Chapter 12: Awake

I closed the door.

Then I stood with my back against it and could not make my legs cross the room.

"Papa."

"Come here, Raffi."

"You were in a coma."

"I was asleep for a day," my father said. "After that I was pretending."

The room tilted.

Emanuele moved a chair toward me, and I looked at it.

"Sit down," he said quietly.

"Don't."

"Raffaella..."

"Don't talk to me."

I walked to the bed on my own feet.

I stared at my father.

He had a stubble of white on his cheeks, and his hands shook on the sheet.

But his eyes were his own, black and sharp and wet.

I had sat beside this bed for four days.

Now I needed him to say one name.

I had cried into his hand.

"How long?" I said.

"I woke on Saturday night."

"Saturday."

"The second night. A voice was speaking in the corridor, close by. A man's voice, on the telephone."

He swallowed.

"It said, 'Keep him under. As long as you can.'"

"Whose voice?"

"I couldn't see. I kept my eyes closed."

"You know whose voice."

My father said nothing.

His mouth worked.

"It was low," he said. "It sounded like a man I've known since he was in diapers."

Mariano.

The word sat in the room.

"He's your brother's son," I said, and my voice cracked. "You can't think he'd..."

"I think someone opened my back door with your mother's birthday."

He met my eyes.

"That code isn't known to a crowd, Raffi. It's known to four."

"So you lay here."

"I lay here, and I asked God to show me I was wrong."

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