The Neapolitan Novels

31.

I returned to the neighborhood, I told Lila what I had proposed to the children. It was a cold exchange, almost a negotiation.

“You’ll have them in your house?”

“Yes.”

“If it’s all right with you, it’s all right with me, too.”

“We’ll split the expenses.”

“I can pay it all.”

“For now I have money.”

“For now I do, too.”

“We’re agreed, then.”

“How did Dede take it?”

“Fine. She’s leaving in a couple of weeks, she’s going to visit her father.”

“Tell her to come and say goodbye.”

“I don’t think she will.”

“Then tell her to say hello to Pietro for me.”

“I’ll do that.”

Suddenly I felt a great sorrow, I said:

“In just a few days I’ve lost two daughters.”

“Don’t use that expression: you haven’t lost anything, rather you’ve gained a son.”

“It’s you who pushed him in that direction.”

She wrinkled her forehead, she seemed confused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You always have to incite, shove, poke.”

“Now you want to get mad at me, too, for what your children get up to?”

I muttered, I’m tired, and left.

For days, for weeks, in fact, I couldn’t stop thinking that Lila couldn’t bear the equilibrium in my life and so aimed at disrupting it. It had always been so, but after Tina’s disappearance it had worsened: she made a move, observed the consequences, made another move. The objective? Maybe not even she knew. Of course the relationship of the two sisters was ruined, Elsa was in terrible trouble, Dede was leaving, I would remain in the neighborhood for an indeterminate amount of time.