“Be Careful Teasing Me,” Warned the Mafia Boss — She Never Suspected the Traveler Was a Dangerous Mafia Boss

PART 1

Wren Calloway had been working at Ferrante’s for eight months and had developed, in that time, the specific competence of someone who was overqualified for the job they were doing and had made peace with that.

The peace was relative.

The job was fine. The restaurant was beautiful — genuine Italian family place, forty years old, with the specific warmth of a room that had been absorbing good food and honest noise for decades. The owner, a woman named Rosa, had hired Wren without much ceremony and had been decent to her in the way of someone who recognized a person who needed a few months of stability and did not need to make conversation about it.

The tips were adequate.

The hours were predictable.

She could do the job without engaging too much of herself, which meant the rest of her — the parts that had, until eighteen months ago, been engaged in teaching music at a middle school in Portland and practicing piano an hour every morning and believing that her life was going in a specific direction — could spend the evenings in the apartment she rented working out what she actually wanted to do next.

Eighteen months ago, her fiancé Daniel had decided he wanted to do music production full-time and that he needed her to move to Chicago with him so he could pursue the connections available there and that this meant she would need to put her teaching career on hold temporarily because they couldn’t both be doing their careers at once and his had more immediate momentum.

She had moved.

She had put the teaching on hold.

Daniel had pursued his connections, which had apparently included a woman who worked at the label he was trying to get attention from, and six months later Wren had been in a city she didn’t know with no job and no momentum and a very clear understanding that temporarily had never meant what she thought it meant.

That had been a year ago.

She was still in Chicago.

She was working on next.

The man at table eleven came in on a Thursday.

He was alone — which was unusual for a table of his reservation level, which was the good corner, which Rosa reserved for specific guests — and he was early, which was more unusual.

Wren noticed him when she took the reservation confirmation to Rosa.

Rosa glanced up and then looked back at her books with the specific composure of someone who was performing calm.

“Mr. Ferraro,” Rosa said.

“Mr. Ferraro is a regular?” Wren said.

“He is,” Rosa said.

“Is there anything I should know about his service?” Wren said, in the way she had learned to ask when Rosa’s composure was performing.

Rosa set down her pen.

“He prefers red wine,” Rosa said. “He orders the house special without asking what it is because he trusts me. He does not like to be hovered over. He is polite to the staff. His name is Marco Ferraro.”

“And the other things?” Wren said.

“There are no other things,” Rosa said. “Not in my restaurant.”

This was the specific language Rosa used when the thing being not-discussed was large enough to require specific language.

“All right,” Wren said.

Rosa picked up her pen.

“He asks for Lucia usually,” Rosa said. “But Lucia is sick tonight. You’ll take the table.”

“All right,” Wren said.

She took the table.

PART 2

Marco Ferraro arrived at seven fifty-two.

He was alone.

No security — which she learned later was unusual — just him in a dark suit, his jacket collar unbuttoned, the look of someone who had been in a long meeting and wanted dinner and quiet.

He was perhaps forty. Dark hair, some gray at the temples. The specific quality of a face that had made a significant number of decisions and had arrived at a certain kind of stillness.

Wren took his drink order.

He looked at the wine list for exactly four seconds and said: “What does Rosa recommend tonight?”

“The Barolo,” Wren said.

“Then the Barolo,” he said.

She brought it.

She poured.

It was at the second pour — he had been reading something on his phone, which had buzzed three times in quick succession with the quality of messages that required attention, and he had looked up at the exact moment she tipped the bottle, and the specific intersection of his attention and her adjustment to it — that the wine went wide of the glass.

Not a lot.

The specific amount that was clearly visible on a white tablecloth.

PART 3

She reached for the cloth napkin.

He reached for the wine glass before it could tip further.

Their hands met over the base of the glass.

She let go.

He set the glass down.

She pressed the napkin to the tablecloth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll have this—”

“It’s fine,” he said.

“I can bring a fresh cloth—”

“Wren,” he said.

She stopped.

She looked at him.

“How do you know my name?” she said.

He touched the small name badge on her apron.

She looked down at it.

Wren.

