Alba de Céspedes

“What’s wrong today, mamma?” I thought maybe I’m starting to get irritable, cranky, like
all women—it’s said—when they pass forty: and, suspecting that Michele had the same thought, I felt profoundly humiliated.

In fact, although both expect from me everything one expects from an adult, they don’t seem to acknowledge that I really am an adult

a few seconds I wondered breathlessly whether to declare my right to have as many notebooks as I want and write whatever I feel like or, instead, beg him: “Michele, under
stand, I know I’ve done wrong … ” But he only wanted to find out if Riccardo had remembered to pay his university fees, because the deadline was that day.