After removing her robe, she went over to her closet to get some clothes, but caught sight of her naked body in the vanity. She stared at herself. So this was what it was all about: these breasts, these hips, this scrap of hair between her legs. Abruptly and quickly, fearing she might lose her resolve, she walked out of her room, down the hall, and into her parents’ bedroom. They were reading the newspaper in bed.

Her mom looked up first and shrieked, “Nora!”

Nora walked around the bed to her dad’s side and stood not a foot from him.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what are you doing?” he shouted, shifting back against her mom.

Both of them stared up at her as if she were about to bring down an ax.

Her brother ran in. “Godamighty, Nor, what are you doing?”

She just stared at her dad, who was resolutely looking away.

“Nora, please,” her mom pleaded.

Jude had gone. The anger throbbed up and down her skin in waves of heat. She took up her dad’s hand and tried to press it against her crotch, but he snatched it away as her brother hurried back in with her robe.

“Come on, Nor,” Jude said quietly, putting it around her.

She didn’t move for a moment, staring down at her dad, who looked stricken and confused. Her mom had buried her head in her hands. Nora turned to her brother’s anxious, loving face. They had never really been close, but she felt close to him now and finally let him lead her out.

Annie woke to the touch of her dad’s hand against her cheek.

“Made you hot chocolate,” he said.

She glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was almost one in the morning. He led her downstairs and she sat as usual on the ottoman, balancing the hot chocolate on his knees.

“Were you having a bad dream?” she said.

He shook his head. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He smelled a little of stale sweat.

“On the life of my mama, Annie, I thought they would stop beating him.”

“You said you didn’t see them. Papa, what happened? Who beat him?”

He wasn’t listening, his eyes wide and frantic, his lips trembling. He raised a fierce finger. “One by one,” he said, “I wait for them. Fucking little Mexican; rip his fucking balls off. Mondo boia!” The finger was furled now into a fist, which he shook. “I’m going to beat them. Nessuno me lo ficca in culo.”

Annie quickly put the hot chocolate on the little table beside the armchair because he was getting so animated she was afraid it would spill.

“Bastardo lurido! Finocchio! I’ll fucking break all their kids’ necks like chickens. I want them—”

“Who?” Annie cut him off. “Who did it?”

Her dad went quiet, breathing hard, flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth. All at once his face collapsed in pain and he bent forward, pressing his brow against the top of her head. “It happen again.” A sound of pure animal suffering came from deep in his throat. “It happen again.”