Two glasses of wine in, Claire feels the strain of the last forty-eight hours, and smiles, stops to think about the question. Yes, what is it like? Certainly not like she dreamed. But maybe that's okay. We want what we want. At home, she works herself into a frenzy worrying about what she isn't-and perhaps loses track of just where she is. She takes a moment to look around-at this apartment built of garbage on some crazy island of artists in the mountains, where Michael is happily giving out business cards to soap-makers and actors, telling them he "might have something" for them, where Pasquale is nervously watching the door for a woman he hasn't seen in nearly fifty years, where a quickly drunk Shane has rolled up his sleeve to explain the origin of his tattoo to an impressed Keith-and that's when Claire realizes that Pat Bender and his mother and his girlfriend are not coming to this after-party.

"What? Oh yeah," Keith says, confirming her suspicion. "They never come to the after-party. It'd kill Pat to be around all this booze and weed."

"Where are they?" Michael asks.

"Probably up at the cabin," Keith says. "Chilling with Dee."

Michael Deane grabs Keith by the arm. "Will you take us there?"

Claire jumps in. "Maybe we should wait until morning, Michael."

"No," says the leader of the hope-drunk Deane Party. He glances over at old, patient Pasquale and makes one last fateful decision: "It's been almost fifty years. No more waiting."

19.

The Requiem April 1962 Porto Vergogna, Italy Pasquale woke in darkness. He sat up and reached for his watch. Four thirty. He heard the fishermen's low voices and the sound of boats skidding down to the shore. He rose, dressed quickly, and hurried down through the dusky predawn to the shore, where Tomasso the Communist was fixing his gear in his boat.

"What are you doing here?" Tomasso asked.

Pasquale asked Tomasso if he would motor him to La Spezia later for his mother's requiem mass.

Tomasso touched his chest. "Of course," he said. He would fish for a few hours and then come back to take Pasquale before lunch. Would that work?

"Yes, perfect," Pasquale said. "Thank you."

His old friend tipped his cap, climbed back in the boat, and pulled the starter rope, the motor clearing its throat. Pasquale watched Tomasso join the other fishermen, their shells bobbing on the soft-rocking sea.

Pasquale went back to the hotel and went to bed, but sleep wouldn't come. He lay on his back and thought of Dee Moray in bed just above him.

In the summers sometimes, his parents used to take him to the beach at Chiavari. Once he was digging in the sand when he saw a beautiful woman sunning herself on a blanket. Her skin glistened. Pasquale couldn't stop staring. When she finally packed up her blanket and left, she'd waved at him, but young Pasquale was far too mesmerized to wave back. Then he saw something fall from her bag. He ran over and picked it from the sand. It was a ring, set with some kind of reddish stone. Pasquale held it in his hand for a moment as the woman walked away. Then he looked up to see that his mother was watching him, waiting to see what he would do. "Signora!" he called after the woman, and chased her down the beach. The woman stopped, took the ring back, thanked him, patted him on the head, and gave him a fifty-lira coin. When he returned, Pasquale's mother said, "I hope that is what you would have done even if I wasn't watching you." Pasquale wasn't sure what she meant. "Sometimes," she said, "what we want to do and what we must do are not the same." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Pasqo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be."

He couldn't tell his mother why he hadn't returned the ring right away: he imagined that if he gave a girl a ring, they would be married and he would have to leave his parents. And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant-how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.

When the sun finally crested the cliffs, Pasquale washed at the basin in his room and put on his old, stiff suit. Downstairs, he found his Aunt Valeria awake in the kitchen, sitting in her favorite chair. She glanced sideways at his suit.

"I can't go to the funeral mass," his aunt sighed. "I can't face the priest."

Pasquale said he understood. And he went outside to smoke on the patio. With the fishermen away, the town felt empty, only the wharf cats moving around the piazza. There was a light haze; the sun had not yet burned off the morning fog, and the waves were falling lifelessly on the shallow rocks.

He heard footsteps on the stairs. How long had he waited for an American guest? And now he had two. The footsteps were heavy on the wooden patio and soon Alvis Bender joined him. Alvis lit his pipe, bent his neck one way and then the other. He rubbed the light bruise over his eye. "My fighting days are over, Pasquale."

"Are you hurt?" Pasquale asked.

"My pride." Alvis took a pull from his pipe. "It's funny," he said in smoke. "I used to come here because it was quiet and I thought I could avoid the world long enough to write. No more, I guess, eh, Pasquale?"

