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I sit back in my seat, stunned, like a bird that flies at full speed into a sliding glass door.

“What’s the matter?” Mom asks. “You look like you’ve been slapped.”

“You’ve never asked me that question.”

“How is that possible?”

“Oh, it’s possible, Ma.” I give her question some thought. “I’m happy.” I think of Dr. Darlene, who encouraged me to mirror my responses, so I ask my mother, “Areyouhappy?”

“I don’t know. I’m aware that I caused my children unhappiness even though it wasn’t my intention. I pushed you to marry Bobby because I knew that he would never take you away from me. Whenyour child leaves you—and it doesn’t matter how old they are—it’s like losing a thumb. Maybe both of them.”

“I didn’t leave home to hurt you. I left home to grow up. Maybe I’m a little old for that, but it had to happen sometime and I’m glad it did. I needed to teach you how to treat me.” I may send Dr. Darlene a bonus for offering me this insight, when my mother’s face falls like a soufflé. “It’s all right, Ma.”

“Is it?” She is confused.

“Remember Grandma Cap’s bird?”

“Which one? She had several.”

“Oscar Hammerstein the fourth, I think. Grandma fed him fresh lettuce from her garden.”

“They all got fresh lettuce,” Ma says. “Iskeevebirds. They’re worse than turtles. But that didn’t keep her from having them. Nobody ever listened to me.”

“Whenever anyone went in and out of her house, Oscar would squawk at them:sonofabitch-bastard. Remember?”

She nods.

“He cursed at everybody but me. When that parrot saw me coming, he’d saysweetie.”

“We thought it was your hair. He thought he could nest in the curls.”

“No. Oscar Hammerstein already had a home. A very nice birdcage with a view of the garden. Oscar Hammerstein liked me. It wasn’t anything I said or did; he understood me.”

“Is that some kind of victory?”

“Just an observation. I don’t blame you for not seeing me for who I am. People put you in a cage or a box or a role because they hope you will stay there. It took Italy to teach me that life is not supposed to be a struggle; it’s supposed to fun.”

“But there are responsibilities, sacrifices! That’s how I was raised. Oh, what does it matter? It’s just me and your father now, a pair of old Florsheims at the bottom of the closet. Everyone else is gone. My mother. Father. Lou and Lil. Even that birdcage is empty.”

“You have to make a space to fill it, Ma.”

“Do I?”

“Your brother, Louie, taught me. When we change, sometimes it makes a path for something wonderful. The problems in life are real. But they shouldn’t bury the fun. It’s a mistake to make all of life a slog. Balance. In all things. That’s the true Italian way. It’s why the Leaning Tower of Pisa doesn’t fall. It’s why Italian men can still have sex in their eighties.”

“Tell me about it.” Mom makes a face.

“It’s why if you eat a portion of food at a meal the size of your fist, you’ll never be hungry.”

“Is that true?”

“Leonardo da Vinci lived by it. And he taught that wisdom to Michelangelo. Live abundantly but know when to put down the glass and get up from the table.”

Mom sits back in her chair. “You’ve outgrown us, haven’t you?”

“Does it help if I tell you that I got homesick for the Feast of the Seven Fishes?”

“I don’t know if you heard, but Carmine Baratta did the smelts this year. Charlene left the windows open in zero-degree temperatures to air out the house.”