I felt a few raindrops. Daniela was worried Gionata’s immune defenses were still down: she always worried when the weather was bad. A colored poncho went over her boy’s head, and we set off toward home.

“You want others to really respect you and what you’re going through,” I told her. We were at the top of the stairs leading onto the piazza. “And you love me because I don’t comment, I don’t ask anything of you, and I let you vent—I don’t bullshit you, like, I don’t tell you everything’ll be better in six months.”

“What?”

“You said I’m the only one you can talk to.”

“That’s true.”

“But you don’t want to hear it when I complain about my life. This talk show I’m writing—I don’t like it. Why can’t I say that?—why can’t I say I’m in a rough patch right now? Maybe I’m not an intellectual, but I’m too close-minded to be anything else.”

“So?”

“So, what.”

“So?”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“So, can’t you see it’s different?”

“No, listen,” I said, raising my voice, “I’m going to stop you right there. I’m going to do what you do—if you say something I don’t want to hear, I’m going to stop talking and just wait till you’re through.”

“Is that what I do with you?” she asked. “Really?”

I put my arm around her waist a moment, then went to throw my ice cream wrapper in the trash. When I came back, I picked up her son, who started shrieking, so I handed him off to her. Then I said: “Your husband wants to leave the PD, my wife wants to quit, too, I’m not working anymore, and you feel guilty because your son got these fevers from his allergy. We don’t think we’re very likable.”

“You don’t like me?”

“I like you a lot. I just mean we both think we’re assholes—we don’t like ourselves.”

“Well, at least you get to meet with RAI—me, I just hang out with this little prick” in English, again. “You get to try on a little desperate housewives of North Rome and then—lucky you—you’re off to another job.”

“Look, if you keep writing off other people’s problems, you’re just asking to be misunderstood. By your in-laws, for instance.”

“No I don’t, c’mon.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Please. What the fuck.” She kissed Gionata, then turned to me: “Your parents say mean things about you, you know.”

“What do they say?”

“That you’ve always been crazy, but at least before, you had a job. Now, you’re just crazy. Even if you are a good uncle. They do say you’re a good uncle.”

“Well, I’m simply speechless. How dare you speak such cruelty?”