Pasquale considered his friend's face. It had such an open quality, was such a clearly American face, like Dee's face, like Michael Deane's face. He believed he could spot an American anywhere by that quality-that openness, that stubborn belief in possibility, a quality that, in his estimation, even the youngest Italians lacked. Perhaps it was the difference in age between the countries-America with its expansive youth, building all those drive-in movie theaters and cowboy restaurants; Italians living in endless contraction, in the artifacts of generations, in the bones of empires.

This reminded him of Alvis Bender's contention that stories were like nations-Italy a great epic poem, Britain a thick novel, America a brash motion picture in Technicolor-and he remembered, too, Dee Moray saying she'd spent years "waiting for her movie to start," and that she'd almost missed out on her life waiting for it.

Alvis lit his pipe again. "Lei e molto bella," he said. She is very beautiful.

Pasquale turned to Alvis. He'd meant Dee Moray, of course, but at that moment Pasquale had been thinking of Amedea. "S," Pasquale said. Then he said, in English, "Alvis, today is the requiem mass for my mother."

So gracious were these two men, so fond of each other, that they sometimes had conversations speaking entirely in the other's language. "S, Pasquale. Dispiace. Devo venire?"

"No. Thank you. I am go this alone."

"Posso fare qualcosa?"

Yes. There was one thing he could do, Pasquale said. He looked up to see Tomasso the Communist puttering back into the cove. Almost time. Pasquale turned to Alvis and switched back to Italian to make sure he said it right. "If I do not come back tonight, I need you to do something for me."

Of course, Alvis said.

"Can you take care of Dee Moray? Make sure she gets back safely to America?"

"Why? Are you going somewhere, Pasquale?"

Pasquale reached in his pocket and handed Alvis the money that Michael Deane had given him. "And give this to her."

"Of course," Alvis said, and again, "but where are you going?"

"Thank you," Pasquale said, again choosing not to answer that question, afraid that if he said aloud what he intended, he might lose the strength to do it.

Tomasso's boat was nearly at the pier. Pasquale patted his American friend on the arm, looked around the small village, and, without another word, went into the hotel. In the kitchen, Valeria was making breakfast. His aunt never made breakfast, even though Carlo had insisted for years that a hotel hoping to cater to French and Americans must offer breakfast. (It's a lazy man's meal, she always said. What laggard expects to eat before doing any work?) But this morning she was making a French brioche and brewing espresso.

"Is the American whore coming down to eat?" Valeria asked.

Here it was, the moment he figured out who he was to be. Pasquale took a breath and climbed the stairs to see if Dee Moray was hungry. He could tell by the light coming from beneath the door that her window shutters were open. He took a deep breath to steel himself, and tapped lightly on the door.

"Come in."

She was sitting up in bed, pulling her long hair into a ponytail. "I can't believe how long I slept," she said. "You don't realize how tired you are until you sleep for twelve hours." She smiled at him, and in that moment, Pasquale doubted that he could ever bridge the gap between his intentions and his desires.

"You look handsome, Pasquale," she said. And she looked down at her own clothes, the same outfit she'd worn to the train station: tight black pants, a blouse, and a wool sweater. She laughed. "I guess all of my things are still at the station in La Spezia."

Pasquale looked down at his feet, trying not to meet her eyes.

"Is everything okay, Pasquale?"

"Yes," he said, and he looked up, catching her eyes. When he wasn't in the room with her, he had one sense of what was right, but the minute he saw those eyes . . . "You come down for breakfast now? Is a brioche. And caffe."

"Yes," she said. "I'll be right down."

He couldn't say the rest. Pasquale nodded slightly and turned to leave.

"Thank you, Pasquale," she said.

Hearing his name caused him to turn back again. Looking in her eyes was like standing by a door slightly ajar. How could you not push open the door, see what lay inside?

She smiled at him. "Do you remember my first night here, when we agreed that we could say anything to each other? That we wouldn't hold back?"

"Yes," Pasquale managed to say.

She laughed uneasily. "Well, it's strange. I woke up this morning and I realized I had no idea what to do now. If I'm going to have this baby . . . If I'm going to keep acting . . . If I'm going to go to Switzerland . . . or back to the States. I honestly don't have any idea. But when I woke up, I felt okay. Do you know why?"

Pasquale gripped the doorknob. He shook his head no.

"I was glad that I'd get to see you again."

"Yes," he said. "Me, too," and that door seemed to open a little-and the glimpse he had beyond the door tortured him. He wanted to say more, to say everything on his mind-but he couldn't. It wasn't a question of language; he doubted the words existed at all, in any language.

