The syrupy medicine went back into the bottle.
Gusts swirled through the garden, and the rain-heavy foliage bent low; window curtains fluttered, their red and white cotton billowing now inside, now outside.
"Papa, can I give Mona to Lucienne? I want to. Papa, will you read to me?"
He did not answer her question about the dog. Mona had been Caterina's pet for over two years. What was her insight into his relationship with Lucienne? Was she expressing approval ... did she feel she was about to die?
"Yes, yes, I'll read to you. What would you like? Your Grillo?"
The Grillo was an Italian book about the adventures of a cricket.
"Yes, Papa ... Grillo."
By the time he found the book, she had fallen asleep. The cricket, printed in orange on the cover of the novel, crept away from his hands. Sparks of lightning whisked over the blue and white pattern of floor tiling. He laid her book lovingly on the circular table, cluttered with the child's things: cutouts, a sewing kit, some dried figs, doll dishes.... It was a small corner room, with white enameled furniture. Above her bed hung a pastel portrait of her mother. The portrait, done with too obvious care, was gilt framed, and dangled from a long wire. The picture began to sway.
"Another quake," said the nun, from her chair by the window. "That's the third."
They stared at each other questioningly. Sister Carmela fingered her beads, and shivered. She hated quakes, and remembered the devastation caused by the last big shock in Colima.