Death Bliss
The station at Napoli Centrale smells of diesel and roasted chestnuts and the particular sharpness of cleaning fluid on terrazzo floors, and I stand on the platform for a full minute with my duffel bag hanging from one shoulder and my phone dead in my pocket because I forgot to charge it on the train, which is the kind of thing I do now, the kind of thing that has become a habit since Serafina disappeared into a job in Puglia that was supposed to be cataloguing old books and has turned into eleven days of voicemail messages she has not returned.
I crack my knuckles one by one, starting with the left thumb and working across, because that is what I do when a plan is about to go wrong, and thi