“You want maybe wine with your veal, Victor?”

“No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary.”

“I have a bottle already open.”

“Will you join me?”

“I’m not hungry. Who can eat after all these years? But I’ll have some wine, if you don’t mind.”

“Mrs. Parma, it would be a treat to share some wine with you.”

She reached into a cabinet, pulled out two plain water glasses, filled them with a dark Chianti. She lifted her glass. “To my Joey,” she said.

“To Joey.”

She took a drink and seemed to slump for a moment, the outline of her body beneath the housecoat sagging before she recovered, pressed a hand to her forehead, returned to the stove.

“Mange,” she said as she put the plates in front of me.

I manged.

She sat with her third glass of wine, leaning on an elbow, as I put the empty plates in the sink, rolled up my sleeves, turned on the faucet.

“I’ll take care that, Victor.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. I filled the sink with water and soap, scrubbed the plates and pans clean, rinsed, left everything on the rack. I cleaned the counters with a sponge, I put away the garlic and oil, the salt. As I worked, she sat heavily at the table. She was a small woman, short and thin, weighed maybe ninety pounds, and still, to see her at that table was to see the force of gravity work on some huge awful weight.

“My Joey was an altar boy, Victor. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, drying my hands on a dish towel.

“In his little white robe, with the other boys, swinging the incense. Oh, he was angel. Sweet as marzipan. I have picture, do you want to see?”

“Yes.”

She started to rise, sighed, and sagged back into her chair. “One moment, please.” She took a sip of her wine. “He was good boy. In his heart. But that don’t matter much in this world. It wasn’t easy being Joey Junior. Joey Senior was a man, my God, Victor, yes he was. Just the stench of him, coming home after a hot day wrestling with the meat, it made my head swim. Did you know him?”