propaganda and it makes me too angry.” Elisabetta had been too embarrassed to tell him about her essay and Gualeschi. “I’m reading only books these days. Mostly Grazia Deledda, she’s a wonderful author.”
“I’ve heard of her, but haven’t read her. What does she write about?”
“Families and love. People say they’re women’s books, but I don’t agree.”
“Nor do I. I’m interested in such things.”
“I’m learning so much from reading her.” Elisabetta warmed to the topic, since Sandro loved to read, too. “Sadly, she passed away recently, and her last book, Cosima, was published after her death. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature, did you know that? She was the first Italian woman to win.”
“And you’ll be the second?”
“Ha!” Elisabetta flushed.
He shrugged again. “You should write a novel. I bet you can do it.”
“Do you think so? Isn’t that too much to hope for?”
“Not at all.” Sandro grinned. “You can write anything you want to. I have faith in you. What do your parents say?”
Elisabetta hesitated. “Um, well, my father would say I should try, and my mother, well, she left this summer. She said she wasn’t happy and she didn’t want to stay.”
“Oh no.” Sandro’s face fell, and he touched her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, what happened? Did your parents have a fight?”
“No, not really, she just said she had to go.” Elisabetta didn’t want to explain to him about her father’s drinking, as it was shame upon shame. She doubted Sandro would understand, since his family was so respectable, with a father who was a lawyer and a mother who was a doctor, and nobody a drunk. Elisabetta had come to understand that her family was lower class, something she hadn’t completely realized before her mother’s departure.
“When will she come back?”
“I don’t think she will.”
Sandro frowned in a sympathetic way. “I’m sure she will.”
“No, she won’t.” Elisabetta could tell from his guileless expression that he couldn’t conceive of a mother leaving her own family, because his mother never would.
“How do you know?”
Elisabetta realized how she knew, and it broke her heart all over again. “She took her gramophone, and that was what she loved the most in the world.”
“So how are you getting along?” Sandro asked, nonplussed.
“Fine,” Elisabetta answered, feeling a deep pain inside her chest. She hadn’t realized how upset she was until this very moment, and she found herself flashing on her mother walking out the door, as if it were happening right now. Tears filmed her eyes, but she blinked them away.
“Hey, watch out!” Marco rode over on his bicycle, spraying gravel. His grin vanished when he saw Elisabetta upset. “Betta, what’s wrong?”
Elisabetta wiped her eyes, as this wasn’t the way she had imagined this day to go, at all.
Sandro answered for her. “Her mother left over the summer.”
“No!” Marco’s eyes flared with outrage, and his heavy eyebrows flew upward. “What kind of mother . . . That’s a disgrace!”
Elisabetta cringed. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“You shouldn’t shed a tear over her, not one single tear!” Marco leaned over, took Elisabetta by the arm, and lifted her to her feet. “Come on, you’re coming with me! Get on the handlebars! You need cheering up!”
“No, Marco.” Sandro rose and took Elisabetta’s other arm, holding her back. “She’s upset, and this isn’t the time.”
“Marco, I’m afraid to sit on the handlebars.” Elisabetta was pulled in opposite directions by Sandro and Marco, but not in the way she had hoped.
“Boh!” Marco waved them off. “Sandro, we need to lighten her mood! Elisabetta, if you’re afraid of the handlebars, take the seat! I won’t take no for an answer!” He lifted Elisabetta, put her onto the seat, and before she or Sandro could stop him, he had jumped on the pedals and was riding off with her. “Put your arms around me!”
“Marco, go slow.” Elisabetta’s hands reached around his waist as they lurched away.
“Tighter!” Marco pedaled faster, and they picked up speed, racing along the river. “Here we go, into the sky!”
Elisabetta held on tighter, holding Marco from behind. The sudden intimacy made her giddy, and she found herself feeling lighter and freer, with the wind flying through her hair. A burden lifted from her shoulders, one she hadn’t realized she had been carrying, and it felt good to let it go. They sped beside the water with the trees whizzing past and the birds flying around and the sun overhead. She experienced what it was like not to feel ashamed but to simply live her life, or better yet,