She was tempted to go back to bed and stay there forever. It would be so easy just to disappear. The prospect was enticing. She was at a loss to deal with so much sorrow, helpless against the great wave that had engulfed them all. One day, as a child, she had almost drowned on a family trip to the seaside at San Vito Lo Capo. The sea, usually so calm, had been rough. A wave bigger than all the others had knocked her off her feet, and for a few seconds she had felt cut off from the world, rolling in the surf. Her mouth had filled with sand, she remembered that to this day: a mixture of grit and tiny pebbles. For a moment she had no idea which way was up. Tumbling between earth and sky, the contours of the real world were obliterated. The powerful current had dragged her down, as surely as if she had been pulled under by her feet. In the semi-conscious state that accompanies all accidents and falls, those moments when reality moves faster than thought, it seemed she would never reach the surface. That it was all over for her. She had almost resigned herself to the idea, when her father’s hand had gripped her and pulled her back up to the surface. She had come to her senses, surprised, shocked. Alive.

But this tide will drag her down forever.

Fate held the Lanfredi in its grasp, thought Giulia. It was remorseless, like the earthquake that had struck at the heart of Italy again and again, always in the same place.

Her father’s accident had left them badly shaken. But the death of the workshop would take them all down with it.

Sarah

Montreal, Canada

Sarah could sense it: something had changed in the firm. Something very slight, indefinable, almost imperceptible, but it was there.

She noticed it first in a look, the pitch of a voice in greeting, a certain over-keenness when people asked how she was doing – or didn’t ask. And that tone of embarrassment, that way of looking at her. The forced smiles, or the avoidance of eye contact altogether. None of it was natural.

At first, Sarah wondered what the matter was with everybody. Was there something wrong with her outfit? A detail she had neglected? But, as always, she was impeccably turned out. She remembered, as a child, how her school teacher had arrived one day clutching a rubbish bag. She had placed it on her desk quite naturally, before realizing that she had thrown her handbag into the trash on her way out of the house that morning. She had got as far as school without noticing anything out of the ordinary. Of course, the children had burst out laughing.