"Well," Dee said. "I'll be right down." And then, just as he was turning away, she added quietly-the words seeming just to tip from her beautiful lips, spilling like water: "Then maybe we can talk about what happens next."

Next. Yes. Pasquale wasn't sure how he managed to back out of the room, but he did. He pulled her door closed behind him and stood with his hand outstretched against it, breathing deeply. Finally, he pushed off the door, made it to the stairs, and eventually to his room. Pasquale grabbed his coat, his hat, and his packed bag off his bed. He came out of his room and down the stairs. At the bottom, Valeria was waiting for him.

"Pasqo," she said. "Will you ask the priest to say a prayer for me?"

He said he would. Then he kissed his aunt on the cheek and went outside.

Alvis Bender was standing on the patio, smoking his pipe. Pasquale patted his American friend on the arm and started down the path to the pier, to where Tomasso the Communist was waiting for him. Tomasso dropped his cigarette and ground it into the rock. "You look good, Pasquale. Your mother would be proud."

Pasquale climbed in the fish-gut-stained boat and sat in the bow, his knees together like a schoolboy at a desk. He was unable to stop his eyes from sweeping the front of the hotel, where Dee Moray had just stepped onto the porch and was standing next to Alvis Bender. She shielded the sun from her eyes and looked down on him curiously.

Again, Pasquale felt the separate pulls of his mind and body-and right then, he honestly didn't know which way it would go. Would he stay in the boat? Or would he run up the path to the hotel and take her in his arms? And what would she do if he did? There was nothing explicit between them, nothing more than that slightly open door. And yet . . . what could be more alluring?

In that moment, Pasquale Tursi finally felt wrenched in two. His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

"Please," Pasquale rasped to Tomasso. "Go."

The old fisherman tugged on the pull-start, but the motor didn't catch. And Dee Moray called from the hotel patio. "Pasquale! Where are you going?"

"Please," Pasquale whispered to Tomasso, his legs shaking now.

Finally, the motor caught. Tomasso sat down in back, took the tiller, and started puttering them away from the pier, out of the cove. On the patio, Dee Moray turned to Alvis Bender for an explanation. Alvis must have told her that Pasquale's mother had died, because her hand went to her mouth.

And Pasquale forced himself to look away then. It was like prying a magnet off steel, but he did it: turned forward in the boat, closed his eyes, still seeing her standing there in his memory. He shook with the strain of not looking back until they rounded the breakwater into the open sea and Pasquale exhaled, his head falling to his chest.

"You are a strange young man," Tomasso the Communist said.

In La Spezia, Pasquale thanked his old friend and watched Tomasso steer his little fishing boat away from the harbor, back toward the channel between Portovenere and Isola Palmaria.

Then he went to the little chapel near the cemetery, where the priest was waiting, his thin hair run with comb lines. Two old funeral-attending women and a feral-looking altar boy were on hand for the occasion, the chapel dark, moldy, and empty, candlelit. The requiem mass seemed to have nothing to do with his mother, and Pasquale was momentarily shocked when he heard her name in the priest's Latin drone (Antonia, requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine). Right, he thought, she's gone, and in that realization he broke down. After the funeral, the priest agreed to say a prayer for Pasquale's aunt, and to say the trigesimo in a few weeks, and Pasquale paid the man again. The priest raised his hand to bless him, but Pasquale had already turned to go.

Exhausted, Pasquale went to the train station to check on Dee Moray's luggage. It was waiting for her. Pasquale paid the agent and told him she would be coming for her bags the next day. Then he arranged for a water taxi to collect Dee Moray and Alvis Bender. And he bought himself a train ticket to Florence.

Pasquale settled into his seat and went right to sleep, jerking awake as the train pulled into the Florence station. He got a room three blocks from the piazza Massimo d'Azeglio, took a bath, and dressed again in his suit. In the dusky last light of that endless day, Pasquale stood smoking in the shade of the trees across the courtyard until he saw Amedea's family return from their evening walk, strung out like a family of quail.

And when beautiful Amedea lifted Bruno from the stroller, Pasquale thought again of his mother on the beach that day-her fear that, when she was gone, Pasquale wouldn't be able to bridge the gap between what he wanted and what was right. He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.

Pasquale waited until the Montelupos disappeared inside their house. Then he ground his cigarette into the gravel, crossed the piazza, and stepped up to the huge black door. He rang the bell.

There were footfalls on the other side and then Amedea's father answered, his thick, bald head tilted back, fierce eyes taking in Pasquale as if he were surveying an unacceptable meal in a cafe. Behind her father, Amedea's sister Donata saw Pasquale, and covered her mouth with her hand. She turned and squealed up the stairs: "Amedea!" Bruno looked back at his daughter and then sternly again at Pasquale, who carefully removed his hat.