“Right,” she said.

She finished blotting.

She stood.

He was watching her with the specific quality of attention she had noticed when she first came to the table — not the lazy assessment, not the invisible-furniture gaze. Something more careful.

“I wasn’t being careless,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“You looked up suddenly,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Your messages were distracting you,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I should have waited,” she said.

“And I should have put the phone down,” he said. “Shared fault.”

She looked at the napkin in her hands.

“Can I bring you a clean tablecloth?” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Bring me the house special.”

She brought it.

He ate without reading his phone again.

She was aware of this without observing it, the way you were aware of music stopping.

At the end of the meal, he asked for Rosa.

Wren delivered the message and Rosa came out from the kitchen and the two of them spoke briefly in a manner that was clearly familiar without being entirely social.

Wren cleared the adjacent tables.

When Rosa came back, she said: “He wants you tomorrow.”

“Wants me?” Wren said.

“On his table,” Rosa said. “He asked specifically for you.”

“Because I spilled wine on him,” Wren said.

“Because you apologized without excessive apology and then told him why the accident was partially his fault,” Rosa said.

Wren looked at her.

“He said that?” she said.

“He said you were direct,” Rosa said.

She thought about what she had said to him — the simple accounting of the accident, not over-apologetic, just accurate.

“It was partially his fault,” she said.

Rosa’s expression did something that was almost a smile.

“Yes,” she said. “He knows.”

He came back the following Thursday.

And the one after that.

Lucia recovered from her illness by the second week and looked at Wren with the specific expression of someone assessing a territorial change.

“Rosa gave you table eleven,” Lucia said.

“Temporarily,” Wren said. “While you were sick.”

“He asked for you again,” Lucia said.

“I know,” Wren said.

“Do you know who he is?” Lucia said.

“Rosa told me his name,” Wren said.

“His name,” Lucia said.

“Yes,” Wren said.

“Marco Ferraro,” Lucia said. “His family has been in this city for forty years. His father built things. What Marco built is—” She paused. “Less simple.”

“Yes,” Wren said.

“Does that concern you?” Lucia said.

“Should it?” Wren said.

Lucia looked at her.

“The previous woman he brought to this restaurant,” Lucia said, “was here for three months and then was not here at all, and we were told not to ask about it.”

“He hasn’t brought anyone,” Wren said. “He comes alone.”

“Yes,” Lucia said. “That’s different.”

“Different how?” Wren said.

Lucia picked up her section list.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said.

She left.

Wren looked at table eleven.

She thought about the week Marco had asked her, between the house special and dessert, what she did before the restaurant.

She had told him: music teacher.

He had looked at what she was expecting — either polite disinterest or the specific over-enthusiastic engagement of someone who did not know what to do with an answer they hadn’t expected.

He had looked at her and said: “What did you teach?”

“Piano primarily,” she said. “Some theory. General music for the younger classes.”

“Do you still play?” he said.

“Not regularly,” she said.

“Why?” he said.

She had thought about the honest answer.

“I moved here and left my piano in Portland,” she said. “I haven’t had the space for one here.”

He had looked at her.

“That seems like a significant loss,” he said.

“It is,” she said.

She had said it before she filtered it.

He had not said: you should get another one or you could probably find a studio. He had nodded once, as if the information had been filed, and had returned to his dinner.

She had thought about it for three days afterward.

By the sixth week, she knew things about Marco Ferraro that she had not learned from Rosa or Lucia.

She knew he ordered the Barolo specifically in the third week because she had told him, in the second week, that the Barolo was better than the Sangiovese this year. He had not said thank you — he had said: “You know wine.”

“I used to go to the Oregon coast every September with someone who was very serious about wine,” she said. “I absorbed some of it.”

“And the person?” he said.

“Is in Portland,” she said. “With his career.”

He had looked at her once more and returned to his dinner.

But the Barolo had appeared every week since.

She knew he was rarely on his phone during meals after the first week. She knew he arrived exactly when his reservation said and left within five minutes of the check, which was the rhythm of someone who had a next thing and honored commitments to timing. She knew he asked about the kitchen — not the food, the kitchen itself, who was working, whether the sous chef was still the same person — in the way of someone for whom the humans behind the operation were the interesting thing.

