After that, it didn’t surprise her when they left her home alone on visiting days. It seemed her presence only pained them, reminding them of how difficult she had made their lives. They’d practically forgotten about her anyway.

When it was time for morning coffee, Viola prepared it for everyone and would then say: “Oh, I’ve forgotten about Vanna….” and she would fill another cup. No one was in a hurry to call her, but oftentimes, Maria went to look for her secretly.

At the table everyone kept an awkward silence. Ninetta would lower her eyes to her plate, and her father would ask timidly for wine, looking about confused. Everyone was fearful of everyone else because they all felt guilty for having permitted Vanna’s rash action. And Viola’s cold, clear eyes and Remigia’s knitted brow were full of reproach. If Vanna had been raised properly, if Vanna had known that she’d not be welcomed home with open arms, then maybe Vanna wouldn’t have decided, just like that, to pack up her things like a gypsy.

Her mother felt the guiltiest of all. She had failed to inculcate in her Vanna those sentiments of submission and sacrifice that are a woman’s principle virtues. The older woman had obligations to her youngest daughter, too, to Ninetta, who could end up with a bad reputation because of her sister’s failed marriage.

Finally, Vanna stopped going out altogether. She realized that Ninetta was ashamed of her; it was as if the whole town knew all about her flight.

“I’ll stay home,” she would say, “I really don’t like seeing people.”

Maria would have accompanied her to the beach, where in the evenings you could go out even without a hat. But Antonio already took that road twice a day to the office, and he preferred taking his wife to the movies or to the café.

“Go ahead,” Vanna would say, smiling as Maria embraced her with an air that begged forgiveness. “I’ll enjoy myself out here on the terrace.”

Viola and Remigia went out with their husbands, too. And because Ninetta wanted to stroll in front of the Café del Corso, she dragged her mother along. The poor woman was no longer recognizable. Exhausted from trying to keep peace between herself and her daughters-in-law (and everyone knows about mothers-in-law and their reputation), she would have preferred to live alone with her husband. But she stayed with her sons, in part because she loved them and, more so, because her husband’s small pension would never have been enough to make Ninetta look like a good match.