"Yes?" asked Bruno Montelupo. "What is it?"

Behind her father, on the stairs, lithe, lovely Amedea appeared, shaking her head slightly, as if still trying to dissuade him . . . but Pasquale also thought he saw, beneath the hand that covered her mouth, a smile.

"Sir," he said, "I am Pasquale Tursi of Porto Vergogna. I am here to ask for the hand of your daughter, Amedea." He cleared his throat. "I am here for my son."

20.

The Infinite Blaze Recently Sandpoint, Idaho Debra wakes in the dark, on the back deck of her cabin, on the tree side, where she likes to watch the stars. The air is cool, sky clear, pinpricks of light fierce tonight. Insistent. They don't twinkle, they burn. The front deck of the cabin overlooks the mountain-rimmed glacial lake, and this is the view that causes most visitors to gasp. But she doesn't like the front deck as much at night, when light from the docks, the boats, and the other cabins compete for attention. She prefers it back here, in the shade of the house, in a tight, round clearing of pine and fir trees, where it's just her and the sky, where she can see for fifty trillion miles, for a billion years. She'd never really been a sky-watcher until she married Alvis, who liked to drive into the Cascades and look for clear spots away from the light pollution. He considered it a shame when people couldn't grasp the infinite-a failure not just of imagination but of simple vision.

She hears the crunch of gravel; that must have been what woke her-Pat's Jeep coming down the long driveway. They're home from the play. How long was she asleep? She reaches out for her cold teacup. A while. She feels toasty-warm, except for one of her feet, which has slipped out of the blanket. Pat has rigged up two fireplace-shaped space heaters on either side of her favorite chaise, so that she can sleep out here. She balked at first at the waste of electricity; she could just wait until summer. But Pat promised to turn off every light every time he left a room "for the rest of my life," if she would only indulge him this one thing. And she has to admit, it is lovely sleeping out here; it's her favorite thing, waking outside in the cold, nestled in the little incubator her son built for her. She turns off the heaters, checks the horrible pad she sleeps on now-it's dry, thank God-pulls her big cardigan around herself, and starts for the house, a little wobbly still. Inside, she hears the garage door close below.

The cabin sits on a jutting point, two hundred feet above a bay on this deep mountain lake. The house is mostly vertical, designed by her and built with the money she got from selling their home in Seattle: four stories, with an open floor plan and a two-car garage below. Pat and Lydia have the second floor to themselves, the third is common living space-an open living room/kitchen/dining area-and the top floor belongs to Dee: bedroom, bathroom with Jacuzzi tub, and her sitting room. When she was having it built, of course, she had no idea she would spend virtually her entire time here as a cancer patient, and then-after the treatments had all been exhausted and she decided to let the disease run its course-in this weakened end-time. If she had, she might have gone with a rancher, with fewer stairs.

"Mom? We're home!"

He yells up the stairs every time he comes in the house and she pretends she doesn't know why. "Still alive," she's tempted to say, but it would sound harsh. She doesn't feel bitter that way, but it's funny to her, the way people treat the dying-like aliens.

She starts down the staircase. "How'd it go tonight? Good crowd?"

"Small but happy," Lydia calls up the stairs. "The ending worked better tonight."

"Are you hungry?" Debra asks. Pat is always hungry after a performance, and he's been especially famished while doing this play. As soon as Lydia finished writing it, she showed it to Debra, who was torn. It was the best thing Lydia had ever written, a perfect capstone to the cycle of autobiographical pieces Lydia started years earlier with a play about her parents' divorce. And Debra fully believed that she couldn't finish the cycle without writing about Pat. The real problem with Front Man was that there was only one person she could imagine playing Pat-and that was Pat. She and Lydia both worried that he might backslide if he had to relive those days-but Debra told Lydia she should let him read it. He took the pages downstairs and came back up three hours later, kissed Lydia, and insisted they do it-and that he play himself. It would be harder, he thought, to watch someone else play him at the peak of his self-absorption than it would to play it all out again himself. He's been acting with the TAGNI group for more than a year now; it gives him a healthy outlet for performing-not in the narcissistic way he used to with his bands, but in a tighter, disciplined, collaborative spirit. And he's a natural, of course.

Debra is beating eggs when Pat swings around the kitchen pillar and kisses her cheek. Kid still fills a room. "Ted and Isola said to say hi."

"Yeah?" She pours the eggs in the pan. "And how are they?"

"Crazy right-wing nut jobs."