Chapter 10: Sorella

Bianca's hand closed over the silver bird at her throat.

"Why would I look at yours?" she said.

"Because it's the same."

He held the key ring out on his open palm.

The two birds were alike, small and silver, with their wings folded and one tiny round eye each.

"Turn yours over," he said.

"No."

"Please."

She turned it over with shaking fingers and looked at the back.

I saw her lips move.

"B.L.," she whispered. "I've worn it since I was a child."

"B for Bianca, L for Landi," Ciro said. "My mother had a jeweler make one for every child in our family."

He turned his over on his palm.

It said C.L.

She looked at it and didn't breathe.

"My father told me," Bianca said slowly, "that I had it from my real mother. That I came from a family that died in a fire."

"You did."

"He said nobody knew our name."

"Everybody knew our name," said Ciro. "He just didn't tell you."

She lifted her eyes to my father's face.

My father stood on the dock with the pistol hanging against his leg, and he said nothing.

"Papa?"

He still said nothing.

Ciro's voice was low and even, and it carried to every man on that dock.

"Seventeen years ago," he said, "the Landi house gave a christening for my cousin's baby.

"Eighty people in the garden. A priest, a cake, a band."

Nobody moved.

"At the toast, forty men came through the gate.

"They shot the band first, then the priest at the font.

"Then they set the house on fire with the guests inside."

"Stop," my mother said, in a voice I didn't know.

"I wasn't in the garden. I was seventeen, and I was in the cellar getting wine.

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