Chapter Seven
FALL 1993
Here I was again, heartsick. Faced with the real possibility that the messy emotions I was trying to rein in would spill forth. Seated at the kitchen table across from Signora Eugenia, her face creased in anticipation of the news I had come to deliver, I noted that she’d aged little since the last time I saw her. When she had taken stock of my character, intuited the deep affection I felt for her son. Could she now also discern how I’d changed, and not for the better? That I’d become closed and guarded and apprehensive?
On the drive down, I’d gone over how I’d tell her, but sitting across from her, I lost my nerve. She inhaled and smacked the table with the flat of her palms. “Tell me what you have to say. I’m ready,” she announced.
“I don’t want to distress you
