Prologue Where had she been only an hour ago? At a children’s birthday party, hovering at the back with four other mothers, watching anxiously as a little boy blew out his candles. Her husband, out back with the other dads, drove home. Their son, Joshua, had always complained of claustrophobia in the car; she wasn’t really surprised when he began to fuss, or when he declared the giant green balloon sharing the backseat with him a Problem. It seemed natural, when his panic attack started, for them both to turn toward him. Very natural that neither saw the light change, or the SUV turning the corner. Aurelia stared blankly through glass at her husband’s prone and cooling corpse. ‘I should have been driving. Tony wasn’t meant to die this way-‘ “Mrs. Nar… ducky?” He was just lying there. It didn’t look like her Ton. Tony never slept on his back, he slept on his stomach, and those sheets were much too un-messy– All that blood didn’t count. She was the snorer, not him, why has his lung been pierced? “Mrs. Narducky, I understand this is a difficult time…” Aurelia’s head pivoted; she felt completely disconnected from her badly bruised ribs. A nurse in mint green scrubs continued worriedly. “…the doctor needs to speak to you. About your son.” – Dr. Bhaskar Patel looked uncomfortable, but the moment he saw Aurelia’s haggard face and multiple bandages, he steered her to a chair. “Aurelia? I head about Tony- I’m so sorry. I [...]

Josh, tiny, tiny, inoffensive Josh, barely taking up any room at all on the bare hospital gurney. (Tony prone on a stained sheet, his chest no longer rising…) Drowsy eyes, so heavy; Drugged, for his own benefit. “Mommy…” “We’re right here, Josh. We’ll be here when you wake up…” Tony’s hand on her waist, both of them wound tighter than springs. – It was hot and stuffy in Bhaskar’s office, in contrast to the spring of Josh’s first surgery when the air had been damp and cool. Aurelia studiously avoided the empty seat beside her, where Tony should have sat. Reflexively, she wondered what was keeping him, and then grit her teeth to fight to hot burning in her eyes. Her head hurt and she should feel the pain killers beginning to wear off, leaving her torso as one big ache. Bhaskar sat at his desk, hands freshly scrubbed. On the wall behind him were diplomas, doctorates… and on his desk, business cards declaring him a cancer specialist. Aurelia had nearly a dozen such cards, one in her wallet, one at work, one on the fridge, one in the car, one in Josh’s room and one on every phone in the house. “He has another tumor. Malignant.” “Can you remove it?” “He’s a very little boy, Aurelia. There’s only so much we can remove.” She digested this. “You’re saying he won’t make it.” “I’m saying that this isn’t going away. It’s already spreading throughout the liver, and could spread to [...]

Josh Narducci flipped open his cell phone and deftly flicker through his address book. Across the room, George Black, his roommate, unpacked into his share of closet. As the signal for the cell made its way to the towers and satellites that make up ChoiceStream’s network, Josh lay back on his bed and tried to get comfortable. It wasn’t as pliant as his mattress back home; that would take some getting used to. The sheets were his own from home, however, which helped. Move-in day at Loyola’s Chicago camups has been yesterday, and Aurelia had traveled up from Nevada with Josh to help cart his belongings. He had sworn that he didn’t need to bring that much to school with him to get him through a semester, but already he was grateful for her insistence that he bring an extra desk lamp… and a toothbrush. ‘Absent-minded’ was a polite way of saying that Josh was more than a little ‘out of touch’ with the world around him. He lived life almost entirely from deep inside his skull, emerging only for pretty girls, computers, and friends. Despite this introversion, he had managed to make a few, extremely solid friendships. “Josh!” How as move-in?” “Mike,” Josh grinned. “Heavy lifting, the usual. You?” “Totally worthless. I’ve already been home twice to have dinner and get things I forgot.” Mike had chosen to attend Nevada’s State University, placing him a mere 12 miles from home. Josh chuckled and moved a pillow under his head [...]

His grandfather appeared to sense this, and softened his tone. “Josh… I want you to take care of your mother. She’s starting to get old- older- now, like me.” He coughed, to clear his pipe, and took out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and nose. “I know what that’s like, and you shouldn’t leave her all alone in Nevada. If she were here, she’d have Family. We look out for our own- and she’s one of us. I don’t know if she ever really understood that, but she is,” he finished sadly. “Try to convince her of that for me, will you?” Josh was not a particularly sensitive or emotive young man; often his failed relationships with girls were due to his lack of both. But he had always felt a perverse intellectual bond to his father’s father, and so when the old priest spoke, Joshua Narducci listened. Not because he was clergy, or because the family greatly respected him, but because Prospero Narducci was Josh’s family. Often he felt he has too few close family members to let another one go so easily. That was why he asked about his mother, and that was why he could never fully admit the importance of the question and its answer to anyone, even Mike, whom he had been as brothers with since junior high school. That was why Mike was only teasing. “She’s fine, man. Did say something about fumigating, though… and renting out your room …” “You f~” Josh [...]

