Once in Gloversville, Tina let down her defenses and let herself be enveloped by the comfort and expansive sense of security her grandparents’ home gave her. In all Tina’s life, she had known them in the same house. Here you knew where you were, once and for all. Even as she succumbed to the smells of good cooking that came from her grandmother’s super-equipped kitchen, she tried to keep some hold on her critical faculty.

“How was the trip up, Tina?” asked her grandfather. “Did I send enough money? Did you have any trouble?”

“Everything was fine, Gramp,” she said, giving him a kiss.

“Your uncles and their families will be coming over for dinner,” Carla said.

Tina nodded. At least this year she wouldn’t have to answer Aunt Betty Burke’s sour quip about where was her mother moving next.

“Do you have any boyfriends?” her grandmother asked, standing back to appraise Tina and looking up at her with the barefaced admiration that always made Tina feel so tender toward her. It was as if the old woman pinned everything on her—every dream, hope, and not-quite-lost illusion she still had about life.

“I can’t bear it!” she retorted. “Is that all you want to hear about me, nonna?”

“I wish you’d find someone . . . a beautiful girl like you. You should be able to do very well.”

“Nonna! Such ideas—how can you do well by marrying if you haven’t got your own personal life together first? No one’s rushing into marriage these days. It’s much better to concentrate on one’s work and have other interests.”

“That’s not natural,” Carla went on, shaking her head. “I saw Ron Peters, who used to like your mother—he’s doing so well! But she pretended she was never interested either. Now he drives a Rolls Royce, has a yacht, a house in Florida, one son in Harvard, and a daughter in Paris.”

Tina looked at her grandmother as she recited this litany of blessings. It was useless to say to her that by wishing her mother had married the man with the Rolls Royce, she was wiping out Tina’s own father and Tina and Weezy as well. Her grandmother would not understand.

There was no use, Tina thought, of imagining she was there to impose her values onto Gloversville; she was there to eat and sleep. All the rest could wash over her.

“Now let me ask you, Tina,” her grandfather said, putting down his paper on the arm of the chair where he sat facing the turned-on television without looking at it. “What are your plans for the future?”

“Gramp,” she said patiently, “I’m getting a Ph.D. in Italian. I want to be a scholar.”

“But why Italian?” he said in real consternation, his face frowning in bewilderment. “What will that fit you for?”