A few days later, I was in the shower before work. My mother was standing at the bathroom sink, blow-drying her hair. As I stepped out and reached for a towel from the rack she asked, “What are those scratches on your back?”

I peered over my shoulder, examining my backside in the mirror as my heart pulsed. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound relaxed, “I think it’s just from work.”

“How? You work at a coffee shop!”

“I don’t know, maybe Lucy did it while I was sleeping.” Our cat. I concentrated on drying off, squeezing my wet hair into the towel as my mother stared at me.

“You’re weird, you know?” she said. “You scare me.”

I reached for the hair dryer and turned to her. “Can you wait until I’m done with the bathroom?”

“I don’t like you living here anymore,” she said. “By the end of the summer I want you out.”

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. I pictured myself with the ambassador’s wife, on the Amalfi coast, my stomach surged with excitement. “I’m planning to get out as soon as possible.”

•

We found the coat in a boutique near Piazza di Santa Croce. It was white, with fur around the hood that fluttered when she exhaled. And when she wore it she looked regal. I wanted her to have it, to think of me every time she slipped her arms into the sleeves, as if somehow that meant I could keep her. “I love it,” the Sacrifice said, trying it on and looking at herself in the mirror from various angles. “But it’s so expensive.”

“I’ll buy it for you,” I called out, like a last bid at an auction, surprising even myself. Even living rent-free, I was still spending more than I made at the television station. “As a present.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

We rode home together, the Sacrifice on the back of my bike, in her new coat, her arms wrapped around my waist. I could smell her Gucci Rush as the cold air whisked it away. We locked up my bike and went to her bedroom, closed the door, and put on a movie. When she fell asleep I burrowed my nose in her blond hair, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply.

I had never been more sure.

•