A Summer in Nowhere (Part II)

Now Davis is hooked. He follows Alderman's quest for the meaning of life and joins the Mathers for dinner, where Mr. Mathers gives him a recommendation.

As promised last week, this is my first paid post. It is the second part of a three-part short story. You can access Part I for free by clicking the button below. Part III will be available to paid subscribers very soon.

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After Alderman's second encounter with the priest, he meets a young Italian woman kneeling alone in the pews of the church. She is the priest's niece. She came to the United States to escape fascism. Her name is Nina. And Alderman runs into her again in a consecutive chapter as he is walking out of his office one afternoon. Alderman goes out on a limb and asks her to dinner. She declines, but says she'll sit with him at Mass on Sunday if he joins her. He takes her up on this opportunity. They go to mass together, and after Nina has received the body of Christ and the service comes to a close, they leave the church together and walk through the city. This becomes a weekly occurrence, and Nina consistently appears as the story advances, and Alderman grapples with his work and his past and continues to look for the answer to his question: Why life?

But on one Sunday afternoon, Alderman thinks he sees his wife sitting on a bench with a child across from them on Calhoun Square. He forgets about Nina, and rushes over to the woman, but it is a stranger. Nina catches up to him and forces him to explain. He has to tell her he has a wife already. And she doesn't respond. She just leaves him there.