Anna was a maths professor at Palermo university and she had three children. The eldest, Giacomo, shared her love of numbers and sausages. The second, a girl called Rosetta, was also good with numbers, but preferred history and aubergines. The youngest, Lucio, meanwhile, was the fastest runner in his year and loved anything covered with breadcrumbs. Sadly, Anna’s husband and the children’s father, an engineer, had passed away several years before. Not unexpected, because he’d suffered from an incurable disease since childhood and had lived many more years than any doctor expected, and at twice the speed. The day before he died, wearing a red jumper, he made all four of them promise that, as soon as they were able, they would try something: every time he came to mind, they should imagine him farting like a trumpet. Which mostly worked, and made them laugh, even when they cried.
In the block opposite, on the same floor, so that kitchen window faced kitchen window, lived his cousin. Most days, someone in the family would catch sight of her. Which was uncomfortable for Anna, because her husband’s cousin, while close to him as a child, had aged into his exact opposite and was not nice at all. Over the years, she’d said all sorts of things about the way Anna washed up and brought up her children. This cousin hated bechamel.
