She’d been split down the center those days: she and Tito making two halves of a whole.
All those years, Tito had tunneled into the underworld of Naples. Nikki had tried to redirect him—suggested escape plans, fresh starts in Spain or France, or the United States. But his love affair with the System had felt like something inevitable, and she’d gone along with it because she didn’t have the power or arguments to make him stop—and because he had been so much a part of her, it was impossible to conceive what it might mean to live without him.
She’d been too weak to truly resist or change him.
Then Adriano had been shot.
Everything exploded in that moment, rearranging itself so that the past and the future seemed to collapse into a single point of unbearable weight.
Her mother, who had always been so calm…distant…untouchable, was unmoored by grief. She raged insensibly, screamed and broke things, tore down walls and cabinets with her hands until her nails broke and her fingers bled. It was a terrifying exhibition from a woman who had never made a scene. Neither Nikki nor her father knew what to do; neither could find a way in. At other times, Beatrice would sit for hours in the dark of her room, motionless, as if she’d been turned to stone. One day, when Nikki had tried to draw her out of this state, she turned and hissed vehemently: “ ‘If the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness!’ ”
Those words had struck at Nikki, burrowed inside, and she knew that her mother had sent them like a curse, imprinting themselves on her mind forever.
—
Nikki finished her sandwich and coffee, locked her phone, put it in her pocket, and left the café.
Back in the hospital, she slowed, realizing that she dreaded reentering that room with her aunt and uncle, and the world between them that was slowly decaying.
A nurse brushed past her, jogging down the hallway. To Nikki’s dismay, she rushed into Preston’s room. She heard the commotion as she approached, her chest frozen mid-breath.
Then her aunt was in the hallway, a hand on her mouth. She looked at Nikki, eyes wide, and only then did Nikki see the smile in them.
“He’s awake!” Izzy exclaimed. “He’s awake!”
Sixteen
“I need new football boots,” said Davide. “Mine are totally wrecked…like, seriously fucked up. They’re too small anyway—they pinch—and now I can’t even use them.”
Valerio shuffled to the sink and emptied yesterday’s coffee grounds from the Moka into the drain, rinsing the filter.
“Next paycheck,” he said.
“Please!” Davide moaned. “We have a match next Saturday. The guys are counting on me.”
“You can’t use them for even one more match?”
“Like I said, they’re fucked.”
“Don’t use that word,” said Valerio. “It isn’t nice.”
“So what? You use it.”
Valerio sighed and, tamping fresh coffee in the Moka pot, screwed on the top and started the flame on the gas stove.
His one-bedroom apartment wasn’t really large enough to host both kids at the same time. Last night, he’d given Gemma the bed, and Davide slept on the sofa. Valerio had gotten a sleeping bag and fold-out army cot for cheap from a buddy at work. After this first test run of the contraption, he felt like his body had been worked over with a hammer. The shooting sciatic burn down his right leg was killing him.
“You snore like Godzilla,” said Gemma, coming into the kitchen. “Davide, how could you sleep with Babbo’s snoring?”
“Can I please get the boots?” said Davide. “I need them!”
“What do you want to eat?” Valerio asked.
“Let’s go out to breakfast,” said Gemma. “Can we go to a café, please?”
“This is a café,” said Valerio with a sweeping gesture. “Caffé Alfieri. What can I offer? Toast? Juice?”
“I want a cornetto,” said Gemma.
