“Got it. Right.” Mary set the papers down, and Bennie kicked the back of Judy’s chair with a worn running shoe.

“Carrier, I almost forgot. I left the Neely Electric file on your desk, you’ll see the notes on it. I need a summary judgment motion drafted and emailed to me by the end of the week. Tell me that’s not a problem.”

Judy laughed.

“Excellent. All right, I got a train to catch. I told Marshall to call me if we hear from Premenstrual Tom, and I’ll stay on top of it. DiNunzio, don’t forget about your other cases. And Carrier, don’t pierce anything else. Bye, kids.” Bennie rapped the threshold smartly, then disappeared. The associates remained silent until they heard the ping of the elevator that carried her away, then they burst into chatter.

“Don’t pierce anything else?” Mary leaned forward. “What does she mean by that? And why does she know before me?”

“Tell you on the way to dinner.” Judy leapt to her bananas and rounded the table, where she grabbed Mary by the sleeve of her jacket and hoisted her to her pumps. “Now, girl! Out! You’re coming to dinner with me.”

“No, stop! I hate sushi!” Mary tried to stay rooted, but it was USELESS. She was a fireplug, but Judy was a Sequoia.

“We’re not having sushi.” Judy tugged Mary toward the conference room door. “I have a better idea.”

“Better than piercing whatever?”

“Yes!” Judy yanked Mary to the elevator, got her downstairs, and stuffed her into a cab. Only then did Judy reveal where they were going.

And what she had pierced.

Mercer Street was a typical side street in South Philly, only one-Ford wide and lined with attached rowhouses of red brick, each a squat two stories. Every rowhouse had two windows on the second floor, and on the first, a bay window that generally displayed a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary and a miniature flag of Italy, the United States, or the Philadelphia Eagles. There were minor variations in the front doors, but everybody owned a screen door that displayed a scrollwork initial. On Mercer Street, the scrollwork initial was usually D. When Mary was young, she thought the D stood for Door, then her family got one and she realized it stood for DiNunzio, D’Orazio, DiTizio, D’Agostino, DeMarco, DiAngeli, D’Amato, DeCecco, Della Cava, and finally, Dunphy. Whose wife was a DaTuno.

Mary and Judy climbed the front stoop of her parents’ house and were just about to open the screen door when a gleaming black Escalade barreled down the narrow street. Nobody drove like that down Mercer, and Mary turned in annoyance, just in time to get a glimpse of the driver. He wore a black shirt and was burly, with his head slightly down and his cheeks pitted with acne scars. She was about to holler at him for driving too fast when Judy yanked her inside.

Familiar odors of fresh basil, homemade tomato sauce, and lemon Pine-Sol filled the tiny kitchen, and crackling palm fronds and dog-eared Mass cards remained stuck behind an ancient cast-iron switchplate. Colorized photos of Pope John, Jesus Christ, and JFK were still taped to the wall with yellowed off-brand tape, and the slop basket sat tucked in its customary corner of the white porcelain sink. Nothing would ever change in the DiNunzio house, which was still mourning the demise of the Latin Mass. Mary missed the Latin Mass, too, although when Mike was murdered, she realized that she and God didn’t speak the same language anyway.

“Maria, Maria!” Vita DiNunzio gave her daughter a hug, wrapping herself around Mary’s waist in the kitchen, but her embrace didn’t feel as strong as it always did. Her grip was loose, and her arms as delicate as the wings of a wren. She seemed thinner, and the softness in her back had vanished. She was wearing her favorite flowered housedress, but it hung on newly knobby shoulders.

“Ma, you okay?” Mary hugged her closer, burying her face in her mother’s stiff pink-gray hair, teased like cotton candy to hide her bald spot. Her coif smelled wonderfully of dried oregano and Aqua Net but reached only as high as Mary’s chin. Three weeks ago, it had reached to her nose. When did her mother shrink? Can you afford to shrink if you’re only four eleven? Mary broke their clinch. “Ma, really, are you okay?”

