At the deli or the café, he is served first. Signore, the waiters say. So nice to see you again. Here—on the house. It’s a specialty. Prego. Sofia holds him by the hand like a mushroom growing from the base of a tree. He is her shade; her nourishment; her foundation. And this must be Sofia, they say. Her cheeks are squeezed; her hair is ruffled.

Sofia pays only a glancing attention to other adults. She notices when they enter her father’s gravitational field, and when the warmth of his attention skips from one to another. She notices that her father always seems to be the tallest in the room. She accepts the offerings of jellied candies and biscotti handed down by men who, even Sofia can tell, are more concerned with currying her father’s favor.

After his meetings Sofia’s papa takes her for gelato; they sit at the counter on Smith Street and he sips thick black espresso while she tries not to drip stracciatella down the front of her shirt. Sofia’s papa smokes long thin cigarettes and tells her about his meetings. We’re in the business of helping people, he tells Sofia. For that, they pay us a little bit, here and there. So Sofia learns: you can help people, even if they are afraid of you.

She is his girl, she knows that. His favorite. He sees himself in her. Sofia can smell the danger on her father like a dog smells a storm coming: an earthy quickening in his wake. A taste like rust. She knows that means he would do anything for her.

Sofia can feel the pulse of the universe thrumming through her at every moment. She is so alive she cannot separate herself from anything around her. She is a ball of fire and at any moment she might consume her apartment, the street outside, the park where she goes with Antonia, the church and the streets her papa drives on for work, and the tall Manhattan buildings across the water. It is all tinder.

Instead of burning the whole world Sofia contents herself with asking why, Papa, why, what is that.

—