IT WAS 6:42 A.M., and I was sitting in the dark, waiting for the first fragment of dawn to put an end to that interminable night. When the first mustardy glow bounced off the neighbour’s window and rolled into the kitchen, it lifted from nothingness a pile of dirty dishes and reminded me of the things I wouldn’t have the energy to do. So I closed the door and shuffled to the bathroom to find my clothes, bunched by the tub. I slid on yesterday’s socks and shimmied into corduroy pants as I reached for the Tylenol. The bathroom vanity really needed changing, but it wasn’t worth it, with us leaving in a few months. Why did we bother buying a place for just two years? I hated that apartment, with its dusty nooks, and I should have hated that city, with its blink-and-they-are-gone summers, its polar winters, and its doggedness to drag me down. In twelve months here, my marriage had crumbled, my mother had died, and my freelancing career had dried up. Somehow I didn’t hold it against Montreal, though. If I had to implode somewhere, it might as well be in Quebec.
My cell vibrated. Carl would be here in ten minutes. Last night he texted, offering to pick up Matt on his way to work at a ridiculous 7:15. Still, it was better than having to get behind the wheel after a sleepless night, so I dashed to Matt’s room, at the tail end of that snake-like apartment. It smelled like the damp soccer cleats which were lying on the floor next to their respective dirty socks. I flicked on the switch and ordered Matt to get out of bed and dressed, quickly. He opened his eyes, but didn’t seem to see me.
After pouring his milk and cereal in the neon-lit kitchen – the snake’s belly – I retreated to the lowered blinds of my bedroom. “Get your lunch from the fridge!” I yelled, longing to rest my head on the pillow for a few minutes. But my cell vibrated again. “Five minutes,” informed my ex. I swung out of bed, helped Matt find his shoes and walked him down the stairs as the green Jeep pulled in. Matt slid into the passenger seat, offering a sleepy “Hey Dad,” and I waved, shivering.
One thing done. Hopefully habit would see me through the rest of the day.
Too jittery for coffee, I took a cup of decaf tea to my desk, where I kept my to-do list. My fingers wrapped themselves eagerly around the mug, but my forehead sought the November coolness of the windowpane. A gust of wind detached a dozen leaves from the big maple across the street and swirled them above the children streaming into the corner garderie. My breath took shape on the glass, and I gave the condensation eyes, an angular nose and a smile, incongruous above my downturned mouth.
I needed to order more sleeping pills, provided I had any refills left, and to come up with a story idea to pitch to my editors in Italy. Scrap that. I’d take the day off. My mind closed around this decision like a lucky charm.
At 8 a.m., I tackled point number two on the list: taking pictures of every object in the apartment and entering them in a spreadsheet, allowing my soon-to-be ex-husband and me to pack our respective belongings before we moved to New York. Going back at the end of Carl’s contract was the plan all along, and we were sticking to it, but this time we’d travel separately. It would have been easier to leave everything to Carl and start fresh, but there were too many people I loved in the things I used, and I couldn’t afford to lose them. There was my aunt Anna in the dish towels she embroidered, and Mamma in the ceramic baking dishes I’d brought back from Italy this spring. Carl could keep the CDs he played for me when we started dating, trying to awaken in me an impossible interest in hard rock. The ownership of other items, however, was less clear after fifteen years of marriage, including the last one spent here on alternate weeks, using the same towels, the same dishes, even the same bed, just not at the same time. Which reminded me I had to pack, because in twenty-four hours I’d be switching to the studio Carl and I rented – one more space we started sharing after splitting up. I scribbled “bag” on my list, considered the whole thing and added “call realtor” at the end. Carl was buying my half of our Brooklyn condo, and I still hadn’t found a place to stay.
In one click, I captured the Tupperware Mamma stuffed with cake and hid in my suitcase before every overseas departure. I pondered whether I should keep the cookie sheet, then spotted a second one. I decided to hold on to a crystal vase, in case someone bought me flowers in the future, and then decided to trade that hope for an Italian coffee set.
Suddenly the rooms felt stuffy, and I was antsy to be outside. After downloading the photos and doing laundry (items number three and four), I considered my options. The gym was out of the question. But there was a film I’d been wanting to see at the Beaubien Theatre, and they had a matinee at 1 p.m. I had twenty minutes to get there: I’d bundle up and ride my bike. I notified the school that Matt would stay at the after-class program one extra hour, wolfed down some microwaved pasta and got out the door.
