There’s no reply, but in another few steps I see her on the dais, hunched and small like a child hiding in the corner. I run toward her just as the door behind me clicks closed, shutting out the damp night air.

“Mom!” I drop to my knees in front of her. “What are you doing here? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you take anything?”

She looks up at me and her face is a mess of mascara and tears, puffy and red and marked with anguish. She places a hand on my cheek. “My beautiful Catia. I will miss you most of all.”

“What are you saying? What do you mean?” I run my hands and eyes over her, unsure of what I’m checking for exactly. Anything that will tell me if I’m too late.

“Isn’t this fitting?” I hear him call from the back of the cathedral. His steps echo heavy on the checkered floor. He is moving slowly in our direction, like a cat with cornered mice.

“Mom, come on. You have to get up. We have to go.”

She looks at me as if she is dreaming. “I’m so sorry, Cat. I wanted to tell you all of it.”

“Shhh…I already know,” I tell her. “You don’t have to say anything. I know what happened to you. I know all of it.”

We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She blinks, and her face contorts with fear. “It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not. It’s never too late, Mom.”

Without hope, what does anything else matter?

Her words slur and jumble, until I can’t make out what she’s trying to say.

“Shhh…” I tell her. She is not making sense, and I don’t know if that’s because of her illness or the pills or both. I try to pick her up with one hand beneath each arm and get her to stand.

She points above and behind her to the altar, to the condemning expressions of the saints, to the angels glaring down at us. As she stands, two pill bottles tumble from her lap, along with the picture of her and the baby she lost. I snatch them up so I can let the paramedics know what she has taken. If I can just get her into the square, where there are people who can help us. She stands weakly, and I have to brace myself beneath her to keep her up.

“A perfect place for a perfect ending. Don’t you think?” He starts laughing as if he’s told a very funny joke.

“If you’re not going to help, then leave us alone,” I growl, still trying to get her to take a step, but she slumps against me and I fear she’s losing consciousness.