Chapter 2: Francesca Summary

Richard had died on a stormy day like this day eight years before. He was a solid fellow who had given her a good life. Her children had called on her sixty-seventh birthday which just occurred recently. They didn't come to see her but she had her own celebration with neighbors. Her kids were busy with their lives and careers. She understood. They each wanted her to move closer to them but she preferred Iowa.

Francesca met Richard when she was twenty-five and a school teacher in Naples. Most of the Italian boys were dead from the war or were POWs. She had an unsatisfactory affair with a professor of art at the university. Her prospects looked bleak until she noticed the American soldier who was kind and offered her a future in America. She went with him and had his...