Irene joined me and my colleagues in that bar, then Barbara joined us, and I did something I’m ashamed of. They could tell I was sad, and I told a group of colleagues, along with my wife and sister, that I’d just gotten off the phone with my mother. As you do with people our age, joking that parents can be such a burden. This bad habit of exorcising the mystical journey you take in your relationships with your aging parents … I said they didn’t feel like throwing a big party. I’d already asked Irene if she might organize something in Milan and invite the family and she suggested having it at a restaurant, having lunch together (I hadn’t brought up that our parents thought Barbara and I were renting something on our own, not staying with Irene, and I also hadn’t explained to them that Irene wasn’t living in the apartment she owned), but anyway, she agreed to my proposal about a family celebration. Now, in front of everybody, I told her: “They don’t feel like coming to Milan. Maybe we’ll just go down to Rome, but I don’t really know if we’re going to do some organized thing with them.”

“Some organized thing”—what a stupid thing to say. At these words, my sister, who’s shorter than me, her hair cut short right now, like Mia Farrow’s, dressed a bit more butch than usual, a wild boy, maybe because she’s hanging out with lesbians more than straight people, my sister seemed to shrink in size, and she stared ahead with the same expression I saw on Gionata’s face at Christmas, when my mother asked if he was happy about his brothers being born.

But different from Gionata: Irene’s furrowed features smoothed over into a docile smile with such fluidity, it was painful to watch. She said: “Don’t worry. I’ll come down to Rome anyway for your birthday. If something happens with everybody, great.” She’d adopted that same vagueness typical of our family, but a sweeter version. “Otherwise, plan a nice party at some bar, and I’ll make sure to be there.”

An exchange lasting only a few seconds, that I’ve homed in on, out of a trivial conversation about parties and getting drunk. While the conversation resumed its cheerful tones, I felt like a hit man sent from Rome to break my sister’s heart. I’d prepared her for months, reassured her, manipulated her into opening up, and now that she was open—in just a matter of seconds—I’d stuck a knife into her gut. Maybe, as a son, I had no choice but to obey, and I was the scorpion on the frog’s back, letting the frog carry him across the river, promising not to sting her, but doing it all the same, because it’s his nature.