Summary

The narrator gets a letter from Lidia but the mother does not want her to read it right away. She is irritated after Signora Perilli spoke to her about the narrator's academic potential which contrasts the educational experience of her older children so strongly. Lidia's note is simple, stating that she is too far away and busy to come to visit, but that she is confident in the narrator's ability to adjust. She includes some money and the mother asks for some of it. The narrator shrugs weakly before demanding to know what has happened to her adoptive mother. Her biological mother does not have any answers so the narrator takes some of the banknotes from Lidia and rips them up. The mother slaps her, a bottle of olive oil is knocked over as she stumbles, and then the mother beats her around...