Ode to a Roman Reunion

When I announced to my nearest and dearest late in 2024 that my three sisters and I were planning a week-long reunion in Rome — without spouses or offspring — my ten-year-old grandson, a cherubic but sharp-eared listener, demanded to know, with all the umbrage of a younger sibling, “Am I an offspring?”

I had never considered that an offspring could be a rogue branch on a family tree, so I gave him a reassuring hug. “Yes, you are,” I explained, “but this is a special trip for your great-aunts and me to hang out together before too much time passes.” I imagined him thinking, “You mean before you get too old and decrepit,” referring to a line I had used years earlier to avoid tottering across a raised plank in a local park behind his older sisters.

“Will you still be speaking by the end?” a friend inquired when I told her about the plan. “Why do you think we are going for one week and not two?” I retorted, because the same thought had occurred to me. My...