"You think you’re better," Lila had said that morning. She hadn't looked up from the copper pot she was scrubbing. Her hands, once delicate, were now mapped with the scars of the grocery and the kitchen. "You think if you leave, the dirt doesn't follow."
But as the distance grew, a terrifying realization settled in her chest. Lila, who stayed behind to fight the camorristi with nothing but her tongue and her temper, was the one truly alive. Lila was the fire; Elena was merely the smoke being blown away by the wind. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay [Neapolitan ...
The salt air of Naples didn’t just smell of the sea; it smelled of old blood and unwashed laundry hanging like white flags between the tenements. "You think you’re better," Lila had said that morning