Page 98 of The English Bookstore in Bologna

“He won’t give it to you.”

A standoff followed. Dead quiet. George looked at Bianca, then the server. He wasn’t sure whether they were pulling his leg. “Are you messing with me?”

“No,” Bianca said through a giggle. “The Italians take their food seriously. He won’t give it to you.”

“Okay, fine. Gracias,” he said to the server.

“It’s grazie!”

“Grazie,” George corrected. “And keep your eyes off my daughter.”

When the server left, George took a sip of his water. “I don’t know how you do it. These people are nuts.”

“Because they don’t like cheese on pasta?”

“Because I can’t put cheese on my pasta. I’m not putting it on his pasta.”

“Still, it’s an insult to the chef.”

“He should try it. I think he’d be surprised.” George looked at his plate. Six shrimp still in the shell. “And they couldn’t even take the heads off. I should get a discount for having to do it myself. Do I have to go back and wash the dishes afterward?”

Bianca motioned to a table of people who were gawking at them.

“What?” he said, not appreciating how she was making him out to be the bad guy.

“Dad, you’re ridiculous. Please stop embarrassing yourself and go with the flow. This is what travel is, learning other cultures. Seeing that things are done differently.”

George sighed. She was right. “Okay, okay.” He took a bite. “It is good, though. I’ll give them that.”

“Darn right, it’s good. We’re in Venice. Some of the best food in the entire world.” She twirled up a bite of her black pasta with shellfish. “Taste it.”

“Um, no thank you. I prefer my pasta without black toxic goo. And so sue me, I like it with cheese.” He shook his head, then looked up at Bianca. God bless her, she was giving him some slack and grinning, accepting him for who he was. Even George had a hard time accepting George.

And her patience for him, layered with the obvious and infectious love, did something to him deep down, rattled his cage.

He laughed at himself and at this whole absurd ride called life. “All right, okay. Let me try again. I don’t mean to be obnoxious.”

“Look at you,” she said. “I think you’re having fun. Even without cheese on your shrimp pasta.” She offered him a bite of her black sludge noodles again.

He backed away. “Muffin, not even Sir Parm would eat that vile concoction.”

Bianca wasn’t having it, and he knew that look in her eye, because her mother often had the same one. She wanted something and wouldn’t let up until she got it.

“Want me to do the airplane?” While making a motor noise with her mouth, she turned her fork into an airplane and tried to land it in his mouth.

“Okay, okay.” She was hard to say no to. “What the hell.”

He let her land the sludge plane and then chewed the bite, trying not to think about it being squid ink.

“Oh, wow,” he said after a few chews, feeling his eyes widen. He felt lighter inside, not only because of the pasta but maybe because he was letting go.

“I told you.” She leaned forward and said, “And Dad, don’t you see? There’s nothing wrong with you. You simply need to find more moments like this, whatever it takes.”

In a flash, the light feeling died. He stuck a fork back in his own pasta, wondering if this was okay, him talking to his daughter about his stuff. She’d been working on him for the last two days, prying out of him the difficulties of retirement. He’d opened up, though he’d certainly not told her of his suicidal ideations.

“Don’t do that; don’t get in your head,” she said.

“I don’t like talking about it. It doesn’t matter that you’re a shrink. I’m your dad.”