At our book signing after the Disastri screening, a tall and gloomy guy, a pantomime fan, told Em he’d liked her better before she started speaking. “It’s a compliment, kiddo,” Em said, because she saw the way I was looking at the guy. The women wearing the hangman’s nooses—not to mention the Nora look-alikes—were older now. The hangman’s noose was not a welcoming look for an older woman. For the Disastri audience, Em was mostly signing Italian translations of Come Hang Yourself—in Italian, Vieni ad impiccarti—although some of the Nora look-alikes, and just normal-looking readers, were asking Em to sign Noi figli di lesbiche. The literal translation, We Offspring of Lesbians, made Em cringe. The beautiful Bella had translated the title in the car. I’d thought Em was going to barf in the backseat, but the way Matthew laughed made Bella start hee-hawing. Our pretty driver’s hee-haw had won us over.

At our daytime events in Barolo, in Em’s onstage interview and in mine, we were asked if The Lesbians’ Children was autobiographical. “It’s a mixed bag,” Em said.

“The autobiography part isn’t what matters,” I began, before I got bogged down in all the amalgams. The fictional lesbian couple was based on an amalgam of my mom and Molly, but also of Em and Nora. The first-person narrator, the gay daughter, was what Em meant by a mixed bag. The gay daughter was definitely an amalgam of Em and Nora. “I suppose I’m the model for the straight younger brother—his tendency to be the last to get what’s going on sounds like me,” I told the interviewers. This usually got a laugh, at least from Em; even the Nora look-alikes were warming up to me, but not the older women with the nooses. Those women would never like me.

Our next-to-last morning at the Albergo, Em and I distinctly heard a hee-haw from Matthew’s bedroom; he had the room next to ours. Our next-to-last night in Barolo, we were invited to a party at the palace of the marchese of Barolo—the handsome twenty-three-year-old was the heir to the Barolo winery. We liked him.

“The marchese looks gorgeous but doomed,” Em told me.

“Are you thinking of someone else?” I asked her.

“A young JFK Jr.—before the plane crash, kiddo,” Em said.

From the terrace of the palace, we overlooked the town of Barolo—we could see the throng that had gathered at the biggest outdoor stage, and could hear the music from the rock band on the loudspeakers. Matthew was singing along with Thirty Seconds to Mars—the Leto brothers’ band was the one onstage. There was an older Italian woman who was coming on to Matthew, but he just kept singing.

“Those guys aren’t Pink Floyd,” the older Italian woman was saying about the band.