Chapter 17
Naples, Italy. Present day.
Aunt Betty was not technically anybody’s aunt, but she had been Sira’s best friend in California for many years before Little’s birth, and Little had always considered the tall, gregarious woman a part of her own little family. Betty was voluptuous, blonde, and blue-eyed, the antithesis of Sira in almost every physical way. They shared the same wry sense of humor and innate love of the world that circled them, and so had become fast friends since the day Betty, backing out of a parking spot, had almost run Sira down next to their local supermarket. Betty had a dancer’s mind; she waltzed with her words, and when Little was still very small and fresh from Italy, Betty worried that she would not find herself in this big American world, shy as she was,
