I looked past him, through the arched doorway into the kitchen. The stove was crowded with dishes of baccala and scungigli, calamari and breaded eel. On one plate mussels were piled high in a pyramid and I watched the crusted black shells and dried-up slivers of orange meat inside them like they might talk to me. I acted like I hadn't heard him.

"Hey," he said. "Cetriol'! You want me to get up?"

At the other end of the house, the bathroom door opened. I looked down at my feet.

She came into the living room rubbing her head with a green towel, drying her hair. "I'll take him," she said. "I don't mind."

He pointed to the sofa.

She sat down.

I didn't move from the door.

She said something in Italian. Her black hair was wet and strands were stuck to her forehead and her cheeks. I didn't understand what she said but the way she held her hands on her hips with her elbows flying out from her body and the way she leaned toward him I knew she was trying.

He barked something back in Italian and she didn't say another word.

"Didn't you hear me?" he said.