Chapter 4: On Your Knees

"Say that again," I said.

Dario took a step back.

"Aunt Vittoria says Grandma costs a lot and she's never getting better."

"Stop."

"She says you use Grandma to make Daddy feel bad."

The storage room was too small.

It was full of things somebody had decided I no longer owned.

"Your grandmother was shot protecting you," I said.

He frowned at my voice.

I didn't like it either.

"She's just an old lady," he said, and he grabbed for the red cloth again.

I shoved his hands away.

I did it hard.

He tripped over a trash bag and landed on his bottom.

For one second neither of us moved.

Then he screamed for his father.

I shouldn't have done that, and I knew it before he finished the first scream.

But I couldn't stop hearing him.

My mother had spent weeks learning to get out of bed without help.

She cried when she thought I wasn't looking, and it wasn't from the pain.

It was because she couldn't hold her grandson.

Heavy footsteps hit the hallway, and Tommaso came through the door.

He picked Dario up off the floor.

"What happened?"

"She pushed me!" Dario pushed his face into his father's neck. "Make her go away."

Tommaso looked at me. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"He was grabbing the pendant."

"He's four."

"I know how old he is."

"Then why are you putting your hands on him?"

I looked down.

A shard of porcelain had cut my palm, and blood was soaking into the red cloth.

"He broke my mother's pendant."

"He's four, Elisa."

"He was repeating what Vittoria told him about my mother."

"What did she tell him?"

I looked at Dario.

He hid his face.

"Ask him," I said.

Tommaso rubbed his son's back. "Dario."

"She got mad."

"What did you say to her?"

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