A fist against my shoulder. Someone's shoe against my spine.
"Your kid's lucky Massimo taught her a lesson. With trash like you for a mom, she deserves whatever she gets, even if it's death!"
Even the teacher. Full of indignation, full of righteous fury, as if I had committed the unforgivable sin of disrupting her carefully arranged theater. She kicked me. A grown woman, an educator, driving her foot into my side while parents held me down.
"Stop hitting my mom!"
Emilia's voice. Small and broken and braver than any of them.
She tried to intervene. My five-year-old daughter, with her bloody foot and her missing toe, tried to put herself between me and the mob.
A chubby boy kicked her to the ground.
Massimo Ferraro.
The teacher patted his head. She smiled at him the way you smile at a dog that has performed a trick correctly.
"Massimo, you've always known how to punish wrongdoers. You're such a good kid. Tomorrow, I'll make sure to praise you in front of the whole academy and give you an award."