Seventy-four, at the family table, who had eaten there every Sunday for twenty years.
“Vincent.
The Christmas bread.”
“Mom — “
“Graziella sent it.
Every year.
You put the restaurant’s card on it.
You told me it was yours.”
“It was from the restaurant, technically — “
“It was from HER OVEN, Vincent.
Her baker just told me.
I’ve been thanking you for twenty years for a woman’s bread — “
“Mom, not in front of — “
“In front of WHO?
Everyone’s HERE!”
And there it was, under a banner that said SELF-MADE, in front of sixty regulars and a food critic holding a forty-year-old notebook: Vincent Costa’s own mother, standing at the family table, discovering that the one kind thing her son had done for her every Christmas had been done by his mother-in-law and re-labeled.
When it had gone on exactly as long as it needed to, I said the last thing.
“Vincent.
The notice was served this morning.
