There came a time when she was no longer aware of things, and then we could only connect through our hands: one of the last times we tried to talk, she stared at me, looking lost, raising that wide, receding chin of hers, just like my mother’s, just like Gionata’s, and she said: “I’m sorry … that story … I didn’t tell you…” She was referring to a friend of hers who’d married her own stepfather after her stepmother died. When she first told me, I said that she’d have to get me to write down all the details sometime, but then we never got back to it, and that afternoon she said she was sorry because she didn’t have enough of her mind left to tell me.

Our interactions grew more intense, all caresses and kisses.

Recently, I’d learned something new about her from Irene, as I told Francesco, reflecting on what made someone mature, an adult, a realized person, and how uninteresting I found these concepts to be. Before she became completely unaware, my grandma went through an angry phase and complained incessantly about her past. Whenever Irene came to Rome, she’d visit her. Grandma told Irene that the happiest time in her life was after she became a widow.

My grandfather was a saint. At night he’d carry his daily prayer book with him down the hall. He led a permanent catechism in his parish. He was tall and thin, owned some large cameras and a console stereo. He listened to the Beatles and knew the basics of orchestra conducting. He was an engineer.

Grandma told Irene the story of how she and my grandfather were engaged. This was the early forties and she had two suitors. My grandfather, slated for the Eastern Front, saved himself by joining the Civil Engineers. He was an engineering student: serious, devout. The other suitor was a poet from a large Roman family. I don’t know how Grandma managed to lead this great life in Rome: her father had died in her arms when she was just thirteen, in Naples, I think, then I know she attended high school in Rome, at Liceo Torquato Tasso, behind Via Veneto. She was beautiful, we know this from a single framed picture of her: blouse, wavy hair, tilted head.

She didn’t know how to choose between the two boys. She went to see her spiritual advisor, the priest who heard her confession and gave her guidance, and she asked him what she should do.

The priest said: “If your faith is strong, marry the poet, who loves you. If your faith is weak, marry the saint.”

Totally biased—what pious Catholic would ever dare claim her faith was strong? “Blessed are the meek…” So my grandma married the saint.

Irene says that in her last angry, lucid moments, Grandma told her more than once: “I should have married the poet … I’d be happier…”