Lila had dedicated herself to the children body and soul. And it could not have been easy to wake them in time in the morning, get them washed and dressed, give them a solid but quick breakfast, take them to school in the Via Tasso neighborhood amid the morning chaos of the city, pick them up punctually in that same turmoil, bring them back to the neighborhood, feed them, supervise their homework, and keep up with her job, her domestic tasks. But, when I questioned Dede and Elsa closely, it became clear that she had managed very well. And now for them I was a more inadequate mother than ever. I didn't know how to make pasta with tomato sauce the way Aunt Lina did, I didn't know how to dry their hair and comb it with the skill and gentleness she had, I didn't know how to perform any task that Aunt Lina didn't approach with a superior sensitivity, except maybe singing certain songs that they loved and that she had admitted she didn't know. To this it should be added that, especially in Dede's eyes, that marvelous woman whom I didn't visit often enough (Mamma, why don't we go see Aunt Lina, why don't you let us sleep at her house more, don't you have to go away anymore?) had a specific quality that made her unequalled: she was the mother of Gennaro, whom my older daughter usually called Rino, and who seemed to her the most wonderful person of the male sex in the world.

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