Chapter 24: My Own Blood

My daughter woke me at four in the morning, and I was happy to be woken.

The room was Stefano's, with the blue curtains and the window over the hill.

She lay in a basket at the side of the bed, scowling at the ceiling and working up to a scream.

I picked her up before she could finish it.

"I'm here," I said. "Mama's here."

Beside me, Stefano rolled over and put his arm across the sheet where I had been.

He found nothing, and opened one eye.

"Is it the baby?"

"It's the baby."

"I'll do it."

"You'll do it wrong."

"I have never done it at all," he said, with enormous dignity, and fell asleep again.

I fed her in the chair by the window while the sky turned from black to grey.

She ate hard and fast, and her fingers curled around mine.

Her tiny grip was warm and tight.

At six, his aunt came in without knocking and took the baby out of my arms.

"Sleep," she said.

"I'm not tired."

"You are a bad liar. Go and sleep."

She carried my daughter out into the hall and began to sing to her in a rasping, off-key voice.

I stood in the doorway and listened.

Then I went back to bed, and I slept deeper than I ever had in that city.

I woke after nine, in full light.

Stefano was sitting on the edge of the mattress with a cup of coffee in each hand.

"Good morning," he said.

"Is that coffee?"

"It's an attempt."

I took the cup and drank.

It tasted like burnt toast.

"It's perfect," I said.

"You're lying."

"A little."

He smiled, and set his own cup down on the table.

"Nardo called," he said. "He's moving into the old chauffeur's flat above the garage. He says the house is too big for one old man and a cane."

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