Secret Guilt

Fio forgot to mention that her maternal great-grandmother died when Fiorella was three, about six months before Fio's maternal grandmother died. For twenty-some years afterwards, Fiorella hid it in her secret heart that she had killed her great-grandmother.

Fiorella remembers the key scene vividly.  She was standing, alone, in the hall next to the front room, with the stairs on one side and an ornate umbrella stand on the other.  An older woman--maybe her grandmother, maybe her aunt--told her not to talk too loudly because her great-grandmother was dying.

And Great-grandmother did die, which meant that Fiorella must have talked too loud.