( She pauses, eyes slanted, serpentine and strange. Glazed with the strange confusion and frustration of being forced to contemplate truths so long ago forgotten. )

Months after. But is it so strange? They speak of it in every book and verse of romance, the bodies of girls change, come womanhood. I shall not lie to you. My grandfather loved Macaluso best as a boy, it is to be expected. A son. An heir. But then, Macaluso took to his sickness, and grandfather understood how fickle and flimsy children can be, and how quickly lost. And after, he doted on me as if I were the sun.