Partita

Livia resolves to decline Sigurd’s request to visit. She wrestles with whether to tell him about how she blames him for ruining her career and derailing her life. While distracted by these thoughts, she nearly hits a deer with her car and is horrified to realize she has no memory of driving through a school zone.

At the high school where she gives private lessons, Livia reflects on her students, including her most talented pupil, an eighth-grader named Deronne, and thinks of the secret piano lessons she once gave her late brother, Cyrus. Later, she takes a walk with Mickie, confides that her daughter, Betts, has recently come out to her as queer and her son, Ethan, has decided not to attend college. She also worries the school board plans to cut funding for her AP English class. Their conversation turns to the value of teaching art and literature in their rural community, where most people reject this kind of education as impractical if not vaguely sinister.

Livia tells Mickie about the items she found while cleaning her deceased mother’s house, including letters from her grandmother and a large manila envelope labeled “Cyrus” containing clippings, with a smaller envelope addressed to “Mom” in Cyrus’s handwriting tucked inside.