The Marchetti Foundation grant covers six months here, documenting damage and developing a restoration plan for the interior frescoes. It’s the kind of job I’ve spent my whole career working toward. Sacred architecture. Baroque period. A building so neglected by the diocese that I have basically free rein.
Most restorers would kill for this. Actual murder. Bodies in the crypt.
And I’m… here, covered in dust, and not wishing I were anywhere else. My only social interaction in the last few weeks has been café transactions and calls home, and that registers as fine. More than fine. Which probably says something unflattering about my personality, but whatever. I’ve always preferred the company of broken things to most people.
People are complicated. Buildings just need structural reinforcement.
I gather my supplies and make my way down the scaffolding, boots finding the rungs by memory now. Weeks of climbing up and down this death trap have at least given me thighs of steel. Silver linings.
The caretaker, Tommaso, an old man who seems as much a fixture of this place as the stone itself, sweeps the entry when I reach ground level. He nods without breaking rhythm, his broom scratching against the worn marble in a pattern that probably hasn’t changed in fifty years.
“Buonasera,” I offer, my accent still atrocious despite daily practice.
He winces almost imperceptibly. “Buonasera, Signorina.”
Yeah, my Italian is that bad. Three years of high school Spanish and a semester of Art History Latin do not, it turns out, prepare you for Sicilian dialect. But Tommaso tolerates my butchering of his language with the resigned patience of a man who has seen empires rise and fall from these same steps.
We have a comfortable arrangement. He leaves me alone to work, and I don’t ask questions about the bullet holes in the confessional. Some things you just don’t need to know.
Outside, the evening air hits me with the scent of jasmine and diesel, and the deep brine of a city that’s been kissing the sea for thousands of years. The cathedral sits in a small piazza just off the main tourist drag, far enough to feel forgotten, close enough to hear the Vespas screaming past on their way to somewhere more important.
Café Prima is on the corner, its outdoor tables spilling into the street with cheerful disregard for traffic laws. I’ve become a regular in the worst way. The owner, Rosa, already knows my order before I say it. She also knows exactly three English words:American,sad, andbeautiful, which she deploys in various combinations depending on her mood.
Today she takes one look at me and shakes her head.
“Americana triste.”
“I’m not sad,” I protest, sliding into my usual chair. “I’m just dusty.”
She ignores me, disappearing inside. I don’t bother looking at a menu. Rosa brings what Rosa thinks I need, and arguing with her takes more Italian than I possess.
The piazza fills slowly as the evening stretches out. Old men on benches, young couples walking too close together, a group of kids kicking a soccer ball against a wall that’s been absorbing the impact of children’s games since before Columbus sailed west.
I pull out my notebook and start sketching, hand moving automatically while my brain processes the day’s findings. The east wall is worse than I thought. Water damage from a leak that went unrepaired for at least a decade. But there’s a small section near the apse, protected by an overhang, where the original pigments are still intact. Angel faces with cheeks like peaches. Gold leaf halos that catch fire in the right light. Someone painted those four centuries ago, and they’re still here, still beautiful, still waiting for someone to notice. That’s the job, really. Noticing. Bearing witness to things that would otherwise disappear.
Rosa returns with my espresso, bitter enough to strip paint, and a plate of something fried and stuffed with ricotta that’s so good I actually close my eyes.
“Mangia.” She points at my midsection. “Troppo magra.”
Too thin. My mother would love her.
Food here isn’t sustenance, it’s religion. Every meal is a prayer, and I’ve been converting one bite at a time. And by the time I finish my second espresso, the light has gone full golden hour, painting the buildings in shades of amber and rose. Thecathedral’s shadow stretches across the piazza like a reaching hand.
I leave too much money on the table—Rosa refuses tips, so I’ve taken to hiding them under plates—and start the walk back to my apartment.
The route takes me through a tangle of narrow streets where the buildings lean toward each other at angles that shouldn’t be structurally sound. Laundry hangs between balconies, blocking out patches of sky. A dog barks from somewhere above as a woman calls to her children in rapid Sicilian, her voice bouncing off the stone.
This walk is the best part of the day. The anonymity of it. In Boston, I’m Danny Murphy’s sister, or Kevin Murphy’s daughter, or the girl who got out but keeps coming back. Here, I’m nobody. Just another stranger moving through ancient streets. Unremarkable, invisible.
Safe.
It’s a strange thought. This neighborhood isn’t safe, not by American standards, anyway. But there’s a different kind of safety in being unknown. In passing through the world without leaving a mark.
I round the corner onto Via Maqueda, and there’s a change. Nothing visible. Nothing concrete. Just…
The back of my neck prickles.
I keep walking, pace unchanged, but my brain goes on alert in that instinctive animal way. A girl doesn’t grow up in Southie without developing certain reflexes. Knowing when she’s being watched is one of them.