It was warmer than I thought, and the sky was a weightless veil. There was something exhilarating about being outside in the middle of a Wednesday, and my Tylenol-proof headache lifted. I crossed a park and turned right: the theatre was a straight shot from there. I rode quickly, wind filling my mouth, blood pumping in my face.
Ahead of me, two tall buildings popped out of nowhere, like towers in a dream, looking more unfamiliar as I approached them. I put one foot down and scanned my surroundings. About three blocks in front of me, two lines of cars sped in both directions on a large avenue. I didn’t remember crossing a main artery on my way to the theatre, and squinted to read the street name, which didn’t ring a bell. Something shifted inside me, but I kept going. Past the thoroughfare, a patch of naked trees stretched their claws towards a gauzy cloud, which sat flat and motionless as in a painting. In my memory, the park by the theatre was larger. What was that? The question came with a wave of heat, and I loosened my scarf. Did I get turned around while looking at those buildings? The more I concentrated, the more alien the streets were. This was not the way to the theatre. I knew where I saw that large avenue: further north, by the Jean-Talon Market. What was its name, again? Never mind, I had to hurry. My sleeve got stuck on my watch as I pulled it up, and I dug for my phone in my pockets, then in my purse. It was there, but it was dead.
I would retrace my steps, rule number one when getting lost. I turned around and rode fast, yanking off my scarf and stuffing it into the bike basket. I zipped through the intersection, turned left, crossed another avenue and saw another park. Where now? I approached an older woman with a grocery bag, inquired with an apologetic tone, listened, nodded. Le cinéma was just a few blocks away, she said in French, pointing back where I came from. After another 180-degree turn, I did exactly as she said.
Ten minutes later, I glimpsed the theatre’s bright sign. It was 1:20 – the movie had started. I locked my bike in front of a cafe and walked in. At the counter, I began ordering a cup of tea in English, switched to French mid-sentence, blushed and ambled towards a table. There I fumbled in my purse, located a charger, looked for an outlet, plugged in the phone, sat, breathed. Four counts in, eight out. My jaw ached, and I opened my mouth wide to loosen it up.
I wanted to be home. My list was there, and I needed to check my progress. I visualized it and saw a line about milk and eggs. Point six, I believed. When I finished my tea, I left, phone in hand, pushing my bike and following Google’s directions closely. Along the way I stopped at the grocery store. Another thing done.
WHEN I MOVED to North America, I swore I’d never be a soccer mom: too sitcom for a sophisticated Italian woman like me. Yet it was Sunday afternoon, and I was driving back from Matt’s soccer game. Once again, I was following closely the instructions imparted by the voice in my phone, because on the way over we’d gotten lost, arrived late, and Matt had missed almost the entire first half. His team lost.
“You played well,” I offered.
“You weren’t looking,” he shot from the rear.
I didn’t know how we’d got so turned around. It was as if the roads dilated in front of me, creating an unexpected distance between landmarks that in my head were aligned in close succession.
Matt shifted in his seat every time I glanced at my phone, which was wedged in front of the AC vent. I used to have one of those plastic supports for the dashboard, but it had broken.
“Mom! You’ll get us killed.”
“Hang in there. We’ll be home shortly.”
My words were punctuated by the thud of the phone at my feet. I reached down, swerving and prompting a groan from the back. At least during the game I googled a roast recipe; a huge chunk of meat was close to rotting in the fridge and needed to be cooked tonight. I also emailed my brother my assent to selling Mamma’s apartment, because we’d finally received an offer. I replaced the phone, which was babbling in its lousy French.
“It is boulevard Le Corbusier, not Lee Corps Busier, moron,” I snickered.
“Says she who can’t pronounce the word minute.”
Matt’s snarky tone made me flinch, but I let it slide, unwilling to get riled up. My shoulders had just started to loosen, my brows to unknot, my belly to fill with a familiar softness. The wind stirred the leaves on the pavement, and the sun began to set behind the two-storey brownstones. It was that moment on Sunday when time slows down.
Melancholy, warmth and car sickness always blended in my stomach on Sunday nights, when Papà drove back from the Apennini, the Alps’ less glamorous cousins, where we went to hike or sled, depending on the season. My brother and I would sit in our respective positions, our heads against the windows, our vision blurred by the procession of trees Mamma reminded us to watch so we wouldn’t get sick.
