Their band was called Fallen Angels, because they both thought it was more realistic and fun to be sinners than saints. The truth was, Marisa thought Sam was a real angel. She was so bright and kind, always there for everyone. She gave so much to her patients, she needed those weekend shows just to play her heart out, purify all the pain she'd absorbed trying to help everyone. More often than not, it was just the two of them, with others sitting in as the spirit moved them.

Once, after they had both graduated and were working in a Baltimore clinic, they took a vacation to Paris, spent one afternoon drinking wine in a café along the Seine, near the Pont de l'Alma. A man had taken the table next to them. He was solid and tan, with a short dark ponytail and wraparound sunglasses, a black leather vest revealing bare arms so strong they were like iron. It was Bono.

The sisters fell in love with him on the spot. They bought him a drink. Then he bought them one. They started talking. It was all so Irish: words, heart, soul, and lots of wine. Bono smoked. Sam lit up, just because she had to keep him company. He was completely enamored of her desire to become a world health nurse.

They drank toasts to the poor, the rich, Ireland, America, Dublin, Baltimore, Elvis, music, poetry, sex, rock, and fallen angels everywhere.

“Here's to the Virgin Mary,” Bono said, clinking glasses with the sisters. “May she bring us world peace and sold-out stadium shows.”

“Her middle name is Mary,” Sam said, pointing at her sister.

“That's the name you should go by,” Bono said. “Mary. Or some version of it. Maureen, Muire, Maura, Marisa . . .”

“That's what I'm going to call you from now on,” Sam said, eyes gleaming. “Marisa. No more Patty—” Years later, fleeing her life, abandoning her past, Marisa had made the name her own.

At the end of the night, Bono shook their hands. He smelled of cigarettes, sweat, leather, and St. Emilion. The pads of his fingertips felt hard and scarred, the stigmata of his guitar strings.

“I never want to forget this,” Sam said, smiling into the ghostly gold light shimmering above the Seine and all Paris as he walked away into the night. The moment had seemed magical, almost as if they had conjured it.

“You sounded like you're really going to do it,” Marisa had said. “Become a world health nurse.”

“You know I want to,” Sam said, hugging her. “But I'd miss you too much to go away for too long.”