Chap­ter 15: The Worm opens with Fio­r­ia Caris­si­mi, a woman not eas­i­ly swayed by rumors, find­ing her­self caught in a swirl of con­flict­ing sto­ries. The gos­sip that cir­cu­lates through her local church group paints an unset­tling picture—a Jew­ish woman and a deaf Black child entan­gled in a mys­te­ri­ous inci­dent at a local store. Some claim the Jews tried to pro­tect the child; oth­ers insist they called the police on him. These con­tra­dic­tions leave Fio­r­ia uneasy. Though she usu­al­ly avoids town dra­ma, this sto­ry strikes close to home. Her son, Enzo—affectionately known as Big Soap—is friends with peo­ple involved, includ­ing Fat­ty, a local fig­ure with deep roots in both Black and Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties. The gos­sip isn’t just hearsay any­more; it car­ries the weight of some­thing per­son­al.

As Fio­r­ia vis­its her friend Pia to sort out the puz­zle, the con­ver­sa­tion turns tense. Pia, sharp-tongued and cyn­i­cal, voic­es her sus­pi­cions about the inci­dent, par­tic­u­lar­ly tar­get­ing a local doc­tor whose name keeps sur­fac­ing with a shad­ow of dis­trust. Pia hints at griev­ances root­ed in class, race, and per­son­al insult—grievances that Fio­r­ia begins to rec­og­nize as more than bit­ter­ness. Their dis­cus­sion illus­trates the com­plex­i­ty of Chick­en Hill life, where friend­ship, race, and pow­er cross paths in unpre­dictable ways. The small com­mu­ni­ty depends on rumors as a form of infor­ma­tion, espe­cial­ly when offi­cial truths are slow, san­i­tized, or untrust­wor­thy. And while Fio­r­ia wants to remain impar­tial, her instincts as a moth­er and neigh­bor draw her deep­er. She real­izes this sto­ry isn’t just about an acci­dent; it reflects a frac­ture in how peo­ple trust one anoth­er, espe­cial­ly across col­or and reli­gious lines.

Deter­mined to find clar­i­ty, Fio­r­ia con­fronts Enzo and Fat­ty. Their con­ver­sa­tion moves slow­ly but hon­est­ly, reveal­ing a trag­ic time­line. Dodo’s moth­er, a woman try­ing to hold her fam­i­ly togeth­er, died in a house­hold fire, forc­ing rel­a­tives to seek help—help that came with painful con­se­quences. Fat­ty explains that Chona, the Jew­ish woman injured in the store inci­dent, was one of the few who treat­ed Dodo with care. But when ten­sions rose and mis­un­der­stand­ings snow­balled, the police were called. Whether by acci­dent or design, the sit­u­a­tion turned against Dodo. Fio­r­ia lis­tens care­ful­ly, piec­ing togeth­er a pic­ture dif­fer­ent from the one offered by the gos­sip mill. She rec­og­nizes the sad­ness and injus­tice behind the boy’s silence, the community’s fear, and the doctor’s loom­ing pres­ence.

The more she learns, the more Fio­r­ia under­stands that the real prob­lem isn’t a sin­gle event—it’s the way peo­ple refuse to lis­ten. The racial divide in town, long ignored, makes it eas­i­er to assume the worst of some­one like Dodo, and hard­er to ques­tion some­one like the doc­tor. As a moth­er, Fio­r­ia aches for the boy. As a neigh­bor, she wor­ries about how frag­ile the truth becomes when fil­tered through prej­u­dice and fear. Her qui­et con­ver­sa­tions with Enzo and Fat­ty lead her to reflect on how the town, though small, holds too many secrets and too few will­ing to speak up. What hap­pened in the store was­n’t just a mis­take. It was a symp­tom of deep­er wounds—unspoken, but always present.

In com­mu­ni­ties like Chick­en Hill, truth trav­els slow­er than rumor. Fio­r­ia real­izes that pro­tect­ing peo­ple doesn’t always mean defend­ing them blindly—it means push­ing for hon­esty, even when it’s uncom­fort­able. She decides to speak with oth­ers, to ask the hard ques­tions and lis­ten longer before judg­ing. The inci­dent may have begun with a sin­gle mis­un­der­stand­ing, but the fall­out reveals how tight­ly wound racism, loy­al­ty, and silence have become in their town. Fio­r­ia, despite her age and qui­et dis­po­si­tion, becomes one of the few to ques­tion what most would rather ignore. And as she watch­es her son step into adult­hood among friends oth­ers would dis­miss, she knows her fight isn’t just for Dodo. It’s for every child who walks those hills won­der­ing if their life mat­ters to some­one.