Beginning Middle End

The narrator, a writer (primarily referred to by others in the narrative as “the mother” or “Ma”), withdraws her 12-year-old daughter (also unnamed for most of the narrative and referred to as “the daughter”) from school for homeschooling following a difficult divorce and the completion of a major project.

Seeking a new beginning, they spend April and May traveling through Europe for the mother’s book tour, living out of two suitcases. During their travels, the daughter develops a habit of buying old postcards that she never sends. In Barcelona, an encounter with a woman on the street who spills a bag of books and exclaims, “Omnes fines mundi!” (Latin for “all the ends of the Earth!” [9]) leaves the daughter crying inconsolably.

In early June, their tour concludes, and they fly to Catania, Sicily, the region where the mother’s maternal grandmother, Nanna, was from. As they step onto the tarmac, the daughter looks at the sky and describes it as a “sky-yawning.” Despite never having visited Sicily, the mother feels a surprising sense of home, which she considers an “echo of someone else’s belonging” (10). She reflects that her original plan to move with light suitcases and loose schedules until things fell back into place was impossible.