I always insisted on going with her for breakfast at the coffee bar and while we walked, I kept her from reading her phone. Sitting there on her plastic chair, facing the traffic on Torpignattara, dressed up, in among the old-time regulars and a few Chinese kids.

Then we’d walk back to our neighborhood, a small flow of people heading out for the day, on foot, on scooters, in cars, greeting one another, stopping for a quick chat. Finally, I’d watch her drive off in her subcompact, her seat pulled up to the steering wheel.

After she left, the clouds lifting, revealing the sky, the temperature unchanging. Mornings at ten, my face feeling oily, I’d wash the dishes while two small birds sang back and forth on our dead-end street and the sun laid its rippling jasmine wallpaper over the walls.

I’d go up to the roof with a bag of dirty laundry and hang out the wash from the night before. I’d add softener, stain remover, sanitizer, a color-catcher sheet. The horizon beyond the houses, the stretch of sky, cloudy or clear. At these moments, I was completely alone.

I’d walk down to Casilina to buy lunch and dinner and poison for the ants, and in every muscle of my body I sensed what my wife thought of me.

In the grocery store, wiping my face, which I’d forgotten to wash. Composing lines of poetry on my cell phone: about additives, cold-water detergent, sinks. A man kneeling beside a car. Two old women commenting on a panhandler behind his back. Mornings with no work—as an editor I’d cut these details from a novel, but they were moments of love.

A boy hiding at the back of an aisle, playing a prank on the friend he’s talking to on the phone. Laughing like crazy because he alone knows they’re both in the grocery store at the same time.

While I recorded this image in the notes on my phone, the yellow screen disappeared and a call from Barbara came in. She was stressed, locked in a bathroom with a stomachache. A regional administrator was causing trouble when it came to modifying the public notice to add the event at the medieval garden. The women she was working with had made a proposal to a councilor to modify the events calendar to allocate around thirty thousand euros for this evening on violence against women. The problem was, if it wasn’t announced in time, one of two things would happen: there’d be no texts from invited authors, so the festival couldn’t go on, or they’d have to let the grant winners know secretly before the official date so the festival could go on, and doing that would be illegal. The public notice wasn’t ready yet because the administrator was questioning the phrasing in the document.

“They’re driving me crazy. We’ll never finish it in time to get people to participate.”

“Are you crying, honey?”

“No. A little. What are you doing now?”