At the bottom of the stone stairway he stopped, turned slowly and looked at her. She did not speak. She just looked at him, and a thousand colors of thought blended into a single gray image. Then, with his head bowed, he turned away from her and was gone, vanished into the crowds.

As she walked back to her car, her mind dizzy with pain, a verse came to her, words gifted from some long forgotten reading.

“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of its separation.”

CHAPTER 36

“Chi si pasce di speranza, muore di fame.” He who lives by hope dies by hunger.

—Italian Proverb

As a little girl in Saint Mark’s Sunday school in Vernal, Utah, Eliana remembered learning about hell in catechism. As an adolescent she had studied Dante’s Inferno and the nine levels of torment. She had wondered about it then too, if such a place really existed and what horror it must hold. She wondered what it might be like confined for an eternity to those dark places. Now she knew. She felt, as real as fire, the pain of betraying those she loved—her son and Ross—the guilt emblazoned across her heart like a brand.

Back inside her home she went to her studio and prayed. She prayed for more than an hour, begging for forgiveness and for her son’s safety. In her desperation she offered her own life in recompense for her son’s, though her offer felt moot, as her life meant nothing to her now. She prayed for Maurizio, that his heart might be softened and because she had been taught to pray for her enemies. And she prayed for Ross. His portrait was against the wall, staring at her, and she could not look at it. A part of her felt that she had wronged him most of all. For in her heart taking hope from someone was among the gravest of sins. She did not know if there could be forgiveness for such.

She felt more dizzy, more confused. Nothing made sense to her. She had lost her heart; she now wondered if she might lose her mind as well. Something had to give. She was confident something would. She was moving toward something—release or destruction, she didn’t know which. Neither did she care anymore.

CHAPTER 37

“Il primo amore non si scorda mai.” The first love is never forgotten.

—Italian Proverb

In the unwatched hours of early morning the phone rang. It took Eliana a moment to figure out where she was and what had woken her. She reached over for the telephone, knocking it out of its cradle as she tried to lift it.

“Pronto.”

“Chi e? Sei tu, Eliana?” Who is this? Is this you, Eliana? The caller did not recognize her voice.

“Sì. Manuela?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

Sleep left her. “Manuela, where are you? Where’s Alessio?”