Another loud explosion from the television sent the sparrow off again. The actors had lured the alien into an odd pod-like structure and were frantically working to zip it shut.
“Let the poor thing be, Tenn,” Babbo said. “It will find its own way out eventually.”
Grumbling, Tennyson sat down with anoof.
Babbo pressed a kiss to my forehead, pulling me even closer.
“I love you,mia passerotta.” His breath tickled my ear.
“I love you, too, Babbo.”
“I’ll always love you,” he said, “even when I’m gone.”
“You can’t leave. I won’t let you.” I clutched him tighter.
“Of course. You are right.” His voice a soft murmur. “How could I ever leave my littlepasserotta—”
I threw myself out of the memory, lurching upright in my bed.
Disorientation swamped me. That moment between waking and sleep where I couldn’t process the moonlit, gold-leaf baroque wall paper, crystal sconces and plush canopied bed. Where was I? Had I wandered into Jack’s memory for real?
Recollection and reality clicked into place behind the thought. Leaving Florence. Jack’s villa. Fancy bedroom. Strange dreams and memories I had long-ago buried.
Right.
I forced my breathing to slow down, told my heart to let go of this shattered feeling. And then, piece-by-piece, I dismantled the memory of my father and stuffed it deep down into my emotional black hole.
Babbo was not something I intended to dwell upon. That way lay madness.
As for Jack . . .
I knew he had a brother and several sisters, one of whom was named Catharine. But I had never really contemplated the world that he had left behind. He must have had a life full of friends and family and chaos. He never talked about them, but surely he missed them. Underneath all that lordly exterior had to be a lonely man adrift in a strange world . . . and I had never even bothered to ask about his family.
Dammit. I blinked back the stinging in my eyes and grumpily snuggled back into bed.
I kept saying I was going to be kinder to Jack, to think before I spoke, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t being kinder or more understanding.
Was something broken within me? Why couldn’t I just be . . . nice?
Tennyson’s words from earlier in the day shot through my mind:
Seeking help doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It means you’re smart.
Would that help? Opening up my heart and allowing it to bleed to some unknown therapist?
Panic choked me at the thought. No, thank you.
So I had baggage? And cute little eccentricities? Who didn’t? I could overcome them on my own.
But I did vow to be nicer to Jack.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would start.
EIGHT
Jack
Chiara stumbled down the stairs well after sunrise, hair askew, eyes bloodshot, looking decidedly unrested for a woman who had supposedly been sleeping for the past ten hours.
