Summary

Leda drives to the beach, which is deserted after the rain. She stops at the Neapolitan family's umbrella, wishing Nina would appear so the two of them could talk. She wants to tell Nina about her experience of being a mother who left her children, but she wants to do it on her terms: quietly, just the two of them. Leda digs in the sand a little and thinks about returning the doll to Elena, but has no intention of doing so. Instead, she recalls, she bought the doll new clothes, "another action without meaning. . . . [or] a meaning I can't find" (80).

Leda goes for a long walk on the beach. When she encounters a pair of lovers, she begins to think about when she stopped loving Gianni: it was when Marta was an infant and Leda was exhausted. She remembers she once saw up...