“You scared me!” Mira nearly shouted.
“I’m in so much pain,” Francesca squeaked, her lids lowering.
“Oh no. Your hands again?” Mira asked, more softly.
Francesca yanked the sheet tight under her chin. “It’s not my hands.”
“I’m getting Daddy,” Mira said, moving away.
Francesca released the wad of sheet and clamped onto Mira’s arm. “Don’t!”
Mira jerked her arm. Francesca’s power crouched inside her and popped out at unexpected moments. She held on with that strength that always blindsided Mira.
“Let go,” Mira said, twisting. “You need help.”
“The pain is in my heart,” Francesca said.
Mira pried Francesca’s nails from her arm. “You could have a virus. Food poisoning. We don’t know.” Mira’s random diagnoses hid what she really feared: that this was one more out-of-control thing happening to Francesca’s body.
“It’s not like that. My heart aches. It feels like it’s been stabbed, through my side; it’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt. It’s hopeless.” Francesca’s voice was ragged.
Mira perched on the edge of the mattress and pushed hair from her sister’s face in wet clumps. Her pillow sagged under the weight of tears. “What’s hopeless?”
“Loving him.”
An extra-loud snore, followed by silence. Mira shot a wary look toward the door before whispering the question whose answer she already knew. “Who?”
Francesca closed her eyes and rolled over onto her side, hair stuck like kelp to her cheek. “Mr. Falso.”
“I know, love,” Mira said, pulling her hands to her lap, relief mingled with a new fear. Things with Mr. Falso had been building. Mira imagined a growing tower of white china plates, wobbling with each plate added. “I know.”
Francesca rose slowly. “I can’t go on like this. I need to tell him how I feel. Once I show him the holes”—she held up her bandaged hands—“he’ll see what makes me special. It will change everything.”
Mira twisted her ring. “It will. But in the way you want it to?”
Francesca threw a sharp look over her shoulder. She peeled off her nightshirt and snatched a dress from over the back of a chair. Weeks earlier, Francesca had excavated an old white lace dress from their mother’s closet. Mira assumed the dress was an attempt to look older; mostly, Francesca looked out of time. Filmy, dingy, and overlaid with appliqué daisies, its front draped to reveal twin hollows nested inside a sharp collarbone. It hung away from her narrow middle and ended at mid-calf, where the hem bunched in spots. The effect was of an ill-fitting shroud.
“You can’t go to him. It’s too early in the morning. He won’t even be awake.”
“So I’ll wake him.” Francesca stomped into the bathroom and returned with her paddle brush. She flicked the lamp switch over and over again, frowning. “I’ll be the first thing he sees.”
Mira shivered at the raking sound as Francesca brushed her hair. “You’ll have to ride your bike. It’ll be awkward in that dress.”
“Suffering puts me closer to God.” She drew hair behind both ears. “Let him see me naked and vulnerable.”
Naked? Connie would have yelled, Mira knew. But Mira was accustomed to Francesca’s extreme word choices. Instead, she asked simply, “What about Daddy?”
“Tell him I’m sleeping late. I’ll slip back in through the kitchen slider.”
Francesca checked her bandages and slid a pair of old black leather gloves over them before facing Mira. The dusky glow of morning fell on and around her.
Mira touched her throat. “Oh.”
It wasn’t beauty, though there was that. Barefaced and shoeless, with her damp hair drawn severely behind her ears and her body hidden in milky folds, Francesca had transformed herself into someone timeless. There was nothing to pin her to the year, or her actual age, to the Cillo family, or to any of the things that defined her. She had erased herself and become a canvas on which Mr. Falso could project anything.
“How do I look?” Francesca asked.
Mira swallowed. “Not like yourself.”
Francesca clasped her hands to her chest. “That’s exactly right! You see? It’s absolutely perfect! Because I’m not myself anymore! I’m a vehicle chosen by God to do his work on Earth!” Francesca sprang toward Mira and squeezed her.
“Your pain,” Mira said softly.
“You know I can absorb my suffering. And soon, it will end.”
Mira buried her nose in her damp hair, breathing deep. “Francesca.”
Francesca held her away, studying her face. Mira didn’t like the feel of her dead mother’s old hard gloves tightening on her bare arms.
“What is it?” Francesca asked.
Mira honeyed her voice. “I’m sure it won’t be the case, but what if telling Mr. Falso about your gift has the opposite effect?”
Francesca’s eyes went hot. “I should have known.” She dropped Mira’s arms and strode to the mirror, smoothing her hair one last time, her sharp movements carving the air. She slid into worn ballet flats, working her jaw, her most awful angry habit, that suck-click noise that signaled a shutdown was imminent. I could wake up Daddy, Mira thought, make a loud noise right now that so that he will stop her as she leaves. There was still hope.
Francesca tugged at the dead woman’s gloves. “If you can find it in your heart of hearts, wish me luck. You’re not the only one who can make a boy love her.”
Mr. Falso’s not a boy, Mira thought, staring at the floor. Francesca could be so cruel. So often Francesca reminded her that blood was thick and binding, that they were part of each other, that this shared blood transcended anything. But Francesca’s blood was shifting, turbulent. It wasn’t like Mira’s. It left Francesca in a constant state of discontent. Perhaps this idea was a good thing: if Mr. Falso believed she had a higher purpose, it would calm her. Mira believed her, though it no longer seemed to make a difference. And Connie believed. If only they two were enough.
Francesca disappeared down the stairs. Mira felt her heart in her mouth, as hard and full as if there had been a death. They never left without saying “I love you.” Snores trailed in through the door. Mira ran to the window and scraped her fingers forcing the grimy screen locks. It squealed open. She leaned out as Ben Lattanzi walked out his own front door in pajama bottoms, dragging his ancient shaggy terrier on a leash. Ben sensed Mira and turned his face. From ten feet above, she watched Ben’s spine straighten as his eyes met hers. Mira felt the familiar rush of warmth and sadness and desire to touch away the auric pain that burned bright around him.