“So in Ancona I met this friend of my mother’s, a writer named Massimo Bontelli who lives there, and also in Rome. He took us to another beach, very isolated, and we had lunch there at some little shack with a thatched roof and great fish. He and my mother drank a lot of wine and laughed a lot. I went and lay down on the beach and closed my eyes and thought of you. And then it struck me! They’re lovers, my mother and that guy. I began to act badly to him; I was rude. Later I cried. Then I thought of our toss and how it said DO NOT BE SAD! I hoped and prayed that we had not passed our zenith; that you’d be there shining like the sun when I got back. I didn’t want to be sad, and think of the setting of the sun . . . nox est perpetua una dormienda—you know, that great line in Catullus. We had to meet again at the zenith.

“I decided to be kinder to my mother. Her suns would always be less high than mine. She was in her forties, though she looked much less. She looked great—all tanned and slim and wearing miniskirts and bikinis. I wanted to be like her, look like her, have her taste in books and music and travel. And that strange thing she had that we should chase the sun over the mountains and go find it at the opposite sea. It was a way I’ve never seen her. It was the first time I thought of her as happy. . . .

“Then I got sad back in Rome. I was thinking of my father. I wanted to stay near him a lot because I sensed my life was calling me away from Italy. I thought it was my father who was feeling his mortality, feeling death close because he’s much older than my mother. My mother was so alive—death was so far from her.

“I loved them both. But I think I hurt her because I didn’t understand until now about loving, about being a woman, about choices—about everything. Oh, Christ, Duke, I was so mean to her! She wanted to be a photographer, on her own, traveling around. She had a great eye for things. I used to tell her she was killing papà with her insane desires. We all thought the family should count more with her than her personal ambitions. God! That was so unfair! God, Duke, we all drove her to what happened!”

“It’s all right, Tina girl,” he said gently, “cry all you want. I’m here.”

“Duke, I believe what Freud said—there are no accidents. All I have to do is think how my mother used to drive and I can tell she was carrying a death wish as long as I’ve known her.”

“It just seems that way to you now, Tina.”