But I was not about to give up. We looked at every body, even the ones far off, on the sidewalk. I didn’t see my mother anywhere.
“They must’ve moved some of the bodies or their remains,” Sewer Rat said.
I kept walking around the mounds of flowers. One body had a piece of paper with writing on it pinned on the coat. I had to bend down to read it. “Our beloved son, age 17.” Then I saw something I recognized. The pain in my throat was back in an instant.
A piece of English tweed burned around the edges lay on the cobblestone. The wind must’ve blown it beside the boy’s body. I picked it up and studied the bodies near it. My mother wasn’t any of them. I showed it to Michelangelo and he nodded. It was from my mother’s half-finished suit. I put it in my coat pocket and held it there, feeling