We knew dinner would be a simple affair because it was Papà’s turn to cook, and hoped he’d stop for pizza. If he didn’t, he’d pour water in a pot for pasta and plop in front of the TV for the soccer recap. Mamma would start preparing for Monday, taking out of the armoire an ironed shirt for Papà and filling the moka pot with coffee. Grinding it spread a comforting smell which, I liked to say, blended the evening with the morning.
“Can you turn the directions up? I don’t want to get lost again,” said Matt. I increased the volume and checked the phone. Some congestion ahead: ten more minutes to go.
It was also the time of day when I’d usually call Mamma. She’d be on the sofa, watching the weather forecasts, or lying in bed with a novel, waiting for the phone to ring.
These days Mamma was in an urn on top of Papà’s casket because she’d told us in advance she wanted to be buried with her husband. Not just in the same cemetery, on a hill surrounded by vineyards, but in the exact same grave. “Who would have thought our Teresa could make herself so small?” One of her neighbours whispered at Mamma’s burial, with an affection that made me smile.
Before ending up in an urn, Mamma was dying in a hospital bed.
I never saw her there, but had no trouble imagining her. She had crepey, yellowish skin, due – the doctor explained to my brother – to the liver metastasis. The bed was in the middle of a windowless room, the light from the open door shining on her blonde hair, spread on the pillow and parted on the right, revealing half an inch of grey roots.
She dyed her hair before checking into the hospital, asking the hairdresser to make the dye “particularly strong, so it will last longer.” I learned that detail from a kind neighbour Mamma had known for forty years but still called Mrs. Verdi. When I went to visit her, Mrs. Verdi delicately explained that the dye request meant my mother knew she’d be in the hospital for a long time, and maybe even die there. I wasn’t sure of that, because Mamma never told me. Instead, she insisted I shouldn’t cross the Atlantic. I should wait, she kept repeating, and think about my son, who “needs you more than me,” because in her world, children always came first. Did she sense how terrified I was that any change in my routine would unravel my carefully planned life, making it spin out of control and go to hell? Again, I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t rush to her side, telling myself that my boy did need order and predictability, not a mother gone for weeks, not a dying nonna, not a father overwhelmed by French homework and orthodontist appointments, all of which I had taken upon myself out of resentment. I followed Mamma’s advice and stayed put, until my sister-in-law called. Come, she said, don’t listen to her, come as quickly as you can. I did, but not quickly enough. I never saw her in that hospital bed, nor her yellow skin. But I could see her as the orange light faded behind Mount Royal, lying in that impossibly windowless room, with her grey roots, very serious, very alone.
“I came here with Dad three weeks ago, and he didn’t get lost.”
“Maybe he’ll take you next time.” I glanced at the phone, afraid I had missed a turn. As the image of the bed dissolved, I wondered whether other people too manoeuvred through an unknown world, visited by memories that couldn’t possibly be true.
AT HOME there were no ironed shirts for me to take out, but there was a roast to stick in the oven and tomatoes to slice for salad. I cooked tortellini for Matt’s school lunch, checked his homework and made sure he had a mostly clean uniform for the following day. After dinner, Matt wanted to play cards, and I went along for one round, then sent him to bed, eager to look for a meditation class – I had read that it helped with insomnia.
I sat at the kitchen table with a second glass of red and my telephone propped against the bottle, searching for a Buddhist centre in Montreal. There was one right around the corner, on Laurier Avenue. I was signing up for next week’s beginners’ class when my phone fell flat on the table.
“Mom!”
“Why did you pick up the bottle?”
“Are you drunk?” Matt was scanning my face.
“Of course not. What do you need?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why don’t you hold your white cat?”
“I’m not a baby.”
“True. Lie down and count your breaths, then.”
He rolled his eyes and slouched off.
I should have gone to sleep too, or at least tried to. Under the shower, I let the stream cover my ears and wash all alertness away. I wrapped a towel around my hair, weighing the idea of a last glass of wine. Alcohol is bad for insomnia, but I went for it, sipping it as I realized I never called the realtor. I made a new list for the following day, and the one after that, and the whole week, while I was at it.
It was one o’clock when I finally lay down, wide awake. I flipped the pillow and was hit by a whiff of aftershave. Did Carl not change the sheets? I flung the pillow across the room and balled the humid bathrobe under my head. Then I reached for a sleeping pill and swallowed it dry.
