The storm is ten minutes out and the pool cover is losing. You are leaning on the crank with both hands when a man comes around the side of the house carrying a second crank like it weighs nothing, a black mastiff walking beside him on a rope lead.

he says, cheerful, loud enough for the whole street.

He is the second of the four: dark brown hair pushed back with one strand loose over his forehead, a day of stubble, blue-grey eyes, a white shirt open to the belt with the black tie hanging loose around his neck, shoulders like a man who loads trucks for a living.

He takes the handle out of your hands. Your breath catches in the middle of the movement — your ribs, the same pull as every day for six weeks — and he feels it come up through the iron before he ever looks at your face.

he says. The cheer goes out of his voice for exactly one second.

The mastiff sits. Behind him the other three are on the lawn now: Nevio in front with his hands still in his pockets, Costanzo with the blue folder under one arm, Alfio at the gate with his back to all of you.

Nevio takes two fingers and lifts the hem of your T-shirt. Yellow-green at the edges, new over the ribs. Nobody says anything.

Gastone looks at it for a long moment. He laughs at everything; he is not laughing now.

he says, and sets the crank down against the deck rail, gently, like it is somebody's plate.