The idea that came to me then—and I can’t write this down like it was the confirmed truth for both parties involved—was that her flirtation with Leone wasn’t over, that she still wasn’t sure she was going to stay with me, in spite of our renewed feelings for each other. Then again, maybe this is my first thought whenever a woman has plans that I don’t factor into—take Eleonora—I’d attributed her increased (and much improved) editorial responsibilities to an affair she had with the editor in chief.

We stood there, our voices down so the neighbors wouldn’t hear. At one point, feeling sad, like our relationship was ending, I said: “Okay, that’s it. I’ll look for an apartment someplace else.”

“No,” she said. “No. Now that you’ve made me start traveling with you again, start really living together, now that you’ve made me think we’re really serious about this relationship—you can’t just leave … buy yourself another place … in the past, I thought I’d always feel sick when I was with a man, but now I like being with you. You can’t just buy yourself an apartment someplace else and leave me like that.”

Putting this dialogue down, I feel like crying: her declaration was so beautiful and so ambivalent. But here comes the instant replay, as usual. Right then and there I said: “Sorry, Barbara, but I could never buy your place after what you’ve told me. And I want to buy something now, because my father said yes, and I’ll never be able to purchase an apartment without him. I have to look out for myself, I want to settle down.” I didn’t know what I was saying—I wanted her to feel bad for humiliating me. “So I’ll buy something and I’ll head out, and we’ll just have to see what happens.”

That was it. I went inside and put some red cabbage on to boil and whisked together eggs and parmesan for a frittata.

She stayed outside, in the courtyard, sitting on the front steps, her knees drawn up to her chest, fighting back the urge to run away, because if she did, she was afraid she’d lose her home.

I brought out two plates of frittata and vegetables, two sets of silverware, nothing else, and before I set the food down on the wooden table, I told her an idea that had come to me just as quickly as the one I’d had that afternoon when it occurred to me to take my father’s money: “Let’s get married. Then, if we separate, everything will be divided in half. And I’ll make a will, and if I die, you get the apartment.”

Our hunger disappeared. We let the frittata and cabbage grow cold, there on the wood table.

For a long while, we didn’t speak, we just sat at the table, silent, staring at the plants, feeling the cold and the night coming on.