Hell Is A Real Place

Sienna

I consider switching out the lights and trying to sleep, but I won't be able to. I'm too wound up. I get up, grab my phone out of my tote, and check for messages. There aren't any.

When I'm walking back to the bed, I notice a book lying open and face down on the dresser.

I pick it up, read the title. I don't recognize it. I open it, meaning to flip through to read the first few pages when a photograph falls out.

I bend to pick it up. It's a photo of an older man with his arm around a younger woman, and beside them stands a man who resembles Giovanni. He's got a baby in his arms, and the woman, I assume the baby's mother, has her face turned to the baby. A little hand has got a fistful of her hair, and she's trying to loosen it.

I turn it over to look to see if it has a date, but there isn't one, and when I look at it again, I have to smile at the woman's expression.

I'm so engrossed that I don't hear him come in.

"Are you going through my private things?"

I'm so startled when h