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She remembered the way Stormy had scratched her head against the two-by-four that Bart had nailed up tostabilize the gate, and how Salty had liked to have her forelock braided.
    For the first time in a long time, if ever, she’d experienced a sense of a larger purpose. Not large enough to overwhelm, but large enough to give her a sense of direction, a sense that her life might matter to someone other than herself and her parents—and her grandmother, of course.
    But then she went to Rome with her grandmother, and Rome took her by surprise. She fell in love with Rome and felt something happening inside her, as if she’d become pregnant and a new and different kind of happiness was growing inside her.
    She worried at first about Nana’s sore throat and persistent cough, but she was reassured by the doctor at the guardia medica on Viale Trastevere who listened to Nana’s back to check for pneumonia, and to Hildi’s back too, just in case. He took Nana’s temperature and prescribed Ciproxin. The medical care at the guardia medica was free, but Nana would have to pay for the Ciproxin.
    Hildi didn’t expect to see the doctor again, but he stopped by their apartment the next morning at the end of his shift to check on Nana. He took her temperature and listened to her back again and left a big fat Italian thermometer with Hildi and told her to call if Nana’s fever went up. And then he went to Bar Belli with Hildi to get a dolce and a cappuccino for Nana’s breakfast.
    Every morning Hildi and Nana went out to see a Caravaggio or two. Afternoons Nana stayed in bed with a slight fever. Hildi liked being in charge, liked taking care of Nana, who had taken care of her so many times. Liked figuring out the bus routes, liked keeping them supplied with tickets, liked reading to Nana in the afternoons, taking her temperaturewith the big fat Italian thermometer. Nana’s fever was never more than one degree centigrade above normal, just enough so she could relax and not feel guilty about staying in bed. Hildi knew the feeling from when she was a child and didn’t want to go to school, how nice it was to stay in bed with a book and have someone bring you tea with honey.
    She liked shopping with Marcella, the nosy neighbor, who wanted to practice her English and who enjoyed introducing Hildi to all the shopkeepers: at Antica Cacciara, where she bought salami and cheese, olives and wine; at the macelleria across the street from Antica Cacciara, where she’d buy a couple of chicken thighs or a couple of pork chops; at the bakery on Via della Lungaretta where she bought two little round loaves of bread every day; and at their last stop, the Antica Frutteria on the corner of Via della Luce, where she bought fruit and vegetables.
    And she liked having tea or coffee with Marcella , and not just with Marcella, but with Roberto from the rental agency; and with the Russian woman Anastasia, who came to clean the apartment; and with a Dutch woman—Griet, an opera singer—who’d asked her for directions at the foot of Ponte Palatino.
    All these new friends thought she needed help, instruction. They were all eager to teach her about Italy, about Rome: Why the food was better in Rome than in Florence or Bologna, and the importance of certain unwritten rules: don’t cut spaghetti up with your knife and fork (like an English tourist); don’t put Parmesan cheese on spaghetti alle vongole ; don’t ask for a cappuccino in the afternoon.
    Hildi was grateful for this kind of instruction. She had a sense that she’d never get it quite right, but that was okay because there was always someone there to correct her.
    And there was the doctor, of course, Dottore Francesco Tonarelli, who had stopped by on Wednesday and then again on Friday to check on Nana. Both times he’d gone to Bar Belli with Hildi. He was the only one who didn’t seem to think she needed tweaking, didn’t need a course in how to behave in Italy, and so Hildi was happy, even