'A meglia parola è chella ca nun se dice

Sometimes silence holds things together better than being right.

Silence at the table: a family secret

There were six of us at dinner, and at some point an old matter came up, one of those things everyone in the family knows and nobody says. My brother was about to speak; I saw him take a breath. He looked at my father, then he looked at his glass, and he drank. He didn’t say anything. Dinner ended well, and on the way home he told me that had been the hardest thing he’d done all day.