* * *
Nonna has obviously been sleeping, but she must hear me come in. She comes out into the living room in her nightgown. Her hair is in curlers. She doesn’t look happy. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Great. The last thing I need is an argument with my grandmother. I might legally be an adult, but to Nonna, I’m still a girl, and she feels the need to make sure I remember that. I love her to pieces, but she’s annoying sometimes.
“I do, actually. And I’m really tired, so I’m going to go to bed.”
“You were with that boy, weren’t you?” Nonna puts her hands on her hips.
“You know that I stay there to make sure that he doesn’t get out at night when he’s a berserker. It’s for everyone’s protection, and that’s all it is.” I try to move past her.
She blocks my path, “I know you are dating that boy!”
“We’re not doing anything, Nonna! We can’t. I’d get the virus. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Actually, I do.” She wags her finger in my face. “You get into whatever you get into with that boy—that berserker boy—and before long, you are just like him. You put yourself in the way of temptation, Olivia. You are testing yourself, and you will lose.”
I do not want to have this conversation, because she’s partly right, and also because it’s not a subject I like discussing with my grandmother. I sigh.
“God gives us guidelines,” she says. “What do you think God would think about you being alone with that boy in his apartment? Do you think He would approve? Can you honestly tell me you’ve done nothing with him that wouldn’t be a sin?”
I’m starting to blush now. She doesn’t have to bring God into it. “This is none of your business, Nonna.” I shove her out of the way and start back the hall.
“But it is God’s business,” she says, coming after me.
I open the door to my bedroom. “Then I’ll go to confession and tell the priest. But I’m not talking to you about it anymore.”
“Olivia, you are going to get yourself in trouble. Leave that boy alone.”
I go inside my room and shut the door before she can get to me. “His name is Brice, Nonna.”
Nonna bangs on the door. “I’m not finished with you.”
“I’m okay,” I call out. “I promise I’m being careful.” I sit down on my bed, fingering the red blanket my mother made for me when I was a little girl. Am I being careful enough?
“Open this door!”
I stalk across the room and fling the door open. “You can’t control my life anymore. I’m grown up. I run my own jettatori family. I—”
She sticks her fingers in her ears. “Do not talk to me about that!”
“Oh, so if it’s selling illegal charms, you don’t want to hear about it, but if it’s making out with my boyfriend, you do?”
She seeths. “God sees, Olivia.” And she turns on her heel and goes back down the hallway, still angry.
I close the door after her, feeling a little guilty for yelling at her like that. I suppose I’m still tense after getting all worked up with Brice. It’s become my nightly ritual. Lock up my boyfriend, listen to him scream and bang on the walls, let him out, and try like hell not to have sex with him, even though I really want to have sex with him. Even if God would think it was a sin.
And then I feel guilty for thinking that. I shoot a glance at the ceiling.
Before I go to bed, I kneel down and say a few “Our Father”s. Maybe it’ll count for something.
The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One Page 46