Italo had done his best, unsuccessfully, to point out to her that when you love someone, all these things are a normal part of life, living together, doing things together, and maybe even paying just a single rent.

“Then that’s really the heart of the problem!” she’d started shouting back at him. “The rent! I can’t believe it.”

“Wait, don’t you like being with me?”

“What does that have to do with anything? Sure, I like being with you, but I want to live alone. I need that.”

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Do you or don’t you have another boyfriend?”

“What other boyfriend could you be thinking about, Italo? You’re more than enough!”

Maybe it would have been better if she’d told him that she’d never had a real family of her own, that the only reason her parents lived together was to maul each other mercilessly, that her father had been a brute, and that if she shut her eyes and thought back to that man she’d stopped calling Papà at the age of six, she felt like vomiting.

“Caterina, I’m sick of this kind of relationship. I don’t like it, it feels distant and cold.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“What kind of future do we have?” Italo had asked her, staring her firmly in the eyes.

“I don’t know, it’s not something I worry about. I’m fine for now, just the way things are. Why do you want to get in a rush and ruin everything?”

“Because you need to live your life with an eye to the future! Look at our deputy chief.”

“What does he have to do with any of this?”

“He has a plan for the future. He wants to go and live in Provence, he’s doing everything he can think of to change his life. He’s working for an idea!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Caterina never used curse words, but this time Italo had dragged it out of her. “The deputy chief is mentally ill. He’s a miserable wretch who lives all alone, in a city where he’s a stranger, pursued by people who want to rub him out, and he has a gang of friends who I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.”

“I like Rocco!”

“Then go ahead and move in with him!”

With the echo of that screaming fight still echoing in her head, Caterina looked up. On the roof of the canopy over the front entrance to police headquarters was none other than the deputy chief himself.

“Dottore? What are you doing up there?”

Rocco looked over the edge. “Ah, Caterina, ciao.”

“What are you doing up there on the canopy?”

“Nothing in particular. I don’t have a balcony. I wanted to get some fresh air.”