“Sounds interesting.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” she said, though the tone of her voice was flat. “He’s on the road more than two hundred and fifty days out of the year. I think it was in ’97, in one six-month period, he was only home for three weekends. You’ll meet him next week. You’ll like him. Everyone likes him. He’s very charming. Just not real”—she paused—“available.”

“How is that, taking care of a child with your husband gone so often?”

“Well, I have help. Manuela comes three days a week. She’s good to Alessio. And there’s Anna. As far as the husband part, you get used to being alone.”

“Do you?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. “You don’t play games when you speak.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Her voice changed; it became soft and open. “No, you don’t get used to it. In fact it gets harder.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Yes, I’m lonely and I feel like I want to scream and run a million miles away from Rendola.” She looked up at him. “And then I see my sweet son and this beautiful country and all the nice things around me and I think, Get a grip. There are people out there with real problems.” She laughed at herself. “That’s where I live, somewhere between loneliness and guilt.” She shook her head as she looked up at him. “You probably think I’m crazy. It’s okay if you do. I do.”

“No, I don’t.”

She sighed. Her voice softened more. “About the other night. At the hospital . . . I wanted to thank you for”—she hesitated, feeling suddenly awkward—“for holding me. I needed that.”

“I was afraid that I was being too forward.”

“No. You were being sweet. The world needs more gentlemen.”

There was a moment of quiet as neither knew how to respond to the course of their conversation. Ross suddenly smiled. “That just reminded me of a joke I overheard at the Uffizi yesterday. Want to hear?”

She nodded. “Certo.”

“A man and a woman were traveling to Sicily on a sleeping train. The train was completely full and they found that they had accidentally been placed together in the same sleeping cabin, just the two of them. They were a little nervous at first but they soon just turned off the lights and went to bed, the man on the top bunk, the woman on the bottom. Sometime in the night the man said to the woman, ‘Excuse me, but could you please hand me a blanket? I’m a little cold up here.’

“The woman said, ‘I have a better idea. Why don’t we, just for tonight, pretend that we’re married.’

“ ‘Really?’ said the man, very excited. ‘Great!’

“ ‘Good,’ said the woman. Then she rolled over and said, ‘Get your own damn blanket.’ ”

Eliana laughed hard enough that she covered her mouth. Ross also began to laugh, though not at the joke but at the effect the joke had on her. When he started telling it, he hadn’t considered its possible relevance. Now it was obvious.