“I didn’t say that,” I lie. “I mean, we have to be okay with it if she’s working on something and is less available right now. Better than being depressed.”

“If she’s depressed,” my father says. “I don’t see it.”

She backs him up: “Daniela has everything. Including a free home. These days, that’s quite a lot.”

She’s wearing a dark blue raincoat. I’ve slipped into the driver’s side of their car, I run my hands over the leather steering wheel; the smell, the detailing, the trills of the gauges tuned to the sound of the doors, a designer sound.

A friend has written me about the Auditorium show—he’ll be performing a dramatic monologue. There’ll be writers, journalists. North Rome is wet: rain from inside a nice car is more vivid than in a used compact car. The rich, low sweep of windshield wipers envelops the turn signal, which, little by little, goes out of sync.

She criticizes my parking. Under an enormous umbrella we approach the three halls, three giant anthracite beetles rising above the horseshoe lobby.

We pick up our comp tickets at the box office, where I greet a blond woman I know, beautiful and sweet, her oval face covered in freckles, and I introduce her to my mother. We walk down the lobby, with its three wooden entranceways to the performance halls.

“See,” I comment on the woman I just ran into, “she’s certainly very nice.”

“So, you two are always here,” meaning me and my wife.

She’s calm; she’s walking slowly. I thought she’d be more nervous—she never goes to the theater.

“Yeah, well, Barbara gets a lot of free tickets.”

“Nice. Very nice.” She looks around.

The performance hasn’t started. We’re in the fourth row, the theater’s filling up; my mother wants me to tell her who’s who, and we discuss famous names, famous faces.

“I’m the only one who doesn’t know anyone.” She states this without condescension, embarrassment, neurosis: succinctly and nicely put.