[I’m editing this section while wrapped in the embrace of benzodiazepine; it holds me, muffles the keys on the keyboard, and there’s some soothing digital music coming from my noise-canceling headphones—I absolutely need this cocoon to talk about her—I feel like I’m back in my father’s luxury car.]

The day after, she was sweet on the phone. The way we spoke to each other left me feeling like we’d had a relationship that was different, better, in the distant past, and she was remembering.

And the day after that, I called her from the train: “What would you say to us all celebrating my fortieth birthday here in Milan?” Because I wanted Irene to be there.

“How could we, though?—no, come on—and bring the babies? It would be so complicated.”

“Well, then we could all come down to Rome.”

“I don’t know. I need to check if Dad has plans—but sure, sure—why not—we could—what were you and Barbara thinking of?”

I’d made her nervous, so I said we’d talk about it later.

I tried again one night after my third gin and tonic, standing on the sidewalk of a Milanese street, trams and cobblestones, talking to her on my headset, glass in hand, a few meters from the crowd drinking outside, at twilight, on an exceptionally cold evening. I really felt like hearing her voice.

My mother was the one who brought it up: “About your birthday … Dad’s really tired, let’s do something normal, simple. Come for breakfast. Barbara, too, maybe, if you two come to Rome the Saturday before, or stay afterward. Dad’s tired.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing. You know. It’s just complicated right now.”

And as she spoke, I reconsidered and told her she was right. I remembered a recent conversation I’d had with my father:

“I know how I caught this chill. But I’m always sick lately.”

“It’s stress.”

“Maybe I have a tumor in my esophagus. I have this acid reflux, I keep coughing.”

“You should go see the doctor who cured mine. He gave me a connective-tissue massage.”

“Maybe. When things aren’t so busy.”

I agreed with my mother, I had the same impression lately about Dad, and we hung up, having decided on a breakfast the morning of my birthday.

On the following day, during cocktail hour at a different bar, I started thinking about it again, and left a group of colleagues to give her a call, again using my headset. My mother told me: “Marcellino, why are you dwelling on this?” She never calls me that. “It’s your birthday—nobody else’s. Figure out how you want to celebrate your fortieth birthday and stop trying to engineer something else.”