It was different at your house, Ornella. At your house things were messy, things were sometimes even chaotic, but you yourself were reliable. For instance: you were irritable. You were always irritable. Your irritability was utterly predictable. I could rely on it. Also: your rules were rules. There was no playing in your bedroom or in Nonna’s bedroom. There was no pulling up of edible produce from the vegetable garden. I could play in the front garden but not climb the tree. I had to have a nap for three-quarters of an hour after lunch. If I was good, I got pannacotta when I got up.

Mother, however, had no rules. Or she’d try and put rules in place but would dispense with them completely whenever she felt like it and let me do what I pleased.

To use the vocabulary of art (which I know you know, Ornella, and I know you haven’t forgotten—just the other day you spat the word chiaroscuro at me, out of nowhere, just as you were having your pudding), Mother’s love for me was an ever-changing canvas, while yours was a solid, geometric affair. A big square love, Mondrian-like, primary-coloured. It did not change or wrinkle or forget its purpose. The only square of love that was not reliably perpendicular was that which you had for Carlito, which was pulled out of shape by the demands he made upon basic geometry.

It was different again at the Parishes’ house. There, everything was under control, but it was a dark baroque control. It was the control of meals on the table at precisely six, because any later would make Mr Parish angry. It was the control of having always the same bread with the same hard crust, because Mr Parish would only eat this bread. It was the control of classical music on the stereo—never anything but classical music, because anything else Mr Parish found appalling. Once Mrs Parish had been caught playing free jazz, and Mr Parish had broken the record across his knee. I was there, I saw it, Ornella. Free jazz was like abstract art, I think.

Mrs Parish had a different type of love again. A delicate, hands-off love that seemed not quite solid enough to withstand life’s difficulties: a wind through the open window might desiccate it. It was, I guess you’d say, impressionist.