She knew that when the table adjacent to his had a loud argument in week four, he had caught her eye from across the room when the couple stormed out, and something in his expression had been amused and sympathetic simultaneously, and she had made the mistake of smiling back.

Not a service smile.

The other kind.

He had looked at it for one full second and then looked at his wine.

She had felt, in that one second, the specific sensation of having offered something she had not intended to offer.

Not regretting it.

Just: noting it.

In the seventh week, a man came into Ferrante’s that Rosa had never seen before.

Wren noticed him because he was not following the entry procedure — Ferrante’s was reservation-only, and Rosa managed the door herself, and this man had come in while Rosa was briefly in the kitchen, and had walked directly toward the back of the restaurant where Marco was seated.

Wren stepped into the aisle.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you have a reservation?”

The man stopped.

He was large, expensively dressed, with the specific manner of someone accustomed to doorways opening before they reached them.

“I’m here to see Ferraro,” he said.

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” she said. “Can I have your name?”

Something moved in the man’s expression.

Not anger exactly.

Assessment.

“Tell him Ricci wants two minutes,” he said.

She crossed to table eleven.

Marco looked up.

“A man named Ricci,” she said. “He came in through the front. He says he wants two minutes.”

Marco’s face did not change.

“Tell him he should have called ahead,” he said.

She crossed back.

“He suggests you call ahead,” she said.

Ricci looked at her.

“Tell him it’s urgent,” he said.

She crossed back.

“He says urgent,” she said.

Marco looked at her.

Something shifted in his expression — not directed at her, but she was standing in the line of whatever he was managing.

“Sit down,” he said.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“Sit in the chair across from me,” he said. “For two minutes.”

She looked at him.

“You want me to sit at your table,” she said.

“I want Ricci to believe this dinner is personal,” he said. “He won’t interrupt a personal dinner.”

She assessed the situation.

She sat down.

Marco looked over her shoulder and made a minimal hand gesture.

When Ricci reached the table, his eyes moved from Marco to Wren and back.

“I see you’re occupied,” Ricci said.

“You see correctly,” Marco said.

“The matter is significant,” Ricci said.

“My Thursday evenings are significant,” Marco said. “Everything else can wait until tomorrow.”

Ricci held Marco’s gaze for a moment.

Then he looked at Wren.

Wren met his gaze without looking away.

“I’ll call your office,” Ricci said.

“Do that,” Marco said.

Ricci left.

Wren looked at the tablecloth.

“Thank you,” Marco said.

“You used me as a prop,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“You could have warned me,” she said.

“There wasn’t time,” he said.

She looked at him.

“If I had said no?” she said.

“I would have handled it differently,” he said.

“Handled,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at the restaurant.

Lucia was behind the bar, studiously not looking at table eleven.

Rosa had come out of the kitchen and was looking at the door where Ricci had gone.

“Who is he?” she said.

Marco held his wine glass.

“Someone I do business with who has difficulty with the concept of scheduled appointments,” he said.

“Business,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“The kind of business that people don’t talk about if they want to keep breathing,” she said.

She had not intended to say it that directly.

He looked at her.

“That’s a specific phrase,” he said.

“I was told it in my first week,” she said.

“By who?” he said.

“The bar manager,” she said. “Marco. Not you. The other Marco.”

Something moved in his expression.

“And you stayed anyway,” he said.

“It was a Thursday and you ordered the house special without asking what it was,” she said. “It seemed more interesting than leaving.”

He held her gaze.

“That is not the most prudent reasoning,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“And now?” he said.

She looked at the door where Ricci had gone.

She thought about the specific way he had said handled — not threatening, just accurate.

She thought about eight weeks of Thursdays.

“Now I know more than I did in my first week,” she said. “But I’m still here.”

He looked at her.

“You should go back to work,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

She stood.

She looked at him.

“Marco,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“The Ricci thing,” she said. “Don’t do that again without asking.”

He held her gaze.

“All right,” he said.

She went back to work.

She did not look at table eleven for the rest of the service.

