Elena struggle to square the image of Nino “thrusting his taut sex inside” her housekeeper, “a woman marked by the struggle to survive, large, worn-out, the absolute opposite of the cultivated, elegant women he brought to dinner,” with the boy she admired in adolescence (238). She finally realizes that despite his loathing of his father Donato, Nino has become exactly like him. Donato molested Elena the first summer she stayed in Ischia at age 15.

In a panic over what to do, Elena settles on collecting Dede and Elsa from school and taking them to Lila’s. Elena finds that she “hated Nino as until that moment I had never hated anyone” (243).

Lila deals with the children. Elena laments that little Tina is more developed than Imma, despite being a month younger. Lila insists that Elena leave Nino. Elena asks if Lila has something to tell her. Lila says that Nino has often come to her, both before he was with Elena and after, begging her to go back to him. He even swore that he was only with Elena to feel close to Lila.