hands across the table.
“Thanks, Gram,” Massimo says.
“Even with the mess.” She side-eyes me, then squeezes my hand before letting go of both. I doubt Massimo gets the same signal.
My brother picks up his fork, so Grandma and I can start, but he only pushes around his food.
“Massimo,” she coos. “Eat! Do you want cheese?”
“No thanks.”
She doesn’t extend the offer to me, so I get up to get it myself.
“Ever since your father died,” she says, “it’s been lonely. No one needs cleaning up after.”
She doesn’t ask what we were doing in there—as if the hay we left behind is so much more interesting than the needle we searched the stack for.
“I’ll help you get the office back together,” I say with my head in the fridge.
“Thank you.” She’s already up to get Massimo more water, since he took half a sip. “Oh, the table by the door? There was an envelope.”
“What table?” he asks.
“In the office. The tall table with the curved legs? He left me a yellow envelope in the drawer and with everything going on… I hope you didn’t mix it up.” She looks at me, because if anything got mixed up or went wrong, it’s obviously my fault. It’s the gentlest scold she can manage, but still a scold.