Out of habit, I crawl back into myself.
“I thought it might need tidying.” This is a lie. I’ve told so many just like it.
“Massimo has the key. He’ll ask us to tidy it when he needs it tidied. Now, come on. You look tired. Let’s get you to bed and we’ll figure out what to do with you tomorrow.”
What does she mean? Do I dare ask?
I do not. I let her show me my own room.
“The linens are fresh,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say. “For keeping it nice.”
“It’s been quite a time, since that day.” She flicks the drapes closed. “At least Massimo’s back. He can take care of that outsider.” Her nose wrinkles.
“You mean Sergio?”
“Imagine his picture in the gallery!” She seems scandalized. “Alongside all our men who sat at the head of our table for all our history. We’d never be the same.”
“It would be terrible,” I agree halfheartedly.
“Your mother had a mourning dress that may fit you.” She opens the closet door and starts flicking to the back. “I think I wore it when she passed.”
“I know which one you’re talking about.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m just really tired.”
From the kitchen, the teapot whistles.
“All right. No tea then.”
“Thank you.”
She’s out before I finish.
In the apartment’s only bathroom, I brush my hair and teeth before I dig my mother’s long black dress and lace veil out of the closet. Three cherries are embroidered on a tab at the back of the neck. I smile. Those cherries were her personal touch on every garment she made, whether for herself or someone else.
Wearing it, I will look like a pillar of sorrow, but it’s a costume. I’m not sorry he’s dead. Under the shell of black fabric, I am a missile propelled to Dario, and freedom, and the life we promised each other. The odds of meeting my target are so slim, I can’t even see the path clearly.
In my old apartment, in my old bed, alone with the sounds of the streets and the smell of clean sheets, I am a foreigner enveloped in the familiar.
The last time I was in this bed, all I wanted was a life without change or risk. Now everything that once held me safe is fraught with danger.
I want to get Dario out of here alive, leave the Colonia together, get on a plane.
We will swim with sharks.
First, the people I used to call my family need to trust me.
I need to pretend to hate the man I love.
CHAPTER 7
DARIO
On the floor with my cheek to the cool concrete, I am surrounded by the soft whoosh of breath leaving my body and the higher-pitched whish of me taking it back.
Pushing through the stabbing pain in my side, I turn over like a steak. The floor is hard under my bare shoulder blades. They took my shirt. The ceiling is a harder gray than the clinic, and the camera has a blinking red light behind the smoke-colored dome.
They want me dead, so why am I here?
They wanted Nico dead, but they found a use for him first. My brother, who built cities with me out of stray bricks and stones. In that pocket of space behind our building in StuyTown, we assembled Junktown with the leftovers of someone else’s imagination. I didn’t know I was happy. I didn’t know I’d lose him in a trade that would never be honored. Before her—my prima—he was the only person who meant anything to me. With him gone, she’s all that’s left.
My hope is that Sarah left the house, either with Benny or alone. That she heard my voice on the phone and ran away.
My God, I hope she was obedient this one last time. If she ends up like Nico…
No.
Maybe Oria won’t be too grief-stricken to get her. Or she’ll contact Willa, and Willa will take her to St. Easy. Someone else will teach her to snorkel and swim with sharks. She’ll get stronger. She and Willa will talk about the ex-husband they have in common and the loveless reasons they married me. Sarah will smile and laugh and forget me.
Without choosing to lie to myself, I make this story feel like truth, but in the end, it’s just hope… and the hope is not some excruciating torture. It calms my mind and fills my heart. It keeps me from thinking about her for a few minutes. I’m strong enough to fight the pain in my side and get up on my knees. I put my hands on the floor to push myself up, but I touch the edge of the drain and feel a brush on a fingertip like a memory of something pleasant, but indistinct.
I look for the thing. Feel for it. It’s barely visible, but I can pinch it and pull against the resistance. When I have it, I hold it against the light until the filament glows. It’s a row of lowercase e’s in the script of a dying man. Like a scream, e-e-e-e.
It’s a hair. Light brown against the back of my hand.
The Fosters get you some thirty-dollar goop for that mop on your head?
Nico was here, in this cell, breathing this stale air, shedding hair and skin, panicking, surviving, staying strong.
I used to cut his hair with fabric scissors.
Stay still before you have ears like mine.
The first time, I had such a hard time getting it even, I cut it to the length of a bitten fingernail.
The second time, I just left it uneven.
Every time after that was a choice between the two. I tried hard to get it right, but I never had the touch. He was so frustrated with me, and I just laughed.
“I was such a dick,” I say to the hair. The last of my brother. “You just wanted to look better than what we were.”
My fist curls around the hair. I can’t feel it, no matter how tightly I grip. It’s too light to mean anything. It should be in a vacuum bag or between the bristles of a broom, but it’s as tenacious as Nico, and it’s all I have of him. Bending, I put my fist between my forehead and the floor, trying to broker a deal between memory and guilt where he can exist in an unbroken peace.
My knees ache. I fall over, next to the drain, and stare at the ceiling. The red light of the camera glows, and if he’s up there, I hope he can’t see me. I hope he’s too busy being happy to think of me or worry that I’m cut off like a strand of hair the world doesn’t need anymore.
I am alone and I will miss him.
On the cold floor, I fall into a kind of slumber.
A clack wakes me a few minutes, hours, or days later. I’m still on the floor, in the same position. My joints ache the way they did when I slept on the sidewalk with a knife in my sleeve, alert and dreaming at the same time.
I sit up, shirtless and exposed. The bandages on my side fold into the wound. A tray of food slides through the open hatch at the bottom of the metal door. The hatch closes. A face appears in the square of netted glass. A man.
Marco Caliveri.
I give him a one-fingered salute. His face disappears. I hope I pissed him off.
I slide the tray toward me. Lentil soup. Bread. Water. All of it could be poisoned or drugged. Could taste like shit, but I’m starving, so the fact is, I’m going to eat it anyway.
And I do. Right on the floor. I grunt with approval, because you can say a lot of things about Colonia women, but they can fucking cook.
Sarah should make me lentil soup as soon as I get back.
Before I stop myself, I imagine her at the stove, stirring a big pot, steam collecting around her face. She asks me if I want to try it. What do I think? Does it need salt?