But she was aware of it — of him — in the specific way she had been aware since week two that something was happening at that table that was different from the professional relationship she had been maintaining.

At the end of the night, he was gone.

There was no note.

There was, under the check folder, a business card.

Plain white. His name. A phone number.

Nothing on the back.

She held it.

She thought about Lucia’s warning.

She thought about Ricci’s eyes moving from Marco to her.

She thought about eight weeks of Thursdays and a man who had noticed she had left her piano behind.

She put the card in her apron pocket.

She did not call that night.

She did not call the next day.

On the third day, she called.

He answered on the second ring.

“Wren,” he said.

She had not said her name.

“I’m not calling about Ricci,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“I’m calling because you asked Rosa about me,” she said.

A pause.

“I asked Rosa whether you had found a piano,” he said.

She held her phone.

“Did she tell you?” she said.

“She told me you hadn’t been looking,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Because you’re still deciding whether you’re staying,” he said.

She looked at the wall of her apartment.

“Yes,” she said.

“And now?” he said.

She thought about that.

“I think,” she said, “that the reason I haven’t been looking is different from the reason I thought.”

“What did you think the reason was?” he said.

“That I hadn’t decided about Chicago yet,” she said. “Whether to stay.”

“And the actual reason?” he said.

She looked at the wall.

“That I hadn’t decided about piano,” she said. “Whether to go back to it.”

“Those are different decisions,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Which one are you making?” he said.

She thought about it.

“Both,” she said.

He was quiet for a moment.

“I know a studio in Wicker Park,” he said. “They rent practice time by the hour. Low key. Good upright. Rosa’s granddaughter teaches there.”

She stared at the wall.

“You looked into this,” she said.

“I had some information available,” he said.

“You asked Rosa about me,” she said. “And asked about the studio.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

He was quiet for longer this time.

“Because you told me leaving your piano was a significant loss and then you told me as if it was a fact you had already decided not to do anything about,” he said. “And I found that — I found that concerning.”

“Concerning,” she said.

“The wrong word,” he said. “I found it—”

He stopped.

“Sad?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She held the phone.

She thought about Daniel saying: your career has less immediate momentum.

She thought about a year of putting things down that were hers.

She thought about the specific way Marco had said: that seems like a significant loss.

Like the loss was something that mattered to him without knowing her.

“Send me the address,” she said.

He sent it before she finished the sentence.

She went on a Saturday morning.

Rosa’s granddaughter was a woman named Keiko who was twenty-two and serious about her work in the way of someone who had not yet been told the seriousness was inconvenient.

Wren sat at the upright piano in the practice room for a moment before she played anything.

The keys were slightly yellowed at the edges.

The action was good.

She played a scale.

Then a simple exercise she had been teaching to beginners for years.

Then, without deciding to, a Chopin nocturne she had played in a recital at twenty-one.

She played it imperfectly.

She played it completely.

When she finished, Keiko was in the doorway.

“That’s yours,” Keiko said.

“What?” Wren said.

“The way you play,” Keiko said. “Some people play music. You play yours. You can tell the difference.”

Wren looked at her hands.

She had not played for fourteen months.

She had not realized how much of herself had gone quiet.

She booked the studio for Tuesday evenings.

On Thursday, at table eleven, she told Marco.

He said: “How was it?”

“Imperfect,” she said.

“But?” he said.

She looked at him.

“Complete,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment.

“Good,” he said.

Something in his voice was warm.

She felt it move through the specific quiet she had been carrying for a year.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You found it yourself,” he said.

“You found the address,” she said.

“The playing was yours,” he said.

She held his gaze.

She thought: both things can be true simultaneously.

She thought: I am in more trouble than I planned to be.

Ricci came back.

Not to Ferrante’s.

She had been at the piano studio on a Tuesday in November, two weeks after the conversation about staying, and she was playing through a Bach partita she had been working back into her fingers when she became aware of someone standing outside the practice room window.

She finished the phrase she was on.

She looked up.

Ricci.

Standing in the hallway, watching through the glass with the expression of someone who was delivering a message by being visible.

She kept her hands on the keys.

