“I grew up in Sicily.” He was lying on his back, gazing up at the canopy over the bed—russet velvet, heavily tasseled. She lay beside him, breathing in the scent of his skin. The sheets were a tangled ball on the floor.

“My father was a shoemaker. His customers were poor farmers. They would have one pair of heavy boots, and they would wear them to work in the fields, to dance in the village festivals, to woo their sweethearts, to go to church. The boots were made of stiff leather, and they had metal caps on the toes and heels like horseshoes. When they were new, they would rub the feet raw. But then, over time, they became like a second skin. They had to last practically forever, so my father’s main work was repairs to boots he’d made years before. I used to help him. That’s where I learned my trade.”

She looked at his throat as he spoke. At his chest. She loved the sound of his voice. Being here with him, this intimacy—it was intoxicating.

“My mother was the one with the real talent. She could draw beautifully, and she had such ideas…she should have been a designer. In another place, at another time, she would have been Coco Chanel. We would sit and dream dreams together, she and I. My father hated it. He thought she was filling my head with rubbish, giving me ideas above my station. But my mother—she had plans for me. She had a brother with…let us say, connections. We talked about how I could come to Paris and learn to design costumes for the theater. This brother had been in Paris, and he knew a theater owner. He was willing to pay my fare and speak to this acquaintance for me. After that I would be on my own to make my fortune or lose it.”

She took one of his hands in hers. His fingers had tiny cuts on them, some scabbing over, some fresh. Little bits of dead skin. Hard calluses. She wanted to massage his fingers with rich D’Orsay cream to make them smooth and soft again. She wanted to put his fingers in her mouth one by one.

“My father wouldn’t hear of it, any of it. I think he resented my uncle, the power he had. The sway. He hated my uncle’s visits—the sharp suits he wore, the fancy patent leather shoes—and what it all meant. He felt unmanned, I think. But my father was ill. We all knew it. We could see him wasting away into nothing. It’s not a nice thing to wish your father dead, Genevieve.”

“I know.”

He hadn’t been looking at her at all while he’d been speaking, but now he did. There was a recognition in that look.