Joey moves his head onto his wife’s pillow and buries his nose in the mane of her hair. An hour more, he hopes, as her breathing lengthens and she seems closer to consciousness. Stay an hour more.

—

Sofia is awake. She has been awake since the darkest hour of the night, when it is inconceivable that it will ever get light. When just opening your eyes and looking through the crack in your curtains feels like you are staring at the naked body of the world, all vulnerable folds and soft corners. Sofia does not know what woke her up, only that it was a restlessness with no name, who would not let her soften back into sleep.

Sofia’s eyes smart as her room goes gray and lightens, and her limbs ache. Soon her alarm will ring and she will reach a hand out and press the chrome knob to shut it off, automatic. It is the first day of her last term of high school.

Chapter 9

The new year dawns frigid and violent, war like a coat the world pulls over its shoulders. Antonia reads the news even after Lina banishes the Times from the house. She listens to the radio with her eyes squeezed shut. People are dying in London at incomprehensible rates. They are dying in Eritrea. In Bucharest. Antonia feels each of these losses like a prickle along her spine. The clock speeds up every day: it seems there is no time to waste. It seems human beings are more fragile than Antonia ever could have imagined. She throws herself into her relationship with Paolo. The war rearranges her priorities. It tells her she’d better put down roots, or risk missing her chance. It tells her the world will not iron out its flaws and instabilities for her, so she’d better make do with what she is given. Paolo takes her seriously. He makes her feel safe. They decide on three children: less chaos than Paolo’s upbringing; less silence than Antonia’s. The war encourages them to have this conversation. People continue to die. Antonia puts all her energy into constructing a future that will endure the chaos of the world around her. She believes, most days, that she can do this without escaping the Family after all.

Sofia dreams in Technicolor. Her attention wanders, but she lives fully in the present at every moment, so her life is an ever-changing tapestry of friendships and activities, of schoolwork not concentrated on and of meetings she is late for. She feels unsettled and fearful at the thought of graduation. The train is about to run out of tracks, and bold Sofia Colicchio has not figured out what she wants to do. And the war makes it all the more obvious.