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"You keep this with you," she says.

She points at the rosary.

I'd set it on the nightstand when we entered here. Her fingers brush the wooden beads, then close around them, pulling the strand across the sheets between us. She lifts her head.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"My father believed in God," I say. "My mother still does. I was raised with it. The rosary was his. He carried one in his pocket the way some people carry a lighter."

"So it's a habit?"

"It started as his habit. Now it's mine."

She rolls the crucifix between her thumb and forefinger.

"Do you actually pray?" she asks.

"Sometimes the motions are the prayers." I watch her fingers on the beads. "You say the words enough times, something underneath starts listening. I don't know if it's God or just the repetition wearing a groove into your soul. Either way, it works."

"Works for what?"

"Keeping me from doing something I can't undo."

She goes quiet. Her thumb stills on the crucifix. Then she sets the rosary back on the nightstand, aligned the way I'd placed it, and settles her cheek against my chest again.

"What happened to your father?" she asks.

My jaw tightens.

"He was shot," I say. "When I was twelve."

"Where?" she asks.

"Outside our house. He'd come back from a meeting in Palermo. Business I didn't understand yet, though I understood enough to know he left the house differently on those days. Quieter. Checked the mirrors twice. Kissed my mother longer."

The memory is sharp even now. Twenty-six years later and the edges haven't worn down.

"He was getting out of the car. I was at the kitchen window. My mother had me setting the table. Three shots from across the road. He made it two steps toward the front door."

Amanda's breathing changes. Slower. Controlled. She's listening the way she listened on the drive from Sicily. Not just to the story. To the things underneath it.

"My mother ran outside. I watched her through the window. She knelt beside him and held his head in her lap. She didn't scream. That's what I remember most. She didn't scream. She talked to him quietly, the way she talked to me when I had a fever. Low and steady, like she could still keep him here if she just kept talking."

"But she couldn't." Amanda's voice is barely above a whisper.

"No."

I stare at the ceiling.

"He was dead before the ambulance arrived. The rosary was in his pocket. My mother took it out and pressed it into my hand. She told me to hold it for him. I never stopped."

"Did they find who did it?"

"Yes."

I take a breath.