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renovated, improved with balconies and verandas, but stubbornly ugly just the same. A labyrinth of asphalt, cars, and cement. Manuela would grow indignant, take offense. Arguments would start, from which it could at least be deduced that there was something of a contest for first place. Aside from a fair number of towns south of the Tiber, the strongest contender was Civitavecchia. But the ferries for Sardinia leave from there, whereas Ladispoli doesn’t even have a port, it doesn’t have anything but artichokes and the sea. Still, the guest at the Bellavista Hotel has decided to spend his vacation right here in Ladispoli. And he’s dining alone in the restaurant, a bottle of sparkling water and a middle-aged waiter who stutters for company.
    Teodora hugs her tight for a long time. She pats Manuela awkwardly on the shoulders—the only way she knows to express how happy she is to see her. Teodora is a rough, introverted woman, completely incapable of expressing her emotions—if she even has any, which remains to be seen. Manuela fears she is like her. “Isn’t Alessia coming at least?” Teodora asks as she grinds the gears, mostly to have something to say, because she already knows that Vanessa would never give Traian the satisfaction of seeing his little niece on Christmas Day. Revenge is best served cold, after it’s ceased to matter, when it won’t make anyone happy, a belated, futile revenge that gets served up anyway. “Alessia’s going with my mother to my cousin Pietro’s for lunch,” Manuela explains. “She likes to play with Jonathan. They’re in the same class at school. But thanks for inviting her.” Teodora shrugs her shoulders. She’ll never manage to put this family back together.
    It’s not far to her house. Tiberio Paris and Cinzia Colella never made peace with each other even after the divorce, but they continued to live less than half a mile apart—she in the rectangle of Art Deco villas and he in the new neighborhood behind the roundabout. They walked the same streets, shopped the same stands in the market, drank their coffee at the same café, but when, every now and then, they happened to run into each other, one would always cross the street.
    â€œHow’s it going?” Teodora asks. “It’s hard,” Manuela admits. “I’m not used to having nothing to do, I get bored.” “Traian wanted to be there last night, to welcome you”—Teodora changes the subject right away. “We had a fight, and he’s still in a huff.” “Why didn’t you let him come?” Manuela scolds her. “I would have liked that.” Teodora prefers not to explain: she doesn’t want to accuse her husband’s ex-wife of preventing her son from welcoming his sister. Manuela wouldn’t understand their futile, rotten war. She’s happy to see that Traian has hung a flag from his window.
    â€œWhy don’t you come stay here?” Teodora says as she helps her take off her heavy jacket. “At your mother’s you have to camp out, you’re like a guest, Alessia had to give up her room for you, you’re all cramped, and besides, five women in one house is too many. But there’s space here, I can set you up in the laundry room, you’d have your own place. If you wanted to be alone, all you’d have to do is close the door. We wouldn’t bother you.” “I know, thank you,” Manuela says, “but I’m not staying long, after the holidays I’ll head back up north, I’m only on medical leave until January twelfth.” “You look amazing with short hair,” Teodora comments, “you look like Demi Moore.” “They shaved my head for the surgery,” Manuela responds dispassionately. “Afterward I didn’t want to let it grow back. It would have seemed like a betrayal, like I was forgetting. I don’t know