THE ALARM WAS HONKING for the second time, but I couldn’t get up, I just couldn’t. After pulling out one earplug, I heard Matt’s steps on the floorboards and bellowed that I was awake and would be there in a minute. He didn’t reply, so I repeated myself, adding that the milk was in the fridge. I got a “Duh” in response, and I curled up on my side. The slumber that last night refused to embrace me wouldn’t loosen its grip. It hugged me too tight, weighed on my limbs, muzzled my thoughts. I desired it so much that it seemed unwise to reject it. After a few minutes, I pulled myself up, leaving one plug in and pushing my eye mask up just enough to detect the doorframe, hoping no excessive light, sound, or smell would scare the drowsiness away. I slid along the hallway, sat at the kitchen table where Matt was slurping his cereal, and asked him if he could take the bus to school. “Dad can’t pick you up, and I don’t feel well.” Matt stared, saw the bullshit, and said “No problem.” He’d done it a few times, but I always walked him to the terminal on Rosemont Boulevard and waited until he was on the 94. None of that today. I kissed him on top of the head, reminded him to take his lunch and padded back to bed. I didn’t hear the front door close.
I woke up jolted by the phone. The clock said 8:45. Awfully late. It had to be one of my editors, and I belted out all the vowels twice for a chance at sounding awake. Instead, it was the secretary at Matt’s school. She was asking why he wasn’t in class. Was he not feeling well? It didn’t register. Matt? Not in class? Then it did. The bus. Alone. More than an hour ago. I pushed the covers off and ran to his bedroom, willing him to be there, in bed, asleep, maybe sick. The room was empty.
“Madame?”
“Yes, he had a doctor’s appointment, won’t be in class today. Thanks for calling.”
I hung up and in two minutes I had pants, a sweater and shoes on, and was racing down the stairs with the car keys in one hand and an image of Matt sprawled on the pavement in my head. I jerkily shifted the gear and dialed my editor’s number, telling him I needed to run to my son’s school and would explain later. I drove to the bus stop. By then I was picturing Matt in an ambulance while the police went through his backpack to identify him. Did I write my number on his agenda? Wouldn’t they call the school? Its logo was printed on all his books.
As I cursed my vow not to buy Matt a cell until he turned twelve, I circled slowly around the bus terminal, straining to check every bench, then pulled over and ran inside. He wasn’t in either the men’s or women’s bathrooms, nor in the small crowd getting off a 94 that had just arrived. Back in the car, I followed the bus route, sitting up very straight and strangling the steering wheel, alert as I’d ever been. The golf ball in my throat wouldn’t budge, but my thoughts were clear, ticking off all the possible scenarios – he misplaced his fare card and walked to school, but drifted too far north, or south – and shaking my head from time to time to expel the horror of hands grabbing him and pushing him into a car.
Please, no. Take my money, my apartment, my job, my health. Not him.
I didn’t know who I was making a deal with, but I repeated it, to be sure I was heard. I proceeded slowly, senses sharp, windows down, so as not to miss any hint that could lead me to him. I turned right and some roadwork forced me to take a detour. Which way was Rosemont Boulevard? This was not the time to get turned around. I should stay close to home. At a red light, I typed Laurier Park in Maps and thought to alert Carl – four eyes are better than two – but then I’d have to explain why I didn’t walk our son to the bus stop. I spotted the park and drove around it with my head out of the window. There were a few mothers with strollers, two joggers, a kid with a black backpack. I perked up. No, Matt’s was red. When do you call the police if a child goes missing? When does it become official? A thousand little pinpricks crawled across my skin.
To Marquette Park, just because I didn’t know what else to do. My phone took me there after nine minutes of shaky turns, sudden stops and brusque accelerations. There was more traffic there – Papineau Avenue was still digesting the banlieu commuters, and the car engines drowned out every other sound. But one noise stood out, the scraping of a skateboard on asphalt. It was unusual – on a Monday, on a late November morning – and it made me jerk my head left, towards the half-pipe, where I glimpsed a kid. My son. Alive. Safe.
He was sliding down the ramp, his long arms spread out like a clumsy bird, out of place in his navy blue pants, polo shirt and black shoes. I didn’t rush to him right away, but enjoyed the sight of his body jumping, landing, gliding. Unhurt.
