The rest of the day passes in a slow haze. The girls are absorbed in themselves, and their parents, slightly tipsy and sun-drunk, chalk it up to the laziness of vacation. Supper is fish with boiled potatoes, and afterward, the innkeeper takes, with a wink, a brown bottle out of a locked cabinet. Sofia and Antonia are sent to bed, where they can hear the bones of the inn creak in the evening breeze, and the melody of their parents’ murmuring on the porch. So it is that Sofia and Antonia fall into the sound sleep of children at the beach, both feeling strangely powerless, and strangely free.

—

Carlo Russo is awoken sometime in the middle of the night by a soft knock on the door. It is the innkeeper, who apologizes profusely for disturbing him and tells Carlo he’s needed on the telephone.

Carlo pulls a robe around himself. There is only one person who would call him so late at night. Only one person who could summon him at a moment’s notice, call him from his sleep and his family.

And there is only one reason Carlo can think of that Tommy Fianzo would call him right now.

“Yes, boss,” says Carlo into the hallway telephone. He stands up straight as though Tommy can see him. Inside his body, fear rises. It fills his lungs. Carlo pictures the sea. He is drowning even as he stands in the hallway. She’ll sneak up on you. The moment you stop paying attention.

“I need you to come outside,” says Tommy. “I need you to take a little walk.”

—

And soon it is morning. Lina Russo wakes later than she normally does. She stretches her arms and legs under the covers and rolls over. She remembers she is on vacation, and when she rises she will drink coffee and watch the sun climb higher over the ocean. She thinks she will reach for her husband if Antonia is still sleeping.

But then Lina sees the long rectangle of white morning sun blazing in through her window. She notices Carlo’s empty side of the bed. And she feels, with a terrible force like every skyscraper in New York City has collapsed in unison, like acid has been poured down through the hollow places in her bones, like God himself has descended to tell her, that Carlo is gone.

—

Antonia is downstairs eating cereal with Sofia when she hears the scream. It is unrecognizable as her mamma until her mamma enters the screened-in porch where they are eating, still keening. The scream rattles the dishes on the tables. It makes the hair on Antonia’s neck stand on end.