Mostly, Sofia and Antonia are still too absorbed in the workings of their own lives to spend much time thinking about the world outside of their homes, outside of their own internal architecture. But the older they get, the more different they realize they are from their classmates. Because of their families, Sofia and Antonia are not included in playground games; they are not welcomed into tight circles of gossiping girls. The Family, they learn at school, are petty criminals. They are bullies. They are giving the rest of us a bad reputation. Sofia and Antonia, as a result of being Family children, are not to be trusted.

Sofia and Antonia, by way of listening at doors, by being out of bed and underfoot, know that Carlo’s disappearance had to do with escaping the Family, but the idea of this is like escaping air, or sunlight. Impossible, and incomprehensible. They are too young to think about the Family as bullies and themselves as separate. They are still connected at the root. So Sofia and Antonia turn over the possibility that they are criminals; that they are untrustworthy at their core. This doesn’t feel true either.

Sofia develops a thicker skin. She cannot think of herself as the villain, nor can she imagine herself as the victim. So pre-teen Sofia convinces herself she chose to be alone. This is what I wanted. She is filled with the warm certainty that Joey is helping people, that it is an honor to come from a Family family, that if she is ostracized it is by those who do not understand. When Carlo’s disappearance rises inside her mind, she shoves it down.

Antonia retreats into her own skin, into her own mind. She carries a book with her everywhere she goes. She reads under the desk in school when she ought to be solving for x.

And of course, they have each other. So when they are twelve, and Angelo Barone corners Antonia in a dark corner of the schoolyard and tells her he knows how her father died, and Carlo deserved it, Sofia overhears, draws back her fist, and punches him in the jaw. Puttana, he spits, at one or both of them. In the bathroom before class, Antonia runs cold water over Sofia’s reddened fist. They make eye contact in the mirror. Angelo will not tell on Sofia; he will not admit a girl punched him. Sofia and Antonia draw identical masks of cold steel over their faces and get to class before the final bell rings.