Lenny had gotten back to the apartment at midnight and tiptoed to his bedroom-mostly cleared of the clothing Lilly was mending-and gone to bed.

When he woke up at nine the next morning, he was surprised to hear the sound of voices in the other bedroom, then realized it was Saturday and Star had no school.

It also meant that Aunt Lilly probably was still in bed if she wasn’t at Mass. She never had been the same after a bad fall last summer. She tried to tell him she was fine, but he had overheard her telling a neighbor that the doctor thought a blackout had been caused by a small stroke. Whatever had caused it, he definitely had seen a big difference in Lilly since he last had been here in September.

He had told her that he’d been in Florida, working for a delivery company. She responded that she was happy to know he had a regular job, and that he shouldn’t worry about Stellina. Sure, I shouldn’t worry about Star, he thought. Aunt Lilly would be happy if I never showed up here again.

Well, part of what I told her was true, he thought as he reached for a cigarette. I did make deliveries. Deliveries of little packages that made people happy. But it was getting too risky down there, so he thought he would come back to New York, pick up some small-time action and get to know Star. I’m just a nice, concerned single father, living in a respectable building with an old aunt, he thought. And that’s good, because this way when Lilly closes her eyes for good, Star and I will at least know each other real well. Who knows? I might even be able to put her to work for me.

He thought over the situation as he puffed his cigarette down to the stub, ground it out in a tray with sewing supplies, then decided to light another one to settle his nerves before he faced Aunt Lilly.

Even when Star had still been an infant, and he would take her for an outing in her carriage, Lilly had been suspicious every time. Lenny smiled at the memory of all the goods he had been able to deliver, while people smiled and cooed at his beautiful baby. But when he got home, Lilly always peppered him with questions. “Where did you walk? Where did you take her? Her blankets smell of smoke. I’ll kill you if you took her to a bar.” She was always after him.

He knew, though, that he would have to be careful and not get Lilly all worried about the little girl. All he needed was to have his aunt get some crazy idea, like trying to trace Star’s mother, his supposed girlfriend who’d gone to California.

Through some of his connections he had managed to get a forged birth certificate for Star. The letter pinned to her blanket had said she was of Irish and Italian descent, which worked out fine. So I’m Italian and her mother was Irish, Lenny had decided, and told his source to fill out the mother’s name as Rose O’Grady. He had thought of the song about Rosie O’Grady, which he liked when he was younger. He remembered some Irish kid in his class used to sing it.

Lilly would have a hell of a job trying to trace a Rose O’Grady in California, Lenny thought-it’s a common name and a very big state-but any kind of inquiry was potential trouble, and he wasn’t going to let it happen. He would have to start looking more like the concerned parent if he hoped to calm Lilly down.

After yawning, stretching, scratching his shoulder blade and pushing back his lank, dark hair, Lenny got out of bed. He pulled on some jeans, stuffed his feet into sneakers, remembered to put on a T-shirt, then went down the hall to his aunt’s bedroom.

The door was open, and he could see that, as he had expected, Lilly was propped up in bed. The room was neat but crowded, with Star’s narrow cot wedged between the bed and the wall.

As he stood in the doorway, Star’s back was to him, and Lilly was listening to her recite the lines from her part in the Christmas pageant. Lilly had not noticed him, so he stood back quietly while Star, sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back ramrod-straight, her curly, dark-blond hair escaping from the barrette, said, “Oh, Joseph, it does not matter that they would not accept us at the inn. The stable will give us shelter, and the child will wait no longer to come to us.”

“Bella, bella, Madonna,” Lilly said, “The Blessed Mother will be very pleased that you are to portray her.” She sighed and grasped Stellina’s hands. “And today I will begin to sew a white tunic and a blue veil for you, to wear in the pageant, Stellina cara.

Lilly looks like she should be in the hospital, Lenny thought with a twinge of alarm. Her skin was gray, and he could see beads of perspiration on her forehead. He was about to ask her how she was feeling, but stopped and frowned as he glanced at the top of the dresser. It was covered with a display of religious relics and statues of the Holy Family and Saint Francis of Assisi. Those he was used to-she always had been super-religious-but he still regretted that years ago Lilly had found the silver cup from which he had pried the diamond.

There’d been such a stink in the papers about it at the time, because the cup that had been stolen had been the chalice of a famous bishop. He knew it wouldn’t have been smart to try to hock it at the time; it was too big a risk for the few bucks it might bring. Instead, he had tossed it in the back of his closet, figuring he’d get rid of it at some point, like when he was in another city.

Then Lilly had gone on one of her cleaning rampages and found it, said it looked like a chalice, so he had to quickly come up with some dumb story about how it had belonged to Star’s mother, Rose. He told Lilly that her uncle, a priest, left it to her when he died. So, of course, Lilly polished it so that the silver gleamed like new and put it up with her statues.

Oh well, it made her happy, Lenny thought, and not being able to hock it at the time probably kept him from getting in trouble. It was a cinch nobody was looking for it now, though, and he wondered how much it would bring. At least Lilly hadn’t found the note that had been pinned to Star’s blanket. He had held on to that just in case anybody ever questioned where she came from, and he had to prove he hadn’t kidnapped her.

He had wedged the note into a crack between the top shelf and wall of his closet. Lilly could never reach it, even when she used a dust mop to get at the shelf.

With a shrug, Lenny turned and went into the kitchen to check the refrigerator and grocery cabinet for breakfast makings. Lean pickings, he thought. Lilly obviously hadn’t been shopping lately. He jotted a list of things to buy, grabbed his jacket and went back to her room.

This time he entered the room with a big “Good morning, how are my girls?” Solicitously he asked Lilly how she felt, told Star to be sure to do her homework and announced that he was on his way to the store.

After he rattled off the list of items he intended to buy, Lilly looked at him suspiciously but then relented and added a couple of things.

Outside, the air was sharp, and he regretted not wearing his cap. He would go to the diner and get a decent breakfast first, he decided. While he was there he would make a phone call to let his local sources know he was available to do their errands again, which he was confident they’d be glad to hear.

And once dear Aunt Lilly is out of the picture, I’ll be able to make little Star a part of my operation, Lenny thought. She’ll be a great partner for me-who’d ever guess?

Yes, working hand in hand, Star and her daddy will have a good delivery business going, he promised himself.