She came up to Milan with her winter wardrobe, which she put away in the hallway walk-in closet, a space with shelves and two bars, all hidden behind a curtain.

She went out to network. A woman she knew had a publicity agency for cultural activities. Events, book launches, film premieres. At night she told me about it. She never felt like going to parties or bars or restaurants. After dinner, she played cards with Irene, or went through the LinkedIn profiles of her many new contacts in Milan.

We talked almost exclusively about work, comparing Rome to Milan, the former in free fall, according to everyone, filthy and irredeemable, the latter cruel, modern, and rich, its private foundations constructing buildings in the business district, works of art like the Feltrinelli-Microsoft headquarters: was this humanism or the end of humanism?

Right away we told each other that we mustn’t pressure the relationship to succeed, that we should just be together in that apartment, in that city, and not force anything: and sometimes she understood that we were getting along and starting to communicate again and then she’d grow frightened because deep down she felt the urge to trust in us, but also not to. Then she usually called her father, which put her in a bad mood, because her father had no capacity to listen. Now bothered, she could focus on that interminable problem and stop thinking about us for a few hours.

Would we ever settle down? And what does settling even mean—is it only a metaphor?

Sometimes we arranged to meet in Porta Venezia and we’d head for home or stop for a negroni. While we walked, we’d feel homesick for that hour in Rome, when the architecture was soaked in yellow sunlight and then the evening, still yellow, with pink streaking the sky and caressing the clouds. In Milan, negroni hour wasn’t composed of light but of mid-century and early-twentieth-century buildings, seen from the street, looking up, art nouveau friezes, and rosemary gin and tonics. These days, the most beautiful sight for us was the blue and ice-white of the sky at breakfast at the coffee bar; but also the cold sun slipping through at lunch break …

(A conversation about the lights of Milan was the first one we had that felt natural, so I remember it.)

We didn’t fight when we were drunk, but sometimes she cried and waved me off so I couldn’t console her—she didn’t want my tenderness to take her where I wanted her to go.

She’d buy an apple on the street, take a bite, then pour water over it from her water bottle. Those first days, I wasn’t sure if I could tease her.