I hugged him tight, as I hadn39;t in the past two years, ever since I39;d wanted to feel grown up. But to my surprise, to my annoyance, I smelled on him an odor that didn39;t seem like his, an odor I wasn39;t used to. It gave me a sense of estrangement that provoked suffering mixed incongruously with satisfaction. It was clear to me that though until that moment I had hoped that his protection would last forever, now, instead, I felt pleasure at the idea that he was becoming a stranger. I was euphoric as if the possibility of evil—what he and my mother in their couple’s language claimed to call Vittoria—gave me an unexpected exuberance.