“Let’s say you’re a little unsteady this morning. No big deal.” He pats me on the shoulder, and I jump. “One thing at a time, Gianna.”

I watch his hands with their long fingers, tipped with calluses from years of fret work and strumming, as he sedates the next mouse, waits for it to relax in his palm, and shaves another square patch. “This one’s Group Two,” he says, handing its limp body back to me. Another Mickey or Minnie goes into the second cage.

“They’re monsters,” I say.

Lorenzo nods. He knows I don’t mean the mice.

Now it’s two winters ago, and I’m back in my own living room sitting next to Olivia King as she sips coffee and watches Jackie go to battle with three Pure Women, their pastel twinsets a quiet contrast to Jackie’s red power suit. Olivia is nodding at the twinset women, shaking her head violently every time Jackie opens her mouth.

“Someone should shut that woman up,” Olivia says. “Permanently.”

Oh, Olivia, I think, what the hell did you expect?

They’ll start with the women in the camps, I suppose. Jackie, Julia, Annie Wilson from down the street. We won’t see any of it televised. Next, Reverend Carl will round up people like Del and Sharon, squelching the last hope of any resistance. Before they take away his voice, though, they’ll go to work on Del, maybe use his three daughters as an incentive. And Del, of course, will talk. What father wouldn’t?

Patrick will be next in line. I feel my heart stop as I think of the methods they’ll use on him, of the threats to Sonia that will encourage him to speak. And so on and so on, until every last member of what must already be a threadbare operation is found, forced to talk, and ultimately silenced.

With my own damnable creation.

I don’t believe this will be the end.

Lorenzo touches my shoulder again. “We’re all finished for now. You okay?”

I shake my head.

Minus a husband, and plus the wrist counter that goes back on once I’ve finished my work here, I’ll have no means to take care of a house or children. Steven might manage to hold things together for a while, if Steven ever comes back. If not, with Patrick’s parents both dead and mine in Italy, the McClellan clan is finished, extinct.

And then there’s my baby. Lorenzo’s baby.