Chapter 11 - The House With the Blue DoorSix months after Gabriel returned to Astoria, the landlord informed Norah that he intended to sell the house.
She received the letter on a Tuesday.
Gabriel came home from his shift and found her sitting at the kitchen table staring at it.
Thomas and Sophia were building a castle from cereal boxes.
“What happened?” Gabriel asked.
Norah handed him the notice.
His eyes moved across the page.
Thirty-day inspection.
Ninety-day termination if sold to an owner-occupant.
Gabriel immediately thought of money.
Then stopped.
Old instinct.
He placed the letter down.
“What do you want to do?”
Norah looked up.
The question surprised her.
Gabriel noticed.
“You expected me to say I’ll buy it.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it.”
“I know.”
“But I didn’t say it.”
“You’re improving.”
“What do you want?”
Norah looked around the kitchen.
“I don’t know.”
The house was small.
The roof leaked near the back bedroom.
The furnace complained every winter.
The bathroom floor tilted.
But it was the place where she had rebuilt her life.
Thomas had taken his first real steps in the hallway.
Sophia had spoken her first sentence in the kitchen.
Norah had spent nights sitting against the front door, terrified Gabriel might appear.
Later she had spent nights hoping he would arrive for breakfast.
A house could contain contradictory histories.
“I don’t want the children moved again,” she said.
Gabriel nodded.
“Then we look at options.”
The landlord wanted $238,000.
Six years earlier, Gabriel would have considered that the cost of a moderately expensive watch.
Now most of his seized assets were gone.
His legal income came from the docks.
Savings existed, but they were limited.
Norah had accumulated some money.
Not enough.
They sat together after the children slept.
Gabriel worked through numbers on paper.
Norah watched.
“You were a criminal accountant too?”
“I had accountants.”
“Then why are you good at this?”
“Because I checked their work.”
“You trusted nobody.”
“No.”
“Healthy.”
“It was efficient.”
They could afford a down payment if they combined savings.
Gabriel looked at the numbers.
Norah understood before he spoke.
“That would mean buying it together.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
They had not formally resumed their marriage.
Legally, they were still married.
Neither had filed for divorce during the separation.
But emotionally they lived in a strange middle territory.
Gabriel spent most nights at his apartment.
Two nights a week he slept on the couch.
Occasionally more.
He had kissed Norah twice since returning.
Both times she initiated.
Gabriel never pushed.
Now purchasing property together felt strangely more intimate than kissing.
Norah touched the paperwork.
“Would you want that?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“You answered quickly.”
“You asked a simple question.”
“It isn’t simple.”
“For me it is.”
“Why?”
Gabriel thought.
“Because I don’t need my name on the deed.”
Norah frowned.
“What?”
“Use your name.”
“We’re talking about buying it together.”
“I’ll contribute half. You own it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“Gabriel.”
“If things go wrong between us, you and the children never lose the house.”
Norah stared.
He continued.
“I spent years believing security meant owning everything. Now I think maybe it means making sure you don’t need me to survive.”
Her face changed.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she got up.
Gabriel thought she was angry.
Instead she walked around the table.
She sat on his lap.
Gabriel went completely still.
Norah wrapped both arms around his neck.
He looked at her.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then what—”
She kissed him.
Not briefly.
Not cautiously.
Gabriel’s hands hovered.
He did not know whether he was allowed to touch her.
Norah broke the kiss.
“You can put your hands on me, Gabriel.”
He did.
Carefully.
One at her waist.
One against her back.
The familiarity was overwhelming.
Her perfume was different now.
Not the expensive one she wore in Chicago.
Something simple.
Soap.
Coffee.
Home.
Gabriel rested his forehead against hers.
“I missed you.”
Norah closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“No. I missed you before you left.”
She looked at him.
“I just didn’t understand that was what I was feeling.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was an idiot.”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly.
Norah touched his cheek.
“Why Bianca?”
Gabriel had known the question would eventually come.
He had prepared answers.
None sounded acceptable.
“Because she required nothing from me.”
Norah’s hand dropped.
Gabriel continued quickly.
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t know me. Not really. She wanted restaurants and hotels and gifts. With her, I could perform being powerful.”
“And with me?”
“You saw when I was afraid.”
Norah’s eyes filled.
“So you punished me.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt.
Gabriel did not soften it.
“You were pregnant. I loved you. I was terrified something would happen to you. Terrified something would happen to the babies. Terrified I would become my father.”
“You became worse in a different way.”
“I know.”
“My father didn’t cheat on my mother.”
“No.”
“He stayed.”
“I know.”
Gabriel’s voice broke.
“I know.”
Norah looked at him for a long time.
Then she leaned against his chest.
Gabriel held her.