Warning: This chapter contains sex, and humor. In conjunction. My characters have goddamn lives, and that’s all I want to hear on the subject, you got me? You have been warned. Antonio Narducci had, indeed, been a widely respected man. He was known for being quick on his feet, calm in tense and confounding situations, and trusted among the upper echelons of the chain of command. Everyone knew he had the ability to rise, and rise quite far at that. When the collision stripped him of all that bounty, many suspected foul play, and security tightened accordingly. Investigations were made into who was driving the SUV, who operated the traffic lights, and who had been on duty that day at Mr. Clairmont Hospital’s ER. Even Bhaskar was submitted to a routine questioning, which he gladly agreed to, feeling he had nothing to hide, and plenty to gain if they could find a reason for his brother-in-law’s senseless death. A connection was never found, but feelings were mixed when Aurelia Narducci chose to move with her son, Tony’s only child, to Virginia City, Nevada. What was wrong with New York’s school systems? the Narduccis asked. How can you take such a young boy away from his family? We can protect you both better here. On the other end of the scale, some agreed that Josh and Aurelia would have a more pleasant life beyond the family’s typical reach. Aurelia’s mother was inclined to agree. She had never been entirely comfortable with [...]

As it turned out, Marco had very little sympathy for anyone so silly (as Clarissa referred to it– Marco called it fucking stupid) to make a dramatic exit without her shoes on. Even in New York City, where going barefoot certainly was “fucking stupid,” he refused to stop or go back. Clarissa hobbled along behind him, with the advantage to Marco being that she stopped asking questions and started paying more attention to where her feet were going. Thankfully, they didn’t have far to go before Marco turned into a small print shop. Clarissa followed, looking around bemusedly at the walls strewn with examples of posters, fliers, greeting cards, photographs, business cards and all manner of advertisements for services. Marco nodded to the man behind the counter and waved for Clarissa to follow him into the back of the store. Through a beaded curtain, past several large machines that reeked of ink and toner- the smells went straight to her head and she felt the migraine beginning- and up a flight of creaking wooden stairs. Clarissa wondered briefly about splinters before following Marco as he pounded his way up. Marco pulled a set of keys from his pocket as they came to the top, and used it to open a door to their right on the minuscule landing. There was so little room to move, Clarissa stayed on the stairs as Marco spoke to the room he had unlocked. “Don’t be pissed now, Mo…” “Aw, Jesus- what now? Where’s Leo?” [...]

That weekend, Josh made sure he went to church. He wasn’t very happy about it, unfortunately, as he’d been looking forward to sleeping in on weekends while at school. When he spoke to Aurelia the night before and told her he was going to mass, she seemed surprised. “Oh. You are?” “Yeah,” he replied unenthusiastically, exiting the bathroom to find George kneeling before his bed, praying. “I, uh, thought it would be important.” “You thought you could meet girls,” She said cynically. “Mom,” he protested, hoping to the God he wasn’t so excited about that George couldn’t hear both halves of the conversation. Suddenly he was annoyed. “Why should I have to defend myself for this? I mean, I was raised a Catholic. If I wanna go to church, then I should be able to go to church. Freedom of religion, right?” He sat on his bed and picked up his alarm clock to set it for the next morning. “That was supposedly one of the advantages of going to a Jesuit school, wasn’t it? So my spiritual needs could be met? I have a lot of spiritual needs, Mom.” “Alright, alright. I never knew this was so important to you. Calm down. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Secretly Aurelia was reconsidering the truth behind ‘give me a child before the age of six and the church will have him for life.’ “In fact- you know- I’m sort of happy about it.” “Sort of?” Josh took his attention off [...]

When Clarissa returned to her Manhattan apartment after her meeting with Mo, it was to find that the fire trucks she had heard outside were not just the usual background noises of a large city. They were the background noises of her life, going up in flames. She could hear the sirens long before she turned onto her block, told herself they must belong to some other fire. After all, shit happened, sometimes people burned stuff down. No matter what kind of neighborhood you lived in, there was always the chance that some idiot would leave a pan on the stove or something. But as she approached, it soon became clear that the fire was very close to their building. Then that it was in their building. Then she saw that the smoke came from the floor with the only apartment with green and white curtains. Her feet pounded on the pavement, each impact going straight to her core. As a student, she had been an integral part of her high school’s track and field team. She was never a star, but she was a useful and necessary player. Since graduation, her exercise schedule had steeply declined…but she still knew how to breathe and how to work her legs. The raincoat fell open as her legs and arms pumped, and Clarissa skidded into the crowd. “Where is it? Where’s the fire?!” “Who are you?” “Oh my GOD.” “Eighth floor? Something like that…” “Have some decency, you slut!” Clarissa impatiently pulled [...]