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suggested.
    â€œHmm, the beginning,” said Peppi thoughtfully. “I was born in the mountains. I guess that’s a good place to start.”
    As the train clacked along the tracks and the compartment gently swayed back and forth, Peppi told them about growing up in Villa San Giuseppe and how his family had made its living from the little mulino next to the house. Before long he was talking about cycling and how much he had loved to race his bicycle when he was young.
    â€œI used to race too,” said Claudio brightly.
    Peppi assessed the young man’s slight build. “A climber,” he guessed.
    â€œLike a feather on the wind!” Claudio boasted. “I could pedal uphill with the best of them.” Then he shook his head and shrugged. “Of course I wasn’t much good going down the hills, or in the sprint for that matter.”
    â€œCycling is an unforgiving sport,” said Peppi.
    â€œBut it’s the best sport,” Claudio enthused.
    Loredana give a little cough to let them know that they had discussed cycling long enough. Peppi nodded to show that he understood.
    â€œDid you come from a big family?” she asked.
    â€œNo,” said Peppi. “Actually, I was an only child. Now and then, when I was small, I used to ask my parents why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
    â€œWhat did they say?”
    â€œThey always told me that the house was too small,” he chuckled. “If another baby came along I would have to sleep outside.”
    At that Loredana and Claudio laughed.
    Peppi laughed as well. He could still remember riding off to bed at night on the broad shoulders of his father, Allesandro. Peppi loved to reach back and give his father’s dark mustache an impish yank. His father would always pretend it hurt and let out a howl like a wolf. Without fail, Peppi’s mother, Angelina, would playfully scold him for being so mean to his father. “Mario,” she would say, for that was Peppi’s real name, “basta! Enough! Be nice, don’t hurt your poor papa, he has to work for us in the morning.”
    The memory brought a grin to Peppi’s face.
    â€œBut I had lots of cousins,” he went on, “so there were always lots of people in our home. I never felt lonely, at least not until the war came and suddenly everyone began to disappear. Some of my parents’ relatives went off to live in America before things got bad. Others just ran away to God knows where. Many of the men of course were taken away to become soldiers. Lots of them, like my father, never returned. It was as if he and the rest of them just vanished from our lives.”
    â€œHow awful,” said Loredana.
    Peppi paused and shook his head. “It was a terrible war, like all wars,” he said. “It seemed like everything was destroyed. After it was over and the Germans were all gone and the Allies finally went home, it was to time to rebuild our lives, but there wasn’t much left for us to build on. My father was gone and then my mother became ill a few years later. After she died, my uncle arranged for me to come to America. I had relatives in Rhode Island and some out in San Francisco. My plan was to stay in Rhode Island for a while to get used to things, then move out west to California where one of my cousins had a job as a construction worker waiting for me.”
    â€œWhat was it like living in California?” Loredana asked. “Beautiful, I would imagine.”
    â€œYes, I’ve heard it’s wonderful there,” Claudio agreed.
    â€œActually,” Peppi chuckled, “I never lived in California.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œEh,” shrugged Peppi, “I met my wife.”
    Peppi told them the story. After arriving in America, he had gone to work at his uncle’s music store in Providence, intending to wait until he had earned some money before heading out to California. One day he was