ITALY

Every evening that summer after the children were asleep she smoked a cigarette on the steps of the glacis, staring out at nothing until she could just begin to decipher the untamed outlines of the clementine trees. Every evening she stubbed out the Gauloise in the damp soil of the potted jade, then delicately carried the cadmium-stained filter to the side of the house, opening the lid of the trash bin with her ring and pinky fingers so as to flick the evidence of this little vice onto the heap of refuse with only one hand, saving her unsoiled fingers to slide open the screen door, and shut it behind her, and lock out the darkness and the barely contained wilderness, her backyard.