Up on our roof, we tended to our plants: it had rained hard all week. Then we carried up some laundry to put in the washer in the cement shed and afterward, we caught our breath a moment while we lay on the wooden deck chairs, in the shade of the solar panels and Barbara said: “You don’t need to tell your parents anything at all.”

On the surrounding lower rooftops, laundry hung limp in the sun; we heard the sound of a power drill, carried in the chilly air.

What bothered me the most was that I’d lost that work just after meeting with the notary to cosign for the condo, but I didn’t tell her this because I didn’t want to sound passive-aggressive.

Barbara got up to look at something, and after a moment, she spotted a small gap between the wall and the metal windowsill, at the top of the spiral staircase, a crack, and a line of ants streaming in. She told me to go get the hose lying filthy and tangled on the roof terrace. We swept them away in a jet of water. Then we went down to kill all the ants bustling around the foundation: outside, black armies had built fortified paths into the bedroom and living room. Our coats off, our sleeves rolled up, we took a bottle of whitewash from the cupboard and let it snow down through the perforated cap, onto that flood of ants—all of them, bleached white and dying.

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.