I had a sack of potatoes against my chest when Celia told Ada to leave their mother's name off. I stopped inside the kitchen, unable to set the sack down because the table was covered with little folded sheets. Ada cleared a corner with her forearm. The sheets slid onto the floor, and I lowered the potatoes before bending to collect them. Each had a small border and a list of names. Celia had brought spoiled paper from the print shop and made a booklet for a family supper.
Paolo was walking indoors again. The supper was meant to mark that much, not celebrate how he had come home. Ada wanted Teresa invited. Celia wanted no promise that their mother would sit beside a husband from whom she maintained a separate household. 'Then ask her,' Ada said. Celia took the sheets from my hand. One had Teresa's name crossed out in pencil. I put the remaining papers on the table without reading them. There were arrangements in that household I had no right to understand merely because I had carried somebody up its stairs.
Celia handed me an envelope. She asked me to take it to Teresa while I was out. Inside, she said, was a note explaining that they understood if she preferred not to attend. Ada reached for it, but Celia held it away. 'That's not what it says,' Ada told me. The potatoes had rolled against the wall. I crouched to gather them, grateful for something I could lift without choosing a side. When I stood, both sisters were waiting. I asked whether Teresa had already said she wanted to stay away.
'She doesn't have to say everything twice,' Celia answered. Ada said their mother had not been asked once. I put the envelope on the table. I would carry an invitation, I told them, but not an answer written for the person receiving it. Celia's face hardened. 'You don't settle us.' She took the booklet and the envelope together, folding them against her apron. I had meant to be careful and had still sounded like a man issuing terms. I apologized. She accepted neither the apology nor my help with the papers.
I carried the empty sack downstairs and started back toward the market. Halfway along the block Ada caught up with me, out of breath. She held a plain envelope with Teresa's name on it. 'Celia knows,' she said before I could ask. The note gave the day and time and invited their mother to supper. No seating arrangement, no explanation of Paolo, no request that she overlook anything. I said I would deliver it. Ada made me promise to bring back only what Teresa chose to send, not my opinion of her face.
Teresa lived over a shop where a woman was beating dust from a rug into the street. I waited for the dust to settle before entering. Teresa opened her door with a sewing measure hanging around her neck. She knew who I was. That did not oblige her to invite me inside. I handed over the envelope and stepped back from the threshold. She read the note, then asked whether Paolo had sent me. I said the invitation came from her daughters. She looked at the envelope again before folding the paper.
'Does he know?' she asked. I said I had not discussed it with him. She leaned against the door, considering something I could not see. The temptation was to tell her the supper would do him good, that Ada needed relief, that Celia had been frightened. All were ways of making her answer useful to me. Instead I asked whether she wanted me to wait. She said no. Her daughters could hear from her directly. I went downstairs with empty hands, resisting the urge to improve an errand already completed.
Back at the apartment, Celia let me move the potatoes into a cool cupboard. She did not ask what Teresa had said. Ada did, and I repeated only that their mother would answer them. Paolo called down to ask who was coming, but Celia went upstairs to speak to him herself. I left before the household settled the question. Outside, a club messenger detached himself from a doorway and caught my sleeve. Neri was recruiting men to replace Paolo's delegation, he said. If I expected a place at the next meeting, I had better find out whose name would be on the door.