Every month when the letter from La Mèrica would arrive, gna’ Lidda would have don Cesarino’s cook, mastro Nitto, who was a good man, read it to her. And she would have mastro Nitto himself immediately write her reply. Her son sent good news about himself, he was beginning to earn well, and soon he would send something, but at the moment he couldn’t; he asked for news about Nenè and sent regards to his friends. Always the same letters and the same replies. But gna’ Lidda waited with a sense of great urgency, and if the postman was a day late, she would despair. While the cook wrote her responses, she would watch him with her small green eyes, watch his hand and his delicate pen that transcribed the words she dictated. But was mastro Nitto really writing down exactly what she was saying? No. One day he had told her:

“You don’t write the way you talk! People still understand.”

From that moment on, gna’ Lidda no longer had any peace. And when she would say, “… and don’t worry about me, I’m poor, but I get by. Nenè is fine and growing. I bless you, my son!” she would crane her brown, wrinkled neck,pursing her lips as though she wanted to infuse the page with her thought. And each time she would add, “Did you write exactly, ‘I bless you’?”

Poor dear son! With all her heart your mother, who is so far away, blesses you!

And she would stay there watching until the cook closed the yellow envelope with the printed address—her son would always send it to her—and mailing it she always had the doubt that he hadn’t written exactly what she’d told him to write.