“Anyway. She sets out hell-bent over the mountains like she’s fleeing the end of the world and has to get to Ancona before it overtakes her. She’s got her bikini on under her clothes and she keeps saying, ‘Let’s get there before the sun’s gone—let’s get the last of the sun.’ So there’s the sign of the sun again! And I keep thinking of you and Tennessee as we drive all the way across Italy. ‘Imagine,’ my mother says, ‘we can cross the whole breadth of Italy in four hours and it takes four days to cross America’—as if that proved something. That’s what exasperated me about her. I was lonesome for you and feeling this culture shock; I had just been back in Italy one day and she’s rushing me off to Ancona. I’m supposed to be there to help with the driving but she does it all, like a demon, and really scares me. I don’t know what I’m along for except she says we’ll have a nice weekend at our little place near the sea. I figure out later that she wants me there to keep my father from being suspicious.

“We got to Ancona and she drives right to the beach and jumps out of her clothes. We have a swim, then she walks up and down as if she’s looking for someone. That night, at our place, we share the room with twin beds and I’m lying awake, unable to sleep, and she’s awake, too, twitching around. I’m thinking of you in America and I didn’t know then what she was thinking of, but now I do—she was thinking of her lover just a few miles away in his own place, in bed with his wife. My mother and I don’t speak a word, but we each know the other is awake. Instead of counting sheep I’m thinking of you; I go back to the very beginning of how we met, Duke—every moment as far back as I can remember. What was my mother thinking to herself? I lay sideways and could feel your body pressed against mine. I kept thinking how much I loved you. It seemed impossible to have such feelings and not burst. I wanted some dope. I thought, As soon as I get back to Rome I’ll have to find someone at Piazza Navona I know and get some. I wanted to bring some seeds and grow them on the terrace near papà’s laurel, but I forgot them. I wrote you every night—remember, Duke?”

She turned to look at him and he caressed her hair. “Go on, Tina, talk it all out.”