And if Grace tried to prove her innocence or cried, he shouted that he didn’t want to be bothered with it, that he came to her house to get some rest, and that if he had to hear about making enemies or watch those scenes, he just wouldn’t come anymore. This threat quieted her down faster than a good beating. She labored day and night, on holidays and during the week. She went to Buscardo to do laundry; for a crust of bread or two coins she would sweep out stables and haul manure all the way out to the country. She toiled, and there were some days when she would drag herself along like an old tired mule because she’d just gotten out of the hospital, alive only because of a miracle. She supported Gemello and his four big hunting dogs, too, animals that no amount of bread could satisfy. Oftentimes she and Vastianedda went without eating just so they could feed those beasts. Whatever she earned, it all went to Gemello. She trembled when she saw him coming, tired and angry with his hunting sack empty, fearing the blows, especially when she had no money or soup for him. But if he came back from hunting with his sack full of meat, Gemello only went looking for Vastianedda so he could give her the dogs, who were tired and starving, while he went off to sell his catch, and you could never find him, not even in the town square. Then Grace would cry and shout and take it out on Vastianedda, especially now that the orphan was almost seven years old and the seven lire a month the state gave her to care for the child were about to end. In her desperation she screamed that she would never again open her door to Gemello; that she would spit in his face. But when he really did return, Grace would become humble and fearful like always and have her hard-earned money ready for him and take off his shirt to wash and his shoes to polish. And when Gemello beat her and threatened to leave her, she would wrap her skinny arms around his legs and drag herself along the floor like a begging dog, paying no attention to the stick raised above her head while Vastianedda tore at her short disheveled hair and yelled, “My mother! He’s killing my mother!”

No amount of money was enough for Gemello. The few things she owned, she’d given away, little by little for a song: camisoles, blankets, her hoop earrings, even her holiday bodices and skirts, because plain old work just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough, and when there wasn’t a cent left in the house and the fire had gone out and Gemello would show up with his surly face, it was the most frightening sight in the world. Gemello didn’t eat just bread.