“Not in any absolute way. But it’s something I knew and felt in my bones. If we want to, all we have to do it keep reading her diaries. We’ll find Massimo, I know we will.”

“You knew it was Massimo, too?”

“Sure, he used to come over in the afternoon and she’d send me all over Rome on some stupid errand. Or if papà was going to be out of town, she’d tell me I could stay overnight at a friend’s. Still, I didn’t catch on for a while.”

“I only met him once,” Tina said. “But I knew it. She must have met him when we bought the house in the Marche.”

“Or maybe we bought the house there because she had already met him and decided that it was a way to be near him when he wasn’t in Rome.”

“God, Weezy, do you think so?”

“What’s the difference?” Weezy was thumbing through another notebook.

“Do you think we should read any more?” Tina asked. “On the other hand, I’m glad she had a lover. I wonder if papà knew.”

“If he did,” said Weezy, “he didn’t object. Maybe because things were finally going well at home. I think we were, for once, finally settled. . . . Here, listen to this.”

“Weezy, that’s enough. It’s getting late and papà will be back soon. He shouldn’t see these. We’ll have to pack them away someplace, until we can burn them. There might even be letters somewhere.”

“Let’s just read the very last entry,” Weezy insisted.

The final entry was a week before Marguerite’s fatal crash.

“Is this the bill for happiness? Is this paying the goddam fiddler? Now I’m pregnant and it’s Massimo’s child and who else but me is going to pay? Now what? Ask him to leave his wife? And he’s just lost the Strega! A backroom abortion? A quick trip to England or Switzerland? And where would the money come from? What could I tell A.? What do women do in Italy . . . or anyplace? What is this terrible thing that happens to us in our bodies where we grow our own punishment, this living thing in our guts which is the proof of shame, guilt, sin, anger, frustration, lust. There is no question about bearing this child . . . or is there? If Massimo wanted it, we could go away; we might be able to do it. But no, at my age, it’s too late. Everything’s too late—if I tell him, I’ll lose him. I’ve already lost him . . . now what? Angela—”

Tina sat down at the chest at the foot of the bed, stunned. Tears were in her eyes.