She played the next phrase.

Her phone was on top of the piano.

She picked it up and called Marco.

He answered in one ring.

“Ricci is outside my practice studio,” she said.

A pause.

“Are you safe?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s outside the glass. He’s not trying to come in. He’s making sure I see him.”

“Go to the front desk,” Marco said. “Tell Keiko to call building security. Wait there.”

“Is this because of Thursday?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“He’s sending you a message through me,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“That was predictable,” she said.

A pause.

“Yes,” he said.

“You knew that was a risk,” she said.

“I underestimated how fast he would act,” he said.

She looked at the window.

Ricci was looking at his phone.

“Marco,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m not afraid of him,” she said. “I’m telling you because you should know, not because I need you to fix it.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“All right,” he said.

“What is the Ricci situation?” she said.

“It’s a business disagreement,” he said.

“How significant?” she said.

“Significant enough that he is using you to communicate a point,” he said.

“Does that get resolved?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Through what method?” she said.

He was quiet.

“The legal method,” he said. “His company has been managing certain logistics contracts. We are terminating them. He is unhappy about the terms.”

“You’re cutting him out,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“That’s what the Ricci situation is,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Is that connected to the legitimate operations restructuring you mentioned two weeks ago?” she said.

He had mentioned it briefly, the week after the Ricci incident at the restaurant — that he had been working on separating certain business arrangements that had become complicated.

He was quiet now.

“Yes,” he said.

“Then he’s reacting to the restructuring by using me as leverage,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Which means he knows we’re—” she said.

She stopped.

“That I matter,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at the keys.

She thought about what it meant that Ricci had looked at her across the table two weeks ago and had decided that she was the useful pressure point.

She thought about what that meant about how Marco had looked at her.

“I’m going to go to the desk,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Marco,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“We need to have a conversation,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“Thursday isn’t going to be sufficient,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“Can you come tonight?” she said.

A pause.

“Yes,” he said. “After nine.”

He came at nine-fifteen.

She was in her apartment, which was small and specific in the way of a place where one person lived honestly — a stack of piano method books beside the window, a photograph of the Oregon coast, a coffee maker she had made friends with, and the quiet of someone who had been spending evenings in her own company and had made peace with it.

He looked at the apartment without commenting.

She made coffee.

They sat at the kitchen table.

“Tell me,” she said.

He told her.

He told her about the Ferraro organization — not everything, not the details she had specifically avoided knowing, but the shape of it. His father had built it over thirty years. Marco had inherited it at thirty-two when his father died. He had spent eight years trying to separate the legitimate operations from the other kind, with partial success.

“Partial,” she said.

“Ricci is one of the last major entanglements,” he said. “The logistics contracts are the remaining dependency. When those terminate, the legitimate side is effectively independent.”

“Effectively,” she said.

“There are always residuals,” he said. “But the core is clean.”

“How close to completion?” she said.

“Four to six months,” he said.

She held her coffee.

“That’s specific,” she said.

“Patricia Vance has been managing the legal process,” he said. “She gives me timelines I can rely on.”

“You’ve been working on this for eight years,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Before I was at Ferrante’s,” she said.

“Long before,” he said.

She looked at the coffee.

“Ricci tonight,” she said. “He was telling you that he can reach the people you care about.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Which means he already saw enough at the restaurant to know that I—” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She held her cup.

“I’m not going to stop going to the studio,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“And I’m not going to stop going to Ferrante’s,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“But I need to know what I’m inside,” she said. “Not the details. The shape.”

He held her gaze.

“I’ve told you the shape,” he said.

“You’re almost through it,” she said. “The restructuring.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Ricci is the main remaining obstacle,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“And he knows that,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Which is why he moved on me,” she said. “To slow you down.”

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at the kitchen.

She thought about fourteen months of putting things down.

She thought about the first time she played the nocturne and it came back through her hands with all of itself intact despite the year of silence.

She thought about Marco saying: that seems like a significant loss.

About him sending the studio address before she finished the sentence.

About eight weeks of Thursdays that had not been about service.

“Marco,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What do you want?” she said.

“From the restructuring?” he said.

