She said, “Let’s sit down.”

“Okay. Okay. Sitting down is good—”

She grabbed his hand to stop him talking. She marched him to a pew in the nave where the sundial glistened on the marble floor.

They sat side by side, far from anybody else. He wasn’t looking at her, she realized; his gaze wandered around the paintings on the wall, the marble floor. At last he said, “Look, if you’re in some kind of trouble—”

She hissed, “Why didn’t you turn up?”

“What?”

“Here, at the baths. On Tuesday. You didn’t come.”

“Hey,” he said defensively. “So what? It wasn’t important. It was just—” He leaned forward, so he was facing away from her. “Look. You have to be realistic. I’m seventeen years old. You’re a pretty kid. And, well, that’s pretty much it.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “I saw you in the Pantheon, and I spotted you in the park that day, and I thought, what the hell, and I said I’d meet you in the Piazza Navona, and there you were, and then—”

“And then?”

“And then you told me you were fifteen.” He shrugged. “It was just a few moments, months and months ago. It wasn’t even a date.”

“It was important to me.”

“Well, I’m sorry. How could I know?”

“Because you met me. We talked.”

“Only for a few minutes.”

But in that time, she thought, we made a connection. Or did we? She looked at him again, in his nerdish T-shirt, with his baseball cap on the wooden seat beside him. He was so young himself, she realized. He was just playing at relationships, playing at flirting. That was all he had been doing, all the time; even his supposed seriousness was just part of the game. Hope started to die.

He said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Really. And anyhow, I did like you, you know.”

She sighed. “Look, I don’t blame you. The irony of it is, with almost anybody you met it would have made no difference.”

“But it does with you.” He turned around and looked back at her. In the church’s soft light his skin seemed very smooth, very young. “Look, I was, am, and always will be an asshole. And I’m sorry.” His face clouded. “I remember now. You said something about problems at home. Your family? If there’s something serious, maybe my dad can help—”

“I’ve had a baby,” she said simply.

That took him aback. His mouth opened and closed. Then he nodded. “Okay. A baby. When? How old were you? Fourteen, thirteen—”

“It was two months ago.”

He laughed, but his face quickly drained of humor. “That’s ridiculous. Impossible, in fact.” He frowned,

trying to remember. “You sure didn’t look pregnant when I last saw you.”

“That’s because I wasn’t. I was a virgin,” she said. “I became pregnant in March.”

That, absurdly, made him blush; he briefly looked away. “So,” he whispered, “you had sex with some guy. You got pregnant. Then, what, you had a miscarriage—”

“I had a baby,” she said rapidly. “A live, full-term baby, after thirteen weeks. I don’t care whether you think that’s impossible or not. It happened.”

He sat silently for a moment, mouth gaping. Then he shook his head. “Okay. Suppose I concede you had a baby, six months premature, as if … Who’s the father?”

“His name is Giuliano … I have forgotten the rest.”

“You’ve forgotten his name? Did you know him?”

“No. Not really.”

He hesitated. “Was it rape?”

“No. It’s complicated.”

“You’re telling me.”

“It’s a family matter. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Sounds like there’s a lot I don’t want to know … This guy who knocked you up. Was he older than you?”

“Oh, yes. About thirty, I think.”

“Is that legal here? … Oh. He wasn’t a family member, was he?”

“No. Well, a distant cousin.”

“Murkier and murkier. Did your parents set you up somehow? Did they sell you?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. I can’t explain it. And you probably wouldn’t believe me anyhow.”

He gazed back at her, exasperated.

She studied him, trying to understand his mood. He wasn’t scared anymore — or at least that wasn’t his only emotion. He was genuinely listening, genuinely trying to understand, and his face showed a kind of determination.

He was constructing a new model of their relationship in his head, she thought. First he had believed he was a kind of romantic hero, the traveler in Rome. Then when he found out she was too young for a relationship, he decided he was playing a flirting, slightly edgy game with a precocious kid. Her news that she had given birth, and in a manner he couldn’t understand, had broken all that apart. But now he was trying to construct a new vision. Now he was the knight who could ride in to save her, solve all her problems at a single blow — or anyhow a single phone call to his father.

He really was just a kid, Lucia thought almost fondly, and he saw the world in simplified, childlike ways. What he imagined was going on here had very little to do with the truth. But, kid or not, he was all she had. And, she thought coldly, if she had to use him to ensure her own survival, she would.

Lucia forced a smile. “You are an American,” she said. “You made deserts bloom. You put people on the moon. Surely you can help me—”

But he was staring past her.

Pina was standing silently at the end of the pew.

Daniel stood up and confronted Pina. “Oh, it’s you. The ugly sister.”

“This is a church,” Pina said levelly. “Let’s not make a scene.” She turned to Lucia. “Rosa is waiting outside, with a car.”

Daniel said, a little wildly, “Are you going to drag her out of here, the way you dragged her out of that coffee shop?” He was guessing, Lucia saw, but he was hitting the mark.

Pina glared at him, calculating. Then she said, “I’ll sit down if you will.”

Daniel hesitated, then nodded curtly. They both sat.

Pina touched Lucia’s arm, but Lucia flinched away. “Oh, Lucia. What are we going to do with you?”

“How did you find me this time?”

“This boy can’t do anything for—”

“How did you find me?”

“There’s a tracer chip in your cell phone. It wasn’t hard.”

Lucia glared at her. “You bugged me?”

“For your own good.” Lucia still wouldn’t let Pina touch her, but she leaned forward, and Lucia could smell a milky Crypt scent on her clothes. “Come home, sister.”

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Daniel said. “But she isn’t going anywhere, except with me.”

Pina laughed, softly, but in his face. “I believe sex with minors is known as statutory rape in your country. Do you want to find out about the Italian equivalent?”

It was an obvious ploy, but it made him hesitate. “I haven’t touched her.”

“Do you think that will matter?”

Lucia said, “Daniel, she won’t go to the police.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s not the way the Order does things.” She took a deep breath. “And besides, she would have to explain to them how come I’m pregnant.”

Daniel was puzzled. “You mean you were pregnant.”

“… No. I am pregnant. Again.”

There, she thought. I’ve said it.

Pina’s mouth tightened. “What have you told him, Lucia?”

Daniel was staring at her, a mix of horror and incredulity on his face. “Was it him again? This guy Giuliano?”

“No. Or rather …”

Lucia remembered her bafflement when her menstruation had stopped, her growing puzzlement at the strange sensations in her belly — strange, yet familiar. She had gone to Patrizia innocently, wondering if she was suffering some kind of postnatal symptom.

She hadn’t been able to believe what Patrizia had told her. But Patrizia seemed to have expected it. Patrizia called in others — Rosa, one of the younger matres, assistants from the delivery rooms and the crиches. They had clustered around Lucia, their smiles glistening wetly, touching her shoulders and back, kissing her brow and cheeks and lips, overwhelming her with their scent and taste of sweetness and milk. “It’s a miracle,” one of them had whispered in Lucia’s ear. “A miracle …”