This is no dream, even if I’ve written it like a confused dream. There are moments when identities and meanings swirl about, like dust beaten out of a rug.

Barbara’s and Irene’s voices draw us from the entranceway to the kitchen, where we’re greeted by mini-cannoli on a gold cardboard tray: they knew, “Ha ha, look at that expression, buried by women,” joking, further confusion, I can’t seem to figure out why Daniela’s here in Milan, here with us, on the eighth floor.

I’m revising this as a confusing comedy scene, wordless, a silent-movie placard for the one piece of crucial information:

“I have an appointment

with a literary agent!”

… They kept this surprise to themselves for a couple of days, so they could enjoy my reaction. Sunday night, windows closed, we’d just tried to cook a Southeast Asian dish, then realized we’d screwed up some of the ingredients; now we were waiting on our delivery order of pot stickers.

I washed the dishes with Daniela, standing side by side, and I felt the heat coming off her, from beneath her wool dress, and I drew closer, to feel her soft hip; she never pulled away. We made up the living room couch for her, and when she was lying down and I was brushing my teeth, I asked Barbara if it made any sense to go back and clear things up. My wife agreed that yes, I should, which I found exciting. Daniela was stretched out under an old blanket, the sheet beneath her barely covering the two hard, square couch cushions. She was reading a contemporary Italian novel. She’d pulled her hair back for sleep and was in one of my brother’s sweatshirts, an old sweatshirt I used to steal. I sat down on the couch, sideways, an unnatural position, then, a powerful feeling in my chest, I turned but was afraid I’d wind up looking her in the eye. I managed to stroke her face. My hand on her cheek, she stopped me, turned my hand over in both of hers, and slowly, warmly, kissed the soft place on my palm, below my thumb.

The next day in the office, I asked if I could make a quick trip to Rome for personal reasons. Francesca’s partner told me I’d have to take a couple of sick days, because I didn’t have any vacation days yet.

I enter my parents’ apartment and nod to my father in his easy chair, then I bend over and kiss him on the head, his white, fine hair tickling my beard. Emigrating makes you godlike—you can manipulate time, age your parents through montage, like a great director, transforming the continuity of life, the invisibility of time, into a series of portraits.

My father, deflated, arms thin, hairless; my mother, drowsy, weariness showing on her face, hair duller, frizzier; at one time, I think, it was completely straight: surprises, a combination of accelerated time and rediscoveries, paying closer attention.