Henry blinked again to make sure his eyes, his eyes and his brain, weren’t playing tricks on him. They weren’t. It was Andrew, incontrovertibly. He was wearing running shorts and a Penn sweatshirt and was carrying a white plastic bag. A garbage bag. He looked in both directions to make sure that no cars were barreling around the curve, then he crossed the road and approached.

Over a tightening chest Henry said, “Andrew, what—what are you doing here?”

Slowly Andrew answered, “It’s my winter break. I’m visiting.”

“It’s your winter break. You’re visiting.” Henry had to feed breath into his lungs. “You’re visiting … Costanza?”

Andrew nodded. Well, half nodded. “I arrived a week ago. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going to meet Ben in Sicily.”

“Ben?”

“Schoenfeld.”

“Your…” Henry could not bring himself to say the word brother. His mouth simply refused to form the syllables.

“My friend.”

It was Henry’s turn to nod. The nod was such a neutral, noncommittal act. So open to interpretation. Why had he not spent more of his life nodding?

Nodding and breathing—as he was now, to try to slow his heart, clear his mind. “Has Costanza been here all this time? Since April?”

“She spent a few months in Florence, at the pensione. Then she came up here.”

Henry’s eyes shot involuntarily back to the upstairs terrace, to the drying rack with its tiny garments.

Then his nose. It flared open. He took in the scent emanating from the bag of garbage Andrew was holding. It had the familiar acridity of—was it possible?—soiled diapers. Actually it was unmistakable, now that the thought had occurred to Henry.

His stomach, his whole body, constricted. “Is there a baby?”

Andrew looked away. Color came into his cheeks.

“But how?”

Andrew set down the garbage bag and faced Henry. “Costanza asked me to help her, and I agreed. I helped her the same way Isaac helped you and Mom all those years ago.”

Henry forced his mind to slow down so that it might absorb this information.

Semen produced by Andrew, his son, had impregnated Costanza, his wife.

Andrew, his not son; Costanza, his not wife.

Suddenly everything made sense. Dreadful, frightening sense. Henry didn’t know that he would ever be able to wrap his brain around this. He felt his heart. Just that. He felt his heart.

“The baby is—well? Healthy?”

“Yes, she is.”

“She.”

A she. A girl. A daughter. Whose?

“And Costanza?”

“She’s good. She’s tired. The nights…” Andrew stopped there. He studied his father for a moment. “What about you? How are you doing?”

“Me?” Henry seemed almost surprised that Andrew would ask. “I suppose I would say I’m not so okay really. Not at all okay.”

“I’m sorry.”