I parked and walked over, smiling. This was all my fault, he shouldn’t think he was in trouble. When he noticed me, he looked relieved for a second, then worried. He was seeing himself through my eyes: in a park, on a school morning, without a helmet. He waited, one foot on the board, as I climbed up the ramp, wrapped his head in my arms and pulled him to my chest. He let me hold him for a few seconds before wiggling away.
“Did something happen on the bus?” He shook his head, stared at his feet. I touched his cheek. “I’ve been a bit distracted lately. Is that it?” He shrugged without making eye contact, and I understood that if he spoke, he’d cry. I wished the ground would swallow me. What had I done to my child?
“Do you want to have pancakes?” He shook his head again.
With my fingers, I combed his long bangs, exposing red-rimmed lids. “Should I take you to school then? I said you had a doctor’s appointment. They won’t ask questions.”
He pushed his hands in his pants pockets. “Okay,” he said, and grabbed his jacket and backpack and trotted to the car’s front door, while I picked up the board. He was not allowed to sit in front, but I didn’t remind him. At the first red light, I tousled his hair and was tempted to promise I’d do better, but was afraid I couldn’t keep my promise. “I love you,” was all that came out while I turned off the engine in front of the school.
I handed him some cash – he never took his lunch – walked him to the entrance and, after one last hug, delivered him to the secretary, mumbling something about the appointment ending sooner than expected. She nodded and hurried him along. I watched him scamper along the corridor, a grin frozen on my face in case he looked back before rounding the corner, which he did. I backed up and leaned on the door, leveraging my weight to open it. In the car, I tried to catch my breath and short, gulping moans came out of my mouth.
ALL I WANTED TO DO was talk to my brother. I made myself an espresso, ate Matt’s tortellini and dialed his number. “Stai bene?” he asked after my sottovoce greeting, which prompted me to spew out everything that had happened with Matt. “Scary,” he concurred. “But he’s ten, he’s bound to do silly things.” His boy was twelve, and I’d never heard about him skipping school.
“Mamma’d be horrified.”
“She’d say he’s confused. Passerà.”
“And yesterday I got lost with Matt, in the car.”
Marco laughed. “Remember when you got lost walking home from school? What were you, twelve?” I sat on the couch, pushing aside a pile of laundry in need of folding.
“Yes. I didn’t want to take the bus, so I walked. It took me an hour to get home.”
“And Mamma got mad at me. So unfair.”
“I tried to explain that the streets morphed around me, but she didn’t find it funny.”
“See? You’ve an awful sense of direction, always had.”
I grabbed a towel and rolled it. “At the time it wasn’t scary. This time it was. And today Matt runs away.”
“You’re just tired. You’ve had a hard few months. We all have. You should take it easy. By the way, the buyers for Mamma’s apartment want to close quickly, I have to empty it out.”
The phone slid off my shoulder and fell to my feet.
“Hold on,” I picked it up. “I thought I could come during spring break and help you out.”
“That’ll be too late. I’ll donate most things. Just let me know if there’s anything you want me to keep for you.”
My mind ran through the corridor, into my light-blue bedroom, to the closet where my diaries were still stacked, back to the dining room with the round mahogany table and the framed pictures, to the kitchen with the plates hanging from the walls. There were lots of things I wanted to keep.
“I will.”
I hung up and closed my eyes. Marco never mentioned Mamma. I should have seized the opportunity and asked more questions. What she was like at the end, for instance. Whether she said anything about me.
When we were little, during the week the three of us huddled around the kitchen table at lunchtime, leaving empty the chair Papà occupied in the evening. Often, at the end of the meal, Mamma would get up, open the door to the balcony, and point towards the town centre, over the Duomo’s steeple and the roof tiles that closed in on our building like ripples in the sea. She would give me directions to the shoe repair shop, or the butcher’s, or the seamstress’, where I was to run an errand later. Bathed in the early afternoon sun, she’d list the streets I had to take in a maddening litany of names that washed over me without leaving any trace. She’d cock her head and repeat a refrain I was familiar with: “You’d see what I’m saying, Laura, if you just paid attention.”
Then she’d start ironing, while Marco and I set up our homework on the Formica table. In my memory it’s always late spring or fall, the syrupy glow filling the pages of my books. Mamma’d start pressing a fold in one of her skirts and ask me to pass the distilled water bottle, which I kept next to me, ready like an altar boy during Mass. She’d place the hissing iron on the metal side of the board, take off her glasses, wipe the lenses fogged by the steam with her blouse and turn towards me her suddenly naked face: “If you paid attention, Laura you wouldn’t get lost, wouldn’t lose track of time and would come home when you’re supposed to.” She’d sigh.
