In Florence, we stayed at Via della Terme 13, above cobblestone streets around the corner from the Ponte Vecchio. At 6 a.m. every morning, I would get up and walk out, right, then make a left at the police station down the small alley, then past the Irish Pub and the shop where Daniel got his first pocket square, then past a bank. A homeless couple slept on the steps of that bank. They had darker skin, and the man had a waistcoat and button-up shirt, the woman a patterned dress. The man was always up when I walked by, smoking a cigarette, watching the immigrant vendors setting up their stands under the porticos across the street. I would go through Piazza della Parte Guelfa, then past the Duomo, lit only by reflections from the streetlights, then up Via de’ Ginori, because the only traffic on it was delivery trucks, and the storefronts were more interesting than on Via Camillo Cavour. I would turn right two blocks after the ice cream shop, go to the gym, then come back to that bakery on the corner of Via Guelfa, Vecchio Forno, where the woman would give the boys pistacchio biscotti whenever they came in during the day, and they always asked for lengua di gatto pizzas, laughing when they found out it meant Cat’s Tongue. I would get cornettos, plain and con crema, for breakfast, and something else for the walk back, and would use my few words of Italian to thank her a thousand. On the last day, I used Google Translate to tell her that we were leaving, and to thank her for being so kind to us, and she started speaking rapidly in Italian and then, when she realized I didn’t understand, put her hand on mine and squeezed it.

The streets would be busier now, with students drinking coffee in the street, smoking at an age when it could still be cool, and workers would be pumping sewage from old pits, the long hoses snaking through doors and vestibules. I’d pass the Duomo again, the Chinese couples posing for wedding photos, jockeying for positions and shooting daggers from their eyes at each other, and the public servants sweeping up bottles and tickets, driving their trucks as fast as possible before the hordes made such speeds impossible. When I got back to the bank, carrying a paper parcel of pastries, the man would be asleep and the woman would be up, watching over him. She didn’t have a nose, just a hole in her face, and her glance always reminded me of the Migrant Mother. I would always make a promise to myself that I would get them pastries the next day, and wonder why I’d forgotten the same promise from the day before.

When we were walking to the train on our last day, to go to Rome, I remembered that I’d never remembered them, and felt terrible.