Ah, he says. Got it. Let me just check here… He extracts the thick square guidebook from the glove compartment, flips through it, sees what he's looking for. Cool. Two more exits. It should be coming up in like five or six miles. Ficulle. A quote picturesque medieval town with a castle dating from the eighth to eleventh century and several lovely twelfth-century churches unquote. The kids'll love it. I can already taste the homemade tortellini. Your mind hangs in an inbetweenness, listening to Joe Simon singing about receiving a message from Maria. Jeannie C. Riley about problems with the Harper Valley P.T.A. A few minutes, and you begin easing into the far right lane, decelerating. You flick on your indicator. That's when Nayomi says it. Almost under her breath. Almost like she's doesn't quite mean to say it, but can't help herself. Not here, she says. Robert confers with the map. No, no, he says. This is it, all right. Up here, hon. Nayomi says politely, almost shy: No, it's not. Robert half turns to look at her. He is semi-smiling again. He shifts his position to show her our coordinates. Look, he says, pointing. See? We're here. Here's Ficulle. Here's the exit. And to you: Go ahead, hon. We're good. Nayomi says: We want one farther on. You say: Hey, guys, what do you want me to do? I've got to commit here. Nayomi doesn't lean forward. She doesn't look at the map. We want a different one, she says. Her tone makes you flick off the indicator, slide little by little back into traffic, saying, confused, but trying to make it sound comicaclass="underline" Would you guys please make up your minds or something? You glance over. Robert is looking back at Nayomi. Nayomi is looking past him, between you, through the windshield. Robert's face doesn't seem quite right anymore. It takes you a moment to figure out why. His fake smile remains in place, yet the part around his eyes has gone slack. It's as though he is expressing two different emotions at once. It's okay, Nayomi says. Everything's okay. We're just getting off a little farther on. Robert asks: What's wrong with Ficulle? No one responds. What's wrong with Ficulle? he says again. And then Nayomi is saying the next thing. At first it sounds like a compliment. Your children are so beautiful, she says. Vollständige wunderschöne Augen. That's what we say in German. Absolutely gorgeous eyes. They have their daddy's, don't they? Green like lichen. Robert, maybe beginning to get it, looks over at me and says: Thanks, but I don't get it. What just happened back there? He seems minimally agitated, as if he's doing a complicated calculus problem on a test. Nayomi says: They're like little angels. Mit gutem Benehmen. Very well behaved. She looks past us, through the windshield, considering. It's really odd, she says. From when I was a little girl, I always wanted my own. Lots of them, you know? Like that old woman who lived in the big shoe. My own shoe-full of angels. Guess it's because I feel I have so much love to pass around. Robert looks at you. You look at Robert. You are both trying to understand where this is going. I had this history professor in Munich? He used to say, “Every story is imperfect.” It was his refrain. He'd stand up there in front of the lecture hall and drone on and on about, I don't know, about how everyone had such high hopes for Germany after the war, say, but how in the end the western half just became your fifty-first state, and the eastern one of the U.S.S.R.'s pissoirs. “Ah,” he'd conclude behind his crazy gray Nietzsche mustache, this touch of sadness in his voice, “but, then again, every story is imperfect.” I had no idea what he meant. I think maybe now I do. Maybe he meant, you know, that you can't ever imagine how any story is going to turn out. Not the important ones, anyway. They're never going to be as attractive or successful or whatever as you imagined they'd be, nicht wahr? He must have been quoting someone. The story where I had a lot of kids became this story instead. The story of us all traveling through Tuscany one sunny afternoon in February. Isn't that the strangest thing? Okay, up here. This one… here… She is running her fingers through Nadi's hair as she speaks. Head down, Robert lays a palm on the back of his neck, massaging, reckoning. He says Okay and reaches over and turns down the radio. Obviously I'm missing something here. His voice is trying to sound other than it's sounding. It's trying to sound diplomatic, even good-humored. I mean, I apologize and all. But, um, what exactly's going on? Nayomi keeps looking between you out the windshield. We're just getting off the Autostrada for a little while, she says. I want to show you some of the countryside. It's mind-blowing. Really. Robert reckons some more. Look, he says. He thinks about how to put what he's about to say. We're really enjoying your company, Nayomi. It's been great getting to know you. And we're super appreciative for how you've been handling the kids. You're a natural. Only… I don't know how to say this. Excuse me if I seem rude or anything. But all we want to do is find a nice place to catch a bite to eat and then get going again. We have these reservations in Bologna, and… Nayomi says: Bologna? Wow. Did you know the San Petronio Basilica is one of the largest in the world? It's not very pretty from the outside, though. It looks like a dreary train station. I wouldn't recommend it. You hear something odd and glance up at the rearview mirror. What's that? you say. What? Nayomi says. What did you just put in your mouth, you say. Nothing, she says. You just put something in your mouth, you say. I saw you. Just some pills, she says. What kind of pills? Robert says. Vitamins, she says. You say: No they're not. Robert says: You just swallowed something. You say: She just swallowed something. Robert says: Are you taking drugs? Nayomi is squeezing her daypack between her calves. Her right hand has dipped inside. Here you go, she says, indicating the exit. This one. I have to go pee-pee, Celan says, semi-rousing from his nap. Later, munchkin, Nayomi tells him, patting Celan on the leg with her free hand. Go back to sleep. Träum was Schönes. He's too groggy to put up a struggle. He doesn't move except to scratch his nose, close his mouth, open it again. Are you telling my son he can't go to the bathroom? Robert says. Get off here, Nayomi says. Don't, Robert tells you. Get off here, Nayomi says, almost under her breath. You twist down the cap on your bottle of water and slide it under your seat. You grip the wheel with both hands. It occurs to you that you won't get off. It occurs to you that you will. It occurs to you that you won't, even as you are veering away from the Autostrada. What are you DOING? Robert asks, turning off the radio completely. I just asked you not to get off. You say: Stop shouting. Robert says: