The failed plan to translate Domenico’s life manuscript is Dominick Birdsey’s effort to give Ma her father’s story in a form she could read, and its failure leaves both a practical loss and an unfinished act of love. Conceived during Ma’s final illness, the project places hope in a written family history; when the manuscript disappears, the family is left with no translation and Ma dies without reading it. The later discovery of her photograph album offers a poignant contrast: the written account is lost, but her rescued images preserve a way of encountering the grandfather she never got to see again.

The Gift and the Search for a Translator

The idea arrives in the middle of the night. Dominick wakes at 2:00 A.M. with what seems to him an obvious answer to the problem of what to give his dying mother: have her father’s life story translated, printed, and bound. The project is more than a book commission. It is a chance to return Domenico Onofrio Tempesta to Ma through the words he dictated, and to make that history available to her before time runs out.

The next day, Dominick drives to the university’s Department of Romance Languages. Its office is on the top floor of a stone building dwarfed by two massive, leafless beech trees. A secretary gives him a list of possible contacts. After an hour of false leads and locked doors, he climbs a narrow staircase to a half-landing and knocks on the office door of Nedra Frank, the last person on the list. The drawn-out search gives the project an uncertain beginning: Dominick has found a possible translator, but only after other avenues have already failed.

Nedra examines Domenico’s pages and distinguishes between standard Italian and what she identifies as peasant Sicilian. She also asks whether their author was mentally ill. Dominick registers the question as an insult, and his account of the meeting dwells on his irritation: he scrutinizes Nedra’s appearance and office as he resists what he hears as her dismissive assessment. Her first response is that she is a scholar and that his request resembles commissioning serious art to match a sofa and drapes. The comparison makes clear that she does not initially regard a translation made to satisfy a family need as a straightforward academic task.

A Commission Without Security

Nedra changes her mind and looks through the pages again. She notes that the typed pages are single-spaced, then sets terms: four hundred dollars up front and an estimated month or two to finish, given a schedule she describes as oppressive. Dominick accepts the arrangement and writes the check, although he is already anxious about how the manuscript will be handled. He fears she may summarize or omit pages and worries that the work will be shaped by her abbreviations and interpretations. The commission begins, but his dependence on a stranger’s judgment makes him feel exposed rather than reassured.

Over the following weeks, Dominick calls Nedra several times, hoping either to check her progress or answer questions. Each attempt goes unanswered. The silence does not prove that she has abandoned the translation, but it turns his concern into uncertainty: he cannot see what is being done with the manuscript or establish whether the work is moving forward. The project’s promised timetable is therefore not matched by any communication that might let him trust it.

At the same time, Ma’s illness demands attention. Ray drives her to Yale–New Haven Hospital for chemotherapy and radiation, keeps her company, eats in the cafeteria, and sleeps in a chair beside her bed before driving north on I-95 to work his shift at Electric Boat. Dominick worries that Ray is taking on too much; Ray responds by asking what else he is supposed to do. This parallel caregiving underscores the pressure surrounding the translation: while Dominick tries to preserve Ma’s connection to her father, the family’s immediate labor is focused on getting Ma through treatment and keeping her company.

The Manuscript Disappears

By March, the oncology team at Yale has begun to sound unconvincing to Dominick. Ma is in near-constant pain, and the comfort she receives comes mainly from an old Polish priest and hospice volunteers. Painting season has also begun, and Dominick says he cannot afford to forgo the work. He does not return to the university until mid-April, when he has found both the time and the resolve to ask for Domenico’s story back, whether or not the translation is finished. The delay reflects competing demands, but by then the practical question is no longer simply when the book will be ready; it is whether the manuscript can be recovered at all.

Nedra’s office mate tells Dominick that she has withdrawn from the degree program for personal reasons. Her desk has been cleared and the bulletin board stripped bare. Dominick protests that she still has something important that belongs to him and asks how he can reach her. The office mate can offer no answer. The head of the department also cannot help, while the head of humanities says she will try to locate Nedra and convey Dominick’s concern, without promising that he will be contacted. Because the agreement was between Dominick and Nedra, the university says it cannot release her forwarding address.

The disappearance has a distinct consequence: Dominick loses access not only to the translation but to the manuscript itself. The university’s involvement stops at relaying his concern; it cannot restore the pages or give him a way to pursue Nedra. The account does not reveal where she went, what happened to the manuscript, or whether any part of the translation was completed. Its silence leaves the central loss unresolved rather than supplying a final explanation.

Ma’s Death and the Other Family Record

On May 1, 1987, Ma slips out of consciousness. Ray and Dominick keep vigil through the night as she breathes raggedly and repeatedly tries to pull away her oxygen mask. A hospice worker has suggested that, if it feels right, they might give her permission to go, since someone in a coma may still hear and understand. Ray cannot accept that suggestion. When he steps into the men’s room, Dominick leans close to Ma and tells her he loves her, that she need not worry, and that he will take care of Ray; he then gives her permission to go. She dies without receiving the book. The account also stresses that she never reveals the identity of the man who fathered the twins with her.

Later, Dominick and Thomas look through Ma’s repaired scrapbook. Its loose pages have not been restored to chronological order, so images from different periods sit side by side: the twins at the 1964 World’s Fair, Ray in his Navy uniform, and Domenico arm in arm with the young bride who would later drown at Rosemark’s Pond. Although Domenico died before the twins were born, the album makes him present to them through his image. Dominick recognizes the contrast sharply: he lost Domenico’s dictated story, while Ma entered the fire and rescued the family’s visual record. The translation never carries his grandfather’s life to Ma, but the photographs preserve a fragment of the family past that the failed commission could not deliver.