CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

About Marianna was that she knew a lot more about the inside of the Morelli houseknew it longer than almost anybody alive, beyond Cassandra's and his parents'; beyond even her own, because parents and siblings glimpse reality through the filter of the love and history that distorts it, but a housekeeper glimpses what someone really is day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute: the person they are when no one's watchingthe person they are at six in the morning with yesterday's tears still on their face; the person they are at eleven at night, with theirarmor of the moment cast aside because they haven't got the energy to wear it. Marianna revealed so much of this to Ariaprecisely in length and toneand in such a calm careful measured way, as a person might reveal a treasure, parceling it out at a conserve pace, because if it were all revealed at once, then it would be heavy, and had the flavor of rumor, when it was not rumor but only fact, clustered by the person who'd been watching for ages.

She shared it in the hours between working and not working.

For Marianna, mornings in the kitchen, before the day demanded anything from either one of them. For Aria, afternoons after returning from the Institute, sitting at the island with her collection notes while Marianna made coffee, as the apartment fell silent, and the sort of hour when things were said.

"He was eleven when we first brought him here, " Marianna said one Thursday morning, darting around the herbs with the fast, practiced movements of a woman who had been chopping herbs for a lifetime. "To the Westchester house, where Mr.and Mrs.Morelli were living at the time, he'd been there three weeks. That was after they'd finalized the adoption, they came up for the weekend and I watched him get out of the car" Aria glanced up from the drawing of hers she was working on.

"What kind of guy was he? He stood on the gravel and he looked at the house, " Marianna said. "For a long time. Not like a person who is admiring it.

Like a person who is trying to decide whether or not to allow himself to like it." She was brushing herbs into a bowl. "He did not unpack his bag until Sunday evening. He kept it by the door, already packed, the whole weekend.

" Aria put her pencil down. "That he might have to dash off, " she said. Marianna said, 'That was...that they didn't stay.

He was a child's response to losing himself in something good, ensuring that he never actually settled before it faded away. Aria contemplated this. She contemplated the breakfast island and the phone he snapped up again.

She contemplated the way he moved through the penthouse, deliberate and quick never taking too long in a room and never placing anything down in a way that indicated permanence. Even his study, which she'd poked her head in once and seen appeared as well-ordered as that of a man who was eternally prepared to go elsewhere.

"He never learned it," Aria said.

Not a question. "Tiger has been working on it, " Marianna said. "Mr. and Mrs. Morelli have been very patient with him. He loves them, this has been clear from the start.

This has been clear from the beginning. Loving them is different from being sure that they'll stay. He's got the love. He's had to learn the permanence." "And other people, " Aria mumbled carefully. "Out then family.

" Marianna turned to observe her squarely, laying down her knife. She had the eyes of a person who's spent a long time studying things and had finally come to a conclusion ready to be given to the right person. 'He has not brought a woman here' she announced. 'In fourteen years. Never.  He has had there have been people, I am not suggesting otherwise but here, in this house, he has always been alone. This is his home, he keeps the guest rooms for the family and his contacts in business. Never for someone he" "Earlier, " Aria said.

"Until now, Marianna confirmed, . And then they were silent for a while. Outside the kitchen window, the city was tending to its mid-morning traffic, the specific burn of Manhattan from nine to twelve, deliberate and substantial.

And beside her was a man named Roman? Marianna, " said Aria. "Roman. Marianna's face changed. A very slight change flickerlike, almost impossible to see but Aria had been learning to see slight changes.

"Right, " she said. What are you worried about? 'I always have concerns, ' Marianna said. 'Just about everything. That's who I am.

' Turning back to the console she added, 'Specific to Roman, I have concerns of another sort. The questions Roman asks are tangential to what he says he is asking.

The way he probes into the household is that of someone trying to catch up on the life he wasn't part of; why he asks, for example, what time the security systems update, which rooms have cameras, what time Marcus changes shifts; those are not questions of catching up.

' Aria kept her voice steady. "Since when?

"From his second week, "Marianna said. "I had nothing to say to Mr Morelli, I had no evidence and because Roman is his brother and has been waiting for his brother twenty-three years I wasn't about to take that from him according to my instincts.

However, my instincts work well".

"I'm with you on that one", Aria answered. "Yes, " said Marianna.

"I have seen you watching him, and I have seen how patient you are about it. Not as patient as most people would have been." "My mother was so patient, " said Aria.

"She had been taking notes for months before anyone discovered the purpose of her activities. I was taught patience by observing her motives.

" Marianna paused for a moment. Then she placed a plate of slices of break down in front of Aria, still quite warm, with an accompaniment of good butter and said: "Eat. Since seven o'clock you have been thinking very hard. You forgot it was time to eat." Aria ate.

Aria thought. She included Marianna's mthe notes, which she had not yet transcribed onto paper, but stored within the intricate mental framework of a woman who understood that all else could be taken away.

Twelve minutes later she left the kitchen and when she went away she felt more sure that she hadn't been there than she had when she entered.

And she was not watching all by herself. That's hope, she believed.