I never told her, but in those days too many things competed for my attention, and I didn’t see why I should focus on just a few of them. I felt limitless, capable of spreading myself over the entire world without even trying. Things would come to me, whether I chose them or not. But I wanted to be good, and always replied I’d do better.
Now I was too tired to pay attention, or even to pretend.
SOMEHOW I GOT AN ARTICLE FILED by 3:30 and got ready to go get Matt. Thinking about being in that car again made me sick, and I settled on a walk. Strolling in Montreal had a way of improving my mood, almost against my will. It was lively but not as busy as New York, and still unladen with memories. On the street, I let the breeze air out my thoughts.
To get to rue des Carrières, I took the illegal shortcut across the railroad. The chain link fence had been cut in a few spots by better-equipped trespassers, and I chose the closest one, crouching under the fence. When I emerged on the other side, I checked for trains, crossed the rails – gravel scrunching under my boots – and passed through a second hole. The light was bright, despite a couple of large clouds sagging on the horizon. A church bell chimed, and I felt every stroke, down to the last vibration. The Duomo, surely, the sound jumping off its Romanic steeple and crawling along the roofs before rolling into our kitchen, where Mamma was ironing, steam fogging her glasses, and I was doing homework at the table. Soon she’d boil some water for tea, notice that my hair kept falling into my eyes and braid it.
I got up and caught sight of my shadow, without recognizing it. The slightly stooped back, the short hair, the glasses.
It was almost four o’clock. I needed to hurry.
IN THE SCHOOLYARD, I quickly located Matt, his denim jacket ridiculously inadequate against the Montreal chill. I saw him before he saw me. He bumped fists with a friend, then raised his right hand to his collarbone and fished something out of his shirt. I was too far to see it, but it captured a ray and sparkled. It had to be the gold chain with the angel pendant Mamma gave him for his first communion. When did he start wearing it? He reached for the medallion again and held it for a few seconds before tucking it under his polo. The discovery disoriented me, as if the school had flipped on its side, but I waved until Matt spotted me and headed my way. We walked together to the bus stop, where he started spinning a Rubik’s cube with his skinny fingers.
“We could go karting this Saturday,” I said.
“We’re playing Rosemont on Saturday, and I’ll be with Dad anyway.” Silence enveloped us until the 94 arrived and we sat in the back, side by side.
“Did your teacher ask why you were late?”
“No.”
“We’ll order pizza tonight, is that ok?”
“Sure. Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you, like, normal?”
I stiffened. A woman’s grocery bag bumped against my feet, and music leaked from a kid’s headphones. The driver checked the rearview mirror. For a second I imagined the thousands of tiny logistical details that made up these people’s lives. We were all so normal. “Yes, why, sweetie?”
“You don’t get up in the morning, don’t have friends, don’t go out on weekends.”
I cleared my throat of the emotions clawing up there, while the people’s outlines bled into one another, as if the bus had dipped underwater. “I don’t have many friends in Montreal.”
“You used to see people with Dad.”
“Those were his co-workers.” He completed a face of the cube, showed me, and I put my hand on his and squeezed gently.
“Maybe you’re sick, Mom.” He faced me. “Could you be sick? Like Nonna?” His eyes were big, apprehension at their bottom. The bus stopped, and a wave of fresh air floated in.
“You know, Matt, I think I might just be a little bit lost these days.” I swallowed a “sorry” and, as soon as the doors closed, pushed the arrêt button. We got off, stepping on the golden leaves that studded the pavement. At the first intersection, I paused to nudge my hair back while discreetly checking the cross-street name. My purse strap slid off my shoulder, and Matt pushed it back up. We checked for traffic, stepped off the sidewalk and, before we reached the other side of the road, Matt’s hand slid gently into mine.
Elena Molinari is an Italian-born award-winning journalist, writer and mother. She started her career at Reuters in New York and later became a foreign correspondent for the Italian newspaper Avvenire. Her first published book in Italian, Potere Rosa, deals with the compromises women make to gain social influence, while the second one, Ragionevole Dubbio, revolves around unfair incarceration in the U.S. After traveling extensively in Central America, she wrote Morte in Paradiso, a novel exploring the paradoxes of expat life, which appeared in 2017. In 2022, she started writing fiction in English. She’s working on two novels.