That’s the Way It is

Separated, middle-aged, and far from his native southern Italy, Gaetano spends his days sorting through the things people leave behind. Over the years, he has learned to read entire lives in discarded objects: grief, rage, regret, hope. Then one day, an elderly man abandons an exquisitely carved side table that Gaetano believes may have been made by his late father. Hidden inside is an unsent love letter addressed to a woman named Anna — a heartbreaking confession filled with longing and guilt.

Unable to let it go, Gaetano tracks down the table’s owner, Giulio Vergani, a lonely retired philology professor, and quietly inserts himself into the old man’s life without revealing the existence of the letter. As an unexpected friendship grows between them, Gaetano becomes obsessed with finding Anna and uncovering the story of a love that was never repaired — a search that will force both men to confront the lives they failed to live, and the possibility that it may not be too late to begin again.