And it was easy enough to keep Virginio and me on the fringe of activity in the palace when we were young. Uncle Francesco never came to see us, even though our care had been relegated to him. But the day finally arrived when I came to Nurse with this terrible thing I had heard. It was the day before my tenth birthday. One servant had told another that my father had strangled Mama at the villa and that Francesco knew about it and had said nothing because he’d always been jealous of her.It could not possibly be true. Could not. I ran to Nurse and told her what I had heard. She sat me down as if she had rehearsed a thousand times the conversation we were to have.“You can’t be listening to what people say, Nora, especially when they talk about things that are none of their affair.”“But that servant said my father had help killing her,” I wailed. “Other men waited in the room and dropped ropes from the ceiling. Why would they say a thing like that?”She told me not to waste time wondering why other people say what they say.
