“Mom, how much do Janet and Rachael know?”

“I guess they know a little but not about the other night.”

“And Dad?”

“I don’t know what to tell him. You know your father. It’s not as if I could talk to him without—or confess about it, you know.”

“Yes, Mom, I know.”

Mom looked at me real hard and said, “You won’t—?”

No, I promise.

She nodded and hugged me and said, “You’re a blessing to me. I know I can trust you.”

On the way back to Portofino Mom and I stopped and sat on a bench overlooking the town. We sat silently. I looked at the wall next to the path and saw a huge lizard run along it then dive into a crack in the sun-baked bricks. I wondered why Mom never asked me what I was doing on the ledge hiding that night or how I got there since the lie I had told didn’t explain that part. I guess she was worried enough about her own secrets not to ask me about mine.

When we got to the Hotel Nazionale the manager was waiting for us in the lobby in front of the Ricevimento desk. He was wringing his hands and looking very upset.

As we came through the front door, which had a ship’s steering wheel stenciled on it in gold leaf, and stepped inside he rushed forward and said, “Mrs. Becker, there ees a deesasster things! Queeck! Sono malato!, Coma weetha mea!”

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up the stairs as I followed. Mom kept saying, “What is it?”

And the manager kept saying, “Coma weetha mea! Faccia presto!”

When we got up to the hall he hurried us to Mom and Dad’s room and, without knocking, barged in. I heard him say, “I finda youa wife!”

I heard Dad’s voice bark, “Where have you been? If you had been here when you were supposed to be this wouldn’t have happened!”

When I stepped into the room I saw Dad sitting up on the bed.

He was on the bed, but dressed. I noticed his shirt. It had lots of blood on it. Then I saw his head was bandaged and there was blood on the bandage too. There was the doctor sitting on the edge of his bed taking Dad’s blood pressure. He had on a stethoscope and was listening to Dad’s heartbeat with the listening part under the blood pressure cuff. He said, “Sshh . . . I can no ‘eeara nossing for the pres-sione del sangue, if you speaks!” So we all waited quietly until he had finished. Then he looked up and said, “Perfetto! One ‘undreds and twenty-fives over eighties! Youa likea a younga boys! Wonderful! You will leeve to be onea ‘undreda yearsa olds! Meraviglioso!”

“Oh, Ralph! What happened?” Mom said.

The manager said, “It falla ona ‘eem!”

“What fell?” Mom asked.