“From me,” she said.

He held her gaze.

“You told me eight weeks ago that you were deciding whether to stay in Chicago,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Have you decided?” he said.

She looked at the piano method books.

At the photograph.

At the coffee maker.

At the evidence of a life that had started putting down roots in the specific way of something that intended to stay.

“I started looking for a piano,” she said.

He held her gaze.

“That’s not the question I asked,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

She looked at him.

“I’m staying because I want to,” she said. “Not because I ran out of places to go. Not because it’s easier than moving again. Because I started to build something here that’s mine.”

“The studio,” he said.

“And other things,” she said.

He held her gaze.

“I want you,” he said. “Not the version of you that was put on hold by someone else’s momentum. The version that plays Chopin at nine in the morning and tells me the accident was partially my fault and sits at my table without being asked to and calls me when there’s a problem because she can handle it herself but thinks I should know.”

She held her coffee cup.

“That’s a very specific version,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s the real one,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

She held his gaze.

She thought about Daniel saying: your career has less immediate momentum.

She thought about a year of doing the sensible thing.

She thought about playing the nocturne imperfectly and completely.

She thought: both things can be true simultaneously. I can be careful and still let this happen.

“The Ricci situation,” she said.

“Will be resolved,” he said.

“In four to six months,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m going to keep going to the studio,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“And I’m going to need you to be honest about the timeline,” she said. “When things change. Not after.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Before,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at him.

“All right,” she said.

“All right?” he said.

“The version you described,” she said. “That’s here. I’m not putting her away again.”

He reached across the table.

He took her hand.

Not the gesture from the restaurant — not the catching of something mid-fall. Just: his hand on hers, on a kitchen table, in a small apartment in Chicago in November.

Simple.

Specific.

Entirely deliberate.

“I know,” he said.

The Ricci matter resolved in March.

The logistics contracts terminated. Patricia filed the final documentation. Marcus, who had been involved in the legal process throughout, told Wren that the termination was clean and that Ricci had accepted the terms when it became evident the alternative was more expensive.

She was at the studio on a Tuesday evening when Marco texted: It’s done.

She played through the last passage of the Bach partita.

She had been working on it since November.

It was not perfect.

It was getting there.

She found the piano in April.

A vertical Yamaha, fourteen years old, good action, small enough for the second bedroom she was renting in the apartment she had moved to in February — which had two bedrooms specifically because she had decided she needed a room for the piano before she had found the piano, which was the specific logic of someone who had decided something real.

Marco drove her to collect it.

They carried it up two flights.

It was heavier than she expected.

He was stronger than he looked.

They sat on the floor when it was done, against the wall, in the room that now had a piano in it.

She looked at it.

“It’s the right sound,” she said.

“You tested four,” he said.

“The sound matters,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She leaned against his shoulder.

He put his arm around her.

They sat in the specific quiet of a room where something had been returned to the person it belonged to.

“Marco,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“The thing you said in November,” she said.

“Which thing?” he said.

“About the version of me,” she said. “That you wanted.”

He held her closer.

“Yes,” he said.

“I want you to know something,” she said.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I put things down for a year because someone told me they were less important than his plans,” she said. “And I believed it, and the things didn’t go anywhere, but I stopped being able to hear them.”

He was quiet.

“And now?” he said.

She looked at the piano.

She thought about the nocturne.

About playing it imperfectly and completely.

About the Tuesday studio and the Bach partita and the specific feeling of doing something that was hers.

“Now I can hear them again,” she said.

He pressed a kiss to her hair.

“I know,” he said.

“That matters,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“More than most things,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She held his arm.

Outside the apartment, Chicago was doing what April Chicago did — cold and bright and beginning, the specific stubborn optimism of a city that had committed to spring.

Inside, in the room with the Yamaha and two people on the floor, something had been found that she had put down fourteen months ago in Portland and had been carrying the absence of ever since.

She thought: I got my signature back.

She thought: I was always here.

She thought: we are simply reading correctly now.

She stood.

She sat at the piano.

She played the first phrase of the nocturne.

It was better than November.

Not perfect.

Getting there.

THE END