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first.

Chapter
5
    “Y OU WANT SOME veal, Victor?”
    “No, ma’am,” I lied. “I’m fine, thank you.”
    “I made it last night. The whole family came. But I prepared too much. I have it left over. I will just have to throw away.”
    “All right then,” I said. “If you’re just going to throw it away.”
    “Good. Sit. And some baked rigatoni? And a sausage? You want me fry a sausage?”
    “No, thank you, Mrs. Parma.”
    “Are you sure? No trouble.”
    “Well, if it’s no trouble.”
    “Sit. You’ll eat and then we’ll talk. Like civilized people. Sit.”
    I sat. It was no use arguing with Joey Parma’s mother when she decided you needed to be fed. You would eat and you would enjoy.
    Mrs. Parma’s house was dark, the curtains drawn, the lights low. I could barely see my way into the kitchen to the little Formica table to the side, but Mrs. Parma, in a long housecoat and slippers, bustled about her territory with an assuredness born of long practice despite her failing sight. When she opened the refrigerator and bent down to feel for the platter of veal, the light illuminated the lines on her cheek, her lean prowlike nose, the dark circles beneath her eyes, the stoic tragedy of a woman who lost her son years ago and had just now gotten around to burying him.
    She hummed as she cooked, pouring olive oil into the pan, dropping in breaded pieces of veal that sizzled with excitement, placing a square of baked rigatoni in the oven, slicing a sausage and adding it to the pan. She took fresh greens from the crisper, brought them to her nose and then held them gently in her gnarled fingers as she sliced the greens roughly, chopped the garlic, fried it all up together before splitting a lemon and reaming it over everything. It filled the kitchen, the smell of meat and garlic, the spices, the sizzle of oil, the delicious clatter of her knives and pans and dishes, the sound of her soft humming.
    “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?”
    “No,