Ruben

To my mother, Anna Maria Battistin: Thank you for everything.

NO LONGER DUSK, not yet dawn. It's that long, drawn-out time of the night. Time freed from social interaction. Time meant for rest that I, instead, often turn into time for work. Mornings I prefer to sleep. Late. A pleasure I would not give up for anything, or for anyone.

I look at the clock. The hands continue to move forward, indifferent. Tick-tocking in the silence. I look at the sky. Black, clear, starry, cold. Silent. I continue to paint. I'm still perched on the top step of the ladder, a brush in one hand and a can of paint in the other. One of the walls in my living room is turning golden yellow. Meanwhile, I have finished three large Moretti beers and a packet of Red Fortuna cigarettes. The bottles are empty and the ashtray is overflowing. I begin thinking . . . Not only about golden yellow, but also about pink. The pink of that extra dot that appeared on the pregnancy test. I am pregnant. I didn't want to be. Now I'm not so sure. Not easy to get up at noon when you have a child. But it's not just that.

I've never had warm, fuzzy feelings about children. Indifference and annoyance perhaps. Happy little families? Forget about it! I can just see them at dinner, sitting around a white plastic table under a miserable improvised porch attached to their old motor home, in some shabby campsite along the honky-tonk section of the Adriatic Coast. Children yelling, adults yapping, and in a corner a TV set projecting hypnotic images and words that emphasize the tired, squalid banality of it all. Exhausted mothers with flabby bodies, fat, sweaty fathers, annoying and whining children. A big bubbling pot of food, dished out like army rations on chipped ceramic plates. I have never experienced anything like that. I'm terrified at the very thought of it.

No exhausted mother with a flabby body, no fat, sweaty father. My mother was white, Italian, with brown hair and green eyes. My father was black, Indian, with black hair and black eyes. Monochrome. The only white thing about him were some spots on his face, around...