“I wish you had been this man then,” she whispered.
“So do I.”
“We could have had three years.”
“I know.”
“That’s what still hurts.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Not the affair itself.
Not only that.
The stolen time.
Birthdays.
First words.
First steps.
Nights.
Mornings.
A thousand ordinary moments.
“I can’t give them back.”
“No.”
“But I can give you whatever comes next.”
Norah lifted her head.
“That sounds dangerously like a promise.”
“It’s an intention.”
“Better.”
They bought the house.
Norah’s name went on the deed.
She painted the front door blue.
Thomas chose the color.
Sophia wanted pink.
A diplomatic crisis followed.
Gabriel solved it by allowing Sophia to choose flower boxes.
She picked purple.
The house became absurdly colorful.
Gabriel loved every inch.
One Saturday, while painting the porch, a black sedan stopped at the curb.
Gabriel froze.
Even after everything, certain shapes still activated old instincts.
A man stepped out.
Luca.
Gabriel dropped the paintbrush.
Norah appeared at the door.
She recognized him immediately.
Three years earlier, Luca had commanded men hunting her across Chicago.
Now he stood alone.
No weapon visible.
No escort.
Gabriel approached.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why?”
Luca looked older.
The scar across his jaw had faded.
He looked toward Norah.
“May I?”
Gabriel glanced at her.
Norah considered.
Then nodded.
Luca walked onto the porch.
Thomas appeared behind Norah.
“Who?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“An old friend.”
Luca almost laughed.
“Old coworker.”
Thomas accepted that and disappeared.
Luca looked around.
“This is where you live.”
“Yes.”
“Blue door.”
“Yes.”
“You painted it?”
“Yes.”
Luca shook his head.
“I never thought I’d live to see Gabriel Costa holding a paintbrush.”
“Neither did I.”
Luca became serious.
“I’m leaving Chicago.”
Gabriel stared.
“Why?”
“Because you were right.”
“About what?”
“All of it.”
Luca looked toward the street.
“The money doesn’t stop. Neither does the paranoia. New enemies replace old ones.”
“You have family?”
“A sister in Arizona.”
“Go.”
“I’m trying.”
Gabriel understood.
Walking away sounded simple until everything you had ever been existed on the other side.
Luca reached into his jacket.
Gabriel tensed.
Luca noticed.
“Relax.”
He removed a small plastic bag.
Inside was an infant bracelet.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
4 lb 8 oz.
The bracelet.
The one he had found at the Gary airstrip.
Gabriel thought it had been lost years ago.
“I found it in the estate safe,” Luca said. “We sold the property.”
Gabriel took the bag.
His hands shook.
Norah approached.
“What is it?”
Gabriel showed her.
She recognized it.
“Thomas.”
“Yes.”
Norah touched the plastic.
“Dr. Harris put those on them.”
Gabriel looked at Luca.
“Thank you.”
Luca nodded.
Then he turned to Norah.
“I owe you an apology.”
She stiffened.
“I helped Gabriel search for you.”
“You were doing your job.”
“My job would have ended with taking two babies from their mother if we found you.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Norah looked at Luca.
“But you didn’t find me.”
“No.”
“I was better.”
Luca smiled.
“Much.”
Norah surprised both men by smiling back.
Luca left twenty minutes later.
No dramatic farewell.
No promises.
Gabriel watched the sedan disappear.
Norah stood beside him.
“Do you think he’ll get out?”
“I hope so.”
“You never would have said that before.”
“No.”
Thomas ran onto the porch.
“Daddy, paint!”
Gabriel looked down.
Blue paint covered his son’s hands.
Then Sophia appeared.
Purple paint covered hers.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Norah laughed.
“What happened?”
Thomas pointed at Sophia.
“She did it.”
Sophia pointed at Thomas.
“He did it.”
Gabriel looked at the ruined porch.
Then at his children.
Six years earlier, someone would have been fired for spilling coffee near Gabriel’s shoes.
Now his daughter pressed a purple handprint against his shirt.
He stared at it.
Sophia gasped.
Thomas laughed.
Norah waited.
Gabriel dipped his hand into the blue paint.
Then gently pressed a handprint onto Thomas’s shirt.
The children screamed with delight.
Within seconds the porch became chaos.
Blue.
Purple.
Laughter.
Norah tried to escape.
Gabriel caught her.
“Don’t.”
She laughed.
“Gabriel.”
He pressed one blue hand against the back of her shirt.
Her mouth fell open.
“You’re dead.”
She grabbed purple paint.
Gabriel ran.
His children chased him.
His wife chased him.
May you like
The man who had once inspired terror across Chicago fled around a tiny house because three people armed with paint were hunting him.
And for the first time in his life, being caught was exactly what Gabriel wanted.
