IN THE MORNING, Rich’s mother sat at the kitchen table, speaking to his father on the phone. Martina had brought out a tiny television to watch the report of the storm in the States. After spending the night on the Newark airport floor, Rich’s father and brother and best friend took the advice of the Air France representative and drove four hundred miles through the torrent, the downed electrical wires, falling trees, to Cleveland, Ohio, and when they got there, Cleveland was closed, too. Rich could hear his father’s voice, as though it were coming through a garden hose, lashing out that no one insured the plane ticket; his mother sat still, struck silent with embarrassment and rage. The timbre of their fighting sickened him.

She handed Rich the phone, rubbing the skin beneath her right eye over and over, bruised, shaking her head, now happy Rich’s father wouldn’t be coming.

“Why that cocksucker at the ticket counter didn’t tell us sooner is beyond my comprehension,” his father said. Anytime Rich’s father used the word cocksucker, he was probably past caring. He sounded relieved. Rich got a little weepy listening to his father’s plan to drive back home and make dinner. Like a lot of people, he’d already let Rich know that staging this thing in Europe was a classic small-minded act of selfishness. His father sang the French national anthem in made-up French words, wished him luck, and hung up. Rich called his machine at home, checked his messages; they told the same story—canceled flights, no apologies. No one else was coming.

When he stepped outside, his aunts were drinking coffee, not talking, looking at each other. Everybody had already heard. Finally his aunt Irene said, “What a shame,” in an attempt to mimic real outcry, and then his aunt Patti and cousins Shelley and Tina agreed, Tina sort of scowling slightly, staring at Patti, and then asking, “Does anyone want the last chocolate biscotti? Biscotto?” The sky was gorgeous—a few huge, flat-bottomed clouds plaqued against the blue-black sky; he could see far out into the valley.