The first day in Italy had nothing heroic about it. It had sweat, the wrong exit on the ring road, one terrible coffee near the port of Ancona, and Marina muttering that if I said “we have time” one more time, she would get out of the car and continue alone by hitchhiking. My daughter was seventeen and had that look teenagers have when they still love you but are absolutely not willing to make it easy for you. Tall, thin, hair tied back carelessly, and her mother’s eyes, only sharper. I was forty-seven, tired from work, from my body, from the big things and the small things a man carries without ever really being asked to name them properly.