The Islands of Divine Music. John Addiego

who’d followed sheep into the Calabrian hills, had finally wandered off where nobody could find him.

      He could see that his daughter was taking this in, was recording in her mind the look of the corpse of the old tyrant, an artifact no more alive than a sarcophagus or a piece of petrified wood. He knelt and touched the place where a jugular should tap back, brushed his fingers across the old man’s cheek and ear, and thought of the heart of the shell and the arcade, of that moment when the design, maybe the intent, of a mystery is revealed.

      Giuseppe’s eyes and mouth were open; flecks of water and mica glittered in his whiskers like stars. Joe opened his mouth and wept for the first time since childhood. He begged God’s pardon that both he and his daughter must stare into the private chambers as Penny clung to his shoulder and wailed. He asked forgiveness that they must trespass on others’ grief and feed their eyes again and again.