Sofia hardly remembers her resistance to this job. This job, which she now knows, the way Saul and Paolo know, is a lifeline. Instead she thrives on a diet of adrenaline and performance. She feels like she has been standing in the dark, watching outside a bright room her whole life, and now she is standing inside, bathed in light. There is always a man or two with a pistol outside the door of her meetings. Her father didn’t offer her the danger he offers the men. But Sofia never needs the backup. She has found that the very specter of the Family is enough. She has realized that Joey and Saul and Paolo, while formidable at work, all draw from the well of mystery and folklore surrounding their occupation. The very idea of them is enough to clear a path down the sidewalk, a space at the bar. Sofia drinks from the well. She finds that until this moment, she has been parched.

I, Sofia would say, am a best-case scenario, for you.

Chapter 22

The summer they are nearly five, Julia and Robbie get the chicken pox at the same time and Saul and Sofia and Julia come to stay at the Luigio apartment, where for five days and nights Julia and Robbie have to be watched so they don’t scratch each other and where Antonia and Paolo and Saul and Sofia can relive a sort of pre-child utopia, their lives and possessions and sleeping schedules interchangeable and magic. In the mornings Sofia distracts the feverish, stir-crazy animals who have replaced Julia and Robbie, and Saul makes breakfast: elaborate concoctions of eggs and leftovers, caramelized bacon, muffins fresh and filled with fruit and bits of chocolate. Turkey with Swiss, he sometimes thinks, doling out scrambled eggs. Tongue with mustard.

On the morning of the third day Saul is sautéing onions when Antonia walks into the kitchen. “Sofia had to run out,” she says. “Again.”

Saul nods. And then he notices that Antonia, who is sitting at the kitchen table, chewing on a crust of bread, looks unmistakably melancholic. “Is something bothering you?” he asks.

“It’s—well, it’s Julia,” says Antonia. She trails off. Saul can hear her chewing. “She reminds me of myself, lately. Just a kid, looking for a home, feeling lonely, missing—well, you’re here, but missing my papa. Trying not to miss him. And—never mind.”

“And what?” Saul is concentrating.

“And not having, necessarily, the mamma I needed, when I needed her.” Antonia is quiet. She watches Saul’s back, the shoulder blades moving through his sweater as he stirs.