A few nights after coming home, I went by to see my brother and then my parents. It was getting dark when I entered my father’s office: he was busy trying to reboot his slow tablet, and he hadn’t thought to turn on a light. While the clocks hadn’t been turned back yet, the days were growing shorter, and I’d ridden my Vespa with my parka zipped to my chin. His office was dark, but there was still color in the sky above the pines; some kids were shouting below in the park, forcing their nanny to lecture them in broken Italian.

I gave my father a kiss on the head, took his tablet from him, and knelt at his feet. The gadget in my hands now, I searched the menu for applications taking up the most space, got him to tell me which ones he didn’t need, and deleted them. I showed him everything was working faster now. It was then that I asked if I could have Barbara cosign for the apartment, and he said yes.

I went to the notary with my wife—the first time I’d been to that office without my father. Barbara was dressed like a piece of candy, with me in a sweatshirt, jeans, and trainers with gold laces, and the notary, not much older than us, in a blue suit, no tie.

One November morning, the independent publisher I worked for just dropped by though he knew I was home revising a translation: he was in the neighborhood looking at houses for sale. He asked if he could come in; I made him an espresso, talked about the strengths of the neighborhood, but after these civilities, he told me the real reason for his visit: Asia would be reinstated at the end of her maternity leave. He had no choice but to “bring her back on board.”

“And?” I pressed him, “What then?” I knew he liked my confrontational style: he was sly and rich and lazy.

“You would go back to … well…” His “we-eell” sounded something like a bleat.

“I will go back,” I corrected him, offended now.

“To being an external consultant.”

“To being a freelancer?”

He still held the tiny espresso cup I’d handed him. “Yes,” he said.

What followed was a maudlin scene straight out of a Russian novel. I stomped out of the house, saying, “Come with me!” Surprised, the publisher obeyed, little cup in hand, as he walked after me, into the courtyard, then the street, awkwardly shutting the front door grate and then the gate to the yard.

“So meet me halfway,” I said, speeding up along the narrow road, nodding hello to the man with his little granddaughter on his bicycle and to the lady letting her dog do its business practically outside my gate. “We’ll do this: you keep paying me a salary. We’ll do eighteen hundred euros per month, regardless, and I’ll go back to working freelance.”