Domenico reached for his cane and stood up. Franco had made up his mind. He would wheedle or browbeat her into it. It was as good as done.

“I’ll see myself out,” he said, unable to meet Emma’s eyes.

Every Thursday afternoon without exception, throughout the long winter, Domenico would have Clemente drive him up the mountain to Gignese for his two o’clock visit with the Ungarettis to assure himself that things were well. At first these visits were awkward. They would sit stiffly in the beautifully furnished parlor, the three of them, over china cups of tea or coffee, and comment on the unusually fine weather, or the health-giving mountain air, or the lovely view from the windows. As for the subject on everyone’s mind, the subject of Emma’s pregnancy, Domenico would scrupulously avoid it. (Stefania wasn’t the only one “not entirely comfortable” with the situation.) And so it would hang between them like an immovable, impenetrable curtain around which they were forced to talk.

Domenico would ask if there was anything they wanted. The answer was always no, although Franco would sometimes have some additional requirement concerning the promised Ferrari. At precisely three o’clock Domenico would rise, Emma would offer her cheek to be kissed, he would nod to Franco-for some time he had preferred not to shake hands with him-and he would leave, feeling guilty and unfulfilled, as if there was something he had come to do, and he hadn’t done it. Emma was so quiet now, so pale and resigned. With time his old affection for her had blossomed again, and his heart ached to see her as she was.

But after a month Franco’s interest in these weekly calls waned and he began finding other things to do: coffee and newspapers with his friends at the cafe; bocce on the court beside the village square. He would spend days at a time back in Stresa, doing God knew what-cavorting with his mistresses, Domenico assumed. But it was all to the good. Emma began to blossom. She became talkative again, and laughed often, with that merry little hiccup at the end, a sweet sound Domenico hadn’t heard for years. With the swelling of her abdomen she seemed to become contented and happy, and Domenico along with her. His weekly visits, far from being a chore, became something he looked impatiently forward to.