That’s true and I’ve never pretended otherwise.

She thought I was young — I was — and she thought her son had married the first person who was kind to him, and she once said, at a Thanksgiving in my second year, within my hearing, that she supposed I would “settle down into it.”

What changed her was not charm and it was not effort on my part.

What changed her was that when her husband Arthur had his knee done in my third year and needed six weeks of driving to physical therapy, Luca said he’d handle it, and then had a thing at work, and then had another thing at work, and I drove Arthur to twenty-two appointments and never once mentioned it to anyone.

She found out because Arthur told her, and she came to my house on a Tuesday with a pie and stood in my kitchen and said, “I’ve been unfair to you,” and then would not discuss it further, ever, for the rest of our lives.