As a child, Paolo did not think of women except as elements of a successful adult life: a good job, a good woman, a good home. He wanted desperately to follow his mother’s advice, but also transcend it; wanted a neater, more orderly, more sensible home than the chaotic whirlwind of his childhood apartment. Wanted to be known, on the street, under his own name, instead of being lumped in with the passel of Luigio boys: You’re the smallest one, aren’t you? The littlest?

His thoughts of Antonia are all in color. His fantasies of present and future so wrapped up together he does not always know if he loves the Antonia in front of him or the Antonia fifteen years in the future in his head. But Paolo is twenty-one years old, and everything is still happening all at once, and he thinks he understands how he has been made, and what motivates him. The way his mother can reduce him to the barest, most desperate version of himself with just a word. The way he wakes aching from the tips of his toes to the webbing between his fingers with unfinished thoughts of Antonia, opening the door to a home they share, which is full of light, full of grand and unblemished furniture. Antonia, opening the door to a back bedroom. Antonia, opening the buttons on her dress. Opening her mouth. Swallowing him whole.

—

In July, Antonia dreams she has shown up for her first day of university. She enters an ivy-covered building and walks into her kindergarten classroom. The other students laugh at her as she tries to squeeze herself into a child-size desk. Maria Panzini leans to whisper to her neighbor behind a hooded hand and Antonia knows it is about her. I’ve always wanted to come here, she tells herself. It will get better.

Antonia wakes shivering, though the heavy midsummer air sits thickly in her bedroom. She wraps a sheet around herself and tiptoes into the living room and folds herself into the space softened by Lina’s body on the couch. She is overcome by gratitude that she will not live in this apartment forever.

Antonia has done a good job of convincing herself that marriage—that the life she is carefully constructing with Paolo—is what she wants. Paolo wants something different than the world he was brought up in, too. For him, that change is the Family—which Antonia had always thought she needed to escape in order to move forward. But Paolo is sure of himself. He’s a dreamer, like she is, but he’s careful, measured, constructive. Paolo has a plan. He’s saving his wages for an apartment, for furniture, for bedding. They will be married next spring. Paolo’s future is full of clean rooms, of well-behaved children, of warmth and security. Antonia has adopted it as her own.