THIRTEEN

July 22. Phase of the moon: First Quarter.

Aunt Amy stands at the stove stirring a pot of stew, her face as contented as a cow’s. On this overcast day, with dark clouds gathering in the western sky, she seems oblivious to the rumble of thunder. In my aunt’s world, every day is a sunny one. She sees no evil, fears no evil. She is like the livestock fattening on clover on the farm down the road, the cattle that know nothing of the slaughterhouse. She cannot see beyond the glow of her own happiness, to the precipice just beyond her feet.

She is nothing like my mother.

Aunt Amy turns from the stove and says, “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“I’ll set the table,” I offer, and she flashes me a grateful smile. It takes so little to please her. As I set the plates and napkins on the table and lay the forks tines-down, in the French way, I feel her loving gaze. She sees only a quiet and agreeable boy; she’s blind to who I really am.

Only my mother knows. My mother can trace our bloodline all the way back to the Hyksos, who ruled Egypt from the north, in the age when the God of War was sacred. “The blood of ancient hunters runs in your veins,” my mother said. “But it’s best never to speak of it, because people will not understand.”

I say little as we sit down to dinner. The family chatters enough to fill any silence. They talk about what Teddy did at the lake today, what Lily heard while at Lori-Ann’s house. What a nice crop of tomatoes they’ll be harvesting in August.

When we have finished eating, Uncle Peter says, “Who wants to go into town for ice cream?”

I am the only one who chooses to stay home.

I watch from the front door as their car drives away. As soon as it vanishes down the hill, I climb the stairs and walk into my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. I’ve been waiting for the chance to explore it. The room smells like lemon furniture polish. The bed is neatly made, but there are minor touches of disorder-my uncle’s jeans draped over a chair, a few magazines on the nightstand-to confirm that real people live in this room.

In their bathroom, I open the medicine cabinet and find, along with the usual headache pills and cold capsules, a two-year-old prescription, made out to Dr. Peter Saul:

“Valium, 5 mg. Take one tablet three times a day as needed for back spasms.”

There are at least a dozen pills still left in the bottle.

I return to the bedroom. I open dresser drawers and discover that my aunt’s bra size is 36B, that her underwear is cotton, and that my uncle wears medium jockey shorts. In a bottom drawer, I also find a key. It’s too small for a door. I think I know what it opens.

Downstairs, in my uncle’s study, I fit the key into a lock, and the cabinet door swings open. On the shelf inside is his handgun. It’s an old one that he inherited from his father, which is the only reason he has not gotten rid of it. He never takes it out; I think he is a little afraid of it.

I lock the cabinet and return the key to its drawer.

An hour later, I hear their car pulling into the driveway, and I go downstairs to greet them as they come back into the house.

Aunt Amy smiles when she sees me. “I’m so sorry you didn’t come with us. Were you terribly bored?”

FOURTEEN

The squeal of the truck’s air brakes startled Lily Saul awake. She raised her head, groaning at the ache in her neck, and blinked with sleepy eyes at the passing countryside. Dawn was just breaking and the morning mist was a haze of gold over sloping vineyards and dew-laden orchards. She hoped that poor Paolo and Giorgio had passed on to a place this beautiful; if anyone deserved Heaven, they did.

But I will not be seeing them there. This will be my only chance at Heaven. Here, now. A moment of peace, infinitely sweet because I know it won’t last.

“You’re awake at last,” the driver said in Italian, dark eyes appraising her. Last night, when he had stopped at the side of the road just outside Florence to offer her a ride, she had not gotten a good look at him. Now, with the morning light slanting into the truck’s cab, she saw coarse features, a jutting brow, and a day’s dark stubble on his jaw. Oh, she could read that look he gave her. Will we or won’t we, Signorina? American girls were easy. Give them a lift, offer them a place to stay, and they’ll sleep with you.

When Hell freezes over, thought Lily. Not that she hadn’t slept with a stranger or two. Or three, when desperate measures were called for. But those men had not been without their charms, and they had offered what she’d sorely needed at the time-not shelter, but the comfort of a man’s arms. The chance to enjoy the brief but lovely delusion that someone could protect her.

“If you need a place to stay,” the driver said, “I have an apartment, in the city.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“You have some place to go?”

“I have…friends. They’ve offered to let me stay.”

“Where is their address in Rome? I will drop you off.”

He knew she was lying. He was testing her.

“Really,” he said. “It is no trouble.”

“Just leave me at the train station. They live near there.”

Again, his gaze raked across her face. She did not like his eyes. She saw meanness there, like the gleam of a coiled snake that could, at any instant, strike.

Suddenly he gave a shrug, a grin, as if it didn’t matter to him in the least.

“You have been to Rome before?”

“Yes.”

“Your Italian is very good.”

But not good enough, she thought. I open my mouth and they know I’m foreign.

“How long will you stay in the city?”

“I don’t know.” Until it’s no longer safe. Until I can plan my next move.

“If you ever need help, you can call me.” He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “The number for my mobile.”

“I’ll give you a call sometime,” she said, dropping the card inside her backpack. Let him hang on to his fantasy. He’d give her less trouble when she left.

At Rome’s Stazione Termine, she climbed out of the truck and gave him a good-bye wave. She could feel his gaze as she crossed the street toward the train station. She didn’t glance back, but walked straight into the building. There, behind windows, she turned to watch his truck. Saw it just sitting there, waiting. Go on, she thought. Get the hell away from me.

Behind the truck, a taxicab blared its horn; only then did the truck move on.

She emerged from the station and wandered into Piazza della Repubblica where she paused, dazed by the crowds, by the heat and noise and gas fumes. Just before leaving Florence, she had chanced a stop at an ATM and withdrawn three hundred Euros, so she was feeling flush now. If she was careful, she could make the cash last for two weeks. Live on bread and cheese and coffee, check into rock-bottom tourist hotels. This was the neighborhood to find cheap accommodations. And with the swarms of foreign tourists moving in and out of the train station, she would easily blend in.

But she had to be cautious.

Pausing outside a sundries store, she considered how she could most easily alter her appearance. A dye job? No. In the land of dark-haired beauties, it was best to stay a brunette. A change of clothes, perhaps. Stop looking so American. Ditch the jeans for a cheap dress. She wandered into a dusty shop and emerged a half hour later wearing a blue cotton frock.

In a fit of extravagance, she next treated herself to a heaping plate of spaghetti Bolognese, her first hot meal in two days. It was a mediocre sauce, and the noodles were soggy and overcooked, but she devoured it all, sopping up every particle of meat with the stale bread. Then, her belly full, the heat weighing down on her shoulders, she trudged sleepily in search of a hotel. She found one on a dirty side street. Dogs had left their stinking souvenirs near the front entrance. Laundry flapped from windows, and a trash can, buzzing with flies, overflowed with garbage and broken glass.