In December of that year, 2019, I would obey the notice to appear at the government office for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in Scarborough—this was for my swearing-in ceremony. As an old Yankee from New England, I wondered what my grandmother might have said—to hear me swear to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. The same day I was sworn in, I took the Oath of Citizenship with eighty-three new immigrants, from thirty-five countries. I’m guessing there were families who’d been granted Protected Persons status by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. There must have been families who’d suffered hardships—they’d endured a more dangerous life than mine, before getting to Canada. A young girl spoke to me; she was only twelve or thirteen, wondering what my story was. “What about you, Mister?” she asked me. “What are you running away from?”

That July night in Barolo, our last night at the Albergo, Em and I were just lying in bed. We weren’t in need of Protected Persons status. We were just feeling old. We weren’t too old—we were just too old to be roadies. I almost said we were too old to be writers, still singing for our supper, but I didn’t.

“There are German students somewhere, kiddo—they’re still singing,” Em said. I hoped she would keep saying it. I almost said the nostalgia could finish us off, but I didn’t. From the bedroom next door, we’d heard Matthew and Bella—they’d been singing Thirty Seconds to Mars songs to each other.

Now even the hee-haws had stopped; everything suddenly seemed more serious. I thought Em was asleep when she rolled closer to me, holding my penis. “You know, kiddo—we’re both lesbians’ children,” Em said.

“I know,” I said. This I didn’t hesitate to say.

That was when Em told me what Molly had told her. “Don’t tell Adam until I’m dead, but Ray and I were just bluffing about shooting Zim—speaking from our hearts isn’t the same as doing it,” Molly said. As the old patroller put it, if she and Ray had been serious about shooting Zim or me, they would have done it with a .22, not a shotgun. At close range, that twenty-gauge would have blown off Zim’s leg—or mine. Not even Little Ray or Molly would have gone that far, except in their hearts.

It made me wonder if Nora and Em would have shot me—if Em really would have pulled the trigger, the way Nora had said. “I keep thinking about that. I hope I wouldn’t have,” Em told me, cuddling closer, not letting go.

53. THE VOICE ON THE SUBWAY; THE SILENCE IN THE ROCK GARDEN

Henrik hadn’t written Em when Nora died. I had written him after our cousin’s death, but he hadn’t responded. Henrik had always been wary of Molly; when the old patroller died in January 2006, Henrik’s inner writer was unleashed. He wrote me at the snowshoer’s East Sixty-fourth Street address, and he wrote Em twice, sending the same letter to Em’s Toronto address and in care of her New York publisher; that was why Grace saw it.