Mercy

By Flavia Idà

How far would you go to heal someone’s pain?

After years of watching innocent people suffer, a psychiatric nurse makes it her mission to help the most hopeless of her patients — in a way no one will ever suspect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paper Angel Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781944412890

Flavia Idà

Flavia was born and raised in Arena, a medieval hill town in Calabria, the ancient “instep” of the Italian Peninsula, and studied Classics and European Literature at the University of Naples. She wrote her first short story when she was 12, and ever since then, writing has been the most important thing she does.When she was 28, she came to live in San Francisco, where she learned English by watching children’s television programs with her son Adam, then four years old. She loves English as much as she loves Italian, for different reasons but in the same measure. She writes in English and in Italian, she thinks in English and in Italian, and she dreams in English and in Italian.In 1984, she graduated Summa Cum Laude in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, where she also got her Master’s Degree. The six years at SFSU were without a doubt the happiest of her life; she remembers those long hours spent in the library with books as a wonderful time spent with dear friends.From a student of Creative Writing at SFSU she went on to become a teacher of Creative Writing, a most rewarding job where she met many young people with a true gift for writing. She was the recipient of the Emily Dickinson Award sponsored by the Poetry Society of America. She has taught Italian at the Italian Institute of Language and Culture in San Francisco and in several other schools throughout the Bay Area.She has also worked for many years as a translator and consultant for the Italian Consulate General, specializing in Citizenship applications; another rewarding job where over her fourteen years she has helped hundreds of people of Italian descent reach their goal of reconnecting with the land of their ancestors. She lives in Pacifica, California, right at the edge of the ocean where the continent ends.

Book preview

Mercy

Flavia Idà

copyright © 2017 by Flavia Idà

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for the purpose of review and/or reference, without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design © 2017 by Niki Lenhart

nikilen-designs.com

Published by Paper Angel Press

paperangelpress.com

ISBN 978-1-944412-89-0 (EPUB)

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For more information about the author and her work visit:

flaviasvoice.com

for John

With thanks to Andrew Solomon, in whose book The Noonday Demon I found the few known facts about John's life.

With thanks to Steven Radecki, for his spot-on edits.

With thanks to Niki Lenhart for her beautiful artwork.

Mercy

I’ve been asked to take care of a lot of people, but this one’s a first".

The man was in his mid-thirties, tall and slim, dressed in good khaki trousers, plain blue shirt and brown loafers. He was clean-cut, clean-shaven, smelling of nothing but soap. He spoke quietly and thoughtfully. More than anything else, he looked like a student pondering the answers to his next exam.

Abusers, blackmailers, deadbeats … A smile crinkled the corners of his lips. But this one’s a first.

There was something like admiration in his voice: someone had finally managed to surprise him.

Linda sat across from him at the table tucked away in a corner of the noisy diner. The coffee cups between her and the man were the workaday excuse for