SARAH
My energy’s been sucked out of me through my lungs and the tiny ducts in my eyes. My head throbs. The blankets over me are trapping hot, wet air.
Outside, a driver leans on their horn.
Orange bursts inside my eyelids. Daytime. Sun right through the window. Mid-morning. The apartment in Murray Hill. The room of an innocent child named Sarah Colonia.
Facts scroll across my mind like the ribbon at the bottom of the news screen.
You are my mother.
They have Oria.
Dario is as good as dead.
Sergio will lay his claim.
No other man will have me.
The last fact is a surprise. I didn’t know that last night, but I do now.
Dario Lucari may have not told me everything he knew about Mary Colonia, wife of the head and mother to the first daughter, but no other man will have me because I won’t allow it. No other man will ever lay a hand on me in passion or possession. Not Sergio Agosti. Not some other buyer. No one. I’ll die first.
“She’s overwhelmed by her emotions. It’s normal.”
My eyes are still closed, but I know Dr. Palmeri’s voice. Will I tell him that I’m not feeling emotions right now? Will I tell him that sadness and despair have drained from me, leaving room for nothing but truth?
“When will she get out of bed?” Grandma asks.
“Give her today.” With a rustle of fabric, he stands. “Call me if she’s not up by sunset.”
“All day?” The door to my room creaks. “We have preparations…”
“Hm—”
“Doctor.” I open my eyes.
“Sarah!” Grandma’s at the door. “You’re up.”
“I am.” I address the doctor. “Can you stay?”
“Of course.”
Grandma, not taking a hint, steps in.
“Just the doctor, Gram.” I sit all the way up. I’m out of my muddy clothes and in a nightgown I barely remember putting on.
Grandma hesitates. Palmeri turns to her as he sits back down.
“Can you get her robe?”
She gets my robe off the hook and helps me into it.
“Close the door on your way out,” I say, then add, “please.”
After a moment of consideration, she leaves us alone.
“Sarah,” Palmeri says, “I heard what was found last night. I think it was poor judgment for your brother to bring you along.”
Men seem to have a lot of opinions no one asked for. I don’t have to explain myself or Massimo to him. There’s no time for this nonsense.
“Dario,” I say. “Did they kill him?”
I brace myself for the answer.
“Not yet, as far as I know.”
“What about Oria?”
“Who? The woman they brought in this morning?”
So she’s alive and in the clinic. He’s acting as if he just happened to be around when a patient was dragged in.
“The one with duct tape glue on her face? Yeah.”
“She’s being taken care of. I think it’s best if you just—”
“I need to see Dario. Not through glass this time.”
“I don’t think—”
“You want to see your daughter again?” Too hard. I need to turn down the volume. “Dario’s the only one who knows what happened to her. If she’s alive, he knows where she is. If they kill him, that knowledge dies with him. And they’re going to kill him. I promise you that.”
“I’m starting to doubt he ever saw her at all.”
The comforts of ignorance are tempting, I know that from experience. I need to tempt him back.
“He told me where to find my mother. I’m the only one he’ll tell anything, and my brother’s not going to let me see him again.”
He crosses his legs, tapping his fingertips on his knee.
“Lucari’s angry now,” I continue, using Dario’s last name so I can sound separated from him. “He’ll tell me what we want to know out of spite, just to hurt me.”
In the middle of this lie, I wonder who I’ve become. Am I a tool for my own motivations? How far will I go? How many stories will I make up? Doesn’t my own mother matter to me?
She did once, but she’s been dead for a long time. I’m alive, and I’ve become a walking, breathing, thinking tool for other people’s plans.
“What’s in it for you?” Dr. Palmeri asks.
I have my own needs, and they have to look like they’re part of someone else’s.
“Your daughter was taken from you. So, I understand you. I truly understand how much this hurts you.” I stop myself from laying it on even thicker.
“I believe you, but…” He hmms and shakes his head. “I’m not sure.”
I can read him like a book. He believes I have altruistic motives. He believes I intend to go into the cell and find out about Rosemarie.
It’s my competence he doubts. That’s his mistake.
“I know him. I can break him down.”
“How can you do what no one else has been able to?”
“If he uses my body the way I know he will…” My cheeks tingle and I hate it. “There’s going to be a moment… afterward.” I clear my throat. “At that point, he won’t have any anger left. He can be quite reasonable.”
“This doesn’t sound like a guarantee.”
“I can’t give you that. All I can give you is hope.”
“I haven’t had a lot of that since she was taken.” He nods, then looks out the window. “I never stopped missing her. She was the brightest star in the sky, my little girl.”
“Then why’d you give her away so young?” The question is impulsive. Not strategic. Dario would not approve. But I may never get another chance to ask.
“I regret that every day. That she was so unhappy when he stole her.” He stands close to the bed, forcing me to look up at him like a child. He’s so close to understanding that she ran away because of what he did. “I don’t need to be judged by the likes of you.” His face twists into the shape of disdain. “You gave yourself to an outsider. You could have let him kill you, but you chose to let him defile you. They should scrape you hollow and send you away, but they keep you like pocket change. You exist to spend.”
They should scrape me hollow? As if the responsibility for his hand in it is too much for him to bear. No different than diverting guilt for losing Rosemarie onto my own choices.
“So, you hollowed Dafne. It was you.”
“She ran. She gave her loyalty away. She was, however, intact, which is more than I can say for you.”
“And if you find Rosemarie? What if she’s ‘defiled’? What are you going to do to her?”
He stiffens and puts his hands in his pockets. “I’ll give your grandmother something to help her sleep. You will get ready and meet me downstairs in exactly three hours. If you’re not there, I’ll assume you can’t do the job. And Sarah Colonia… if you come out of that cell without my daughter’s location… I’ll hollow you myself.”
He walks out, snapping the door closed, his threat breathing and pulsing in the middle of the room like a living thing.