Chapter 17: Sisters

The cook's brother was a veterinarian, and he sewed my husband's shoulder shut at two in the morning on the kitchen table.

Santo swore at him in two dialects and then slept.

The bullet had gone clean through above the collarbone.

Nerina sat by the table for an hour, holding a lamp so the doctor could see.

She never took her eyes off Santo's face.

At last she reached out and touched his hair, and she took her hand away fast.

"He has dark eyes," she said to me. "I thought he would have Papa's."

"He's not Papa's."

"I know." She looked at her fingers. "It's very strange to be sorry for the wrong person."

I put her in my bed in the room over the grove, because every other room had a man asleep on its floor.

She lay stiffly on her side of the mattress with her mud-streaked feet drawn up.

I lay on mine and looked at the ceiling.

For a while we both listened to the sea.

"Tell me what you haven't told me," Nerina said.

"I'd rather you slept."

"I can't. Please."

I turned my head on the pillow.

"I thought you'd hate me when you found out you'd been taken, and that I'd had a father who did it," I said.

"Why would I hate you?"

"Because it's my name on it."