“So pretty, my Maria,” she purred, her round brown eyes smiling behind her impossibly thick glasses. Her nose was strong and smile soft, and she patted Mary’s arm with fingerpads pasty from pilled flour. “It’s so nice, you come viz,” she said. Born in Italy, she usually dropped her last syllables, unwittingly proving they were superfluous. But Mary noticed that she hadn’t answered the question.

“Ma, I’m serious, did you…lose weight?” Mary didn’t want to say evaporate.

“No, no, no, a little.”

“How much? Maybe you’re doing too much, taking care of Gabrielle?” Her mother had been baby-sitting part-time, helping out the receptionist from Rosato amp; Associates. Mary had thought it was renewing her energy, but maybe she’d been wrong. “Ma?”

“I’m fine, fine. Sit.” Her pasty hand slid down Mary’s arm and she led her to the kitchen table. Her mother had been making gnocchi, and sifted flour dusted the Formica table, covering stains and knife marks Mary knew by heart. Homemade pasta dough lay in long, skinny ropes, covered with the soft indentures of her mother’s fingers. Later her mother would cut the fresh dough into tiny pillows, then pinch each pillow in two, roll it with her fingertips, and send it skidding across the floured table with a shhhppp. Mary eased into the padded chair, and her mother looked happily down at her. “You have coff’. You and Jud’. I put onna pot.”

“Ma, I want to know why you’re so skinny.” Mary couldn’t hide her dismay. Here, in the House of Things That Stayed the Same, something had changed. The most important thing.

“MRS. D, I’M STARVING!” Judy shouted. She would get away with it because Mary’s parents adored her. Also because she got away with everything, even with bringing her golden retriever here for a visit. Mercifully small for a golden, Penny went everywhere with Judy and had better manners. “Help me, Mrs. D! I need food. Feed me!”

“Jud’, Jud’!” Laughing, Mary’s mother fluttered over to Judy and gave her a big hug, while Penny lapped water noisily from a chipped bowl that Mary’s father had set on the linoleum floor. Her father was all-business now, having greeted Mary at the door with a hug that crushed her cheek to his white shirt, stiff with baked-in spray-starch. Although Matty DiNunzio had long ago retired as a tile setter, he always wore his short-sleeved shirt, black Bermuda shorts, and his hearing aid when Mary came home. He also loved seeing Judy, who was now hamming it up:

“Mrs. D, Mary wouldn’t go out to eat with me and you know why? Because she’s working too hard!”

“Maria,” her mother said, waving a gnarled index finger. “Maria, I tella you, no work so hard! I tella you and Bennie! She no listen? You no listen?”

“I listened, she listened, we all listened.” Mary felt vaguely as if she had just conjugated something. “Don’t start, Ma. It’s for Amadeo Brandolini, and there’s a lot to be done.”

“BUT FIRST WE EAT!” Judy said, hugging her mother again. “How can I help, Mrs. D?”

“No, no, you sit! Sit!” her mother replied, waving her off as she always did, because the kitchen was her exclusive territory and offers to help were construed as insults. “Sit!”

“Talked me into it.” Judy took a seat across from Mary. Meanwhile, Penny, who had finished drinking, ran a dripping pink tongue over her chops and trotted over to the kitchen table, her black nose in the air, undoubtedly sniffing for Aquanet.

“Okay, I make gnocchi for you, and coff’!” her mother said.

Mary scrutinized her mother as she picked up a plate of gnocchi layered with waxed paper for freezing, carried it to the counter, and set it down. Her mother seemed to move nimbly enough as she filled the dented spaghetti pot with water, took it to the burner, and twisted the knob to HI for the flame. Mary had to find out what was going on, but she needed a secret plan. Italian mothers had force fields that deflected the fears of their children, even when their children reached thirty years old. Actually, the force field got older, too.