It took a moment for what Malachi said to fully sink in. I stared up at him in disbelief. "What are you talking about? You saw Dad?"

"Isn't that what I just said?"

"Don't get snippy," I warned, rolling out of the hammock so I could face him upright. "Look, Malach, you've been under a lot of stress lately. I mean, having to leave London so quickly and—"

"It's not that. You know its not that," he said with a pleading look in his eye. "I saw him, I know I did!"

I sighed softly and shook my head. "Dad is dead. You know that."

"But I saw him. I know it was him!"

"Look, it was just someone who looked like him, all right? Calm down. I'm sure it wasn't him."

Malachi got a stormy look on his face and roared, "I knew him a lot better than you did, Rue! Enough, at least, to recognize him even after all these years and even though every reasonable part of me insists that he's dead!"

"Get ahold of yourself," I said placidly. "Just take a deep breath, and calm down."

He stared hard at me with his eyes on fire. Sometimes his gaze actually scared me; it penetrated every part of your soul, making you feel as though nothing was left unburied when he stared at you like that. When he was really intent on something, and I mean really certain, there was no way to make him see otherwise. The intensity radiated off his being and I knew he believed what he had seen. But the possibility of our father still being alive where a million to one, if we were lucky. In the back of my mind I reluctantly admitted to myself that none of us were really for certain he had died, but a bullet to the chest has a way of ceasing a person's life. The fire melted in my brother's eyes, and his whole face took on a more philosophical air. He turned his back to me, and gazed out at the turquoise sea in front of him, lost in the depths of his thought. Slowly and carefully, he murmered to me:

"State contenti, umana gente, al quia; che, se potuto aveste veder tutto, mestier non era parturir Maria."

I sighed. "You don't have to remind me that I'm the only on in the family who can't speak Italian."

He turned to me and said in a low, but powerful tone, "Apri la mente a quel ch'io ti paleso e fermlvi entro; che non fa scienza, senza lo ritenere, avere inteso."

I gritted my teeth. "Lovely, Malachi, really, but speak in English, would you?"

He looked down at his feet for a moment. When his gaze returned to my face, I could see tears brimming in his eyes. "Sister, after all these years of torture writhing in my soul, can you not allow me for one instant to believe that the one person I felt could understand me and love me be still alive? Many times in my life things have not turned out as I have wished, but nothing as monstrous and horrible has ever happened that compares to that of losing my father, whom I loved more than the air I breathe, more than the sky above me or the ground below me. The one person who saw me as I am and accepted that, and in fact loved me for it. After all these nights spent awake, reliving that horrible day in my mind again and again, of nights wondering if I could have done anything to stop it from happening, but most of all, wondering if Father might still be living. If he was as strong as we knew he was, could he not have indeed lived and still be living? Tell me this, Rue, and look me in the eye so I know that you are truthful."

I bit my lip at this outpour, which were so, so rare, and heaved a heavy sigh. "Ok, Malachi. Let's go down to the market and see what we can see."