When Lisa Maksym tested positive for the coronavirus, she was forced to stop cancer treatments, threatening a long-planned return to Rome. The cancer that was first detected in her breasts had spread to her bones, lungs and liver. The pandemic had shut down travel nearly everywhere.
She moved in with Brenda Barton, a friend she had met in 1982 at Arizona State University. Barton had recently married an Italian man, Gian Paolo, and the newlyweds invited Maksym to stay with them in their small, ground-floor apartment.Maksym slowly learned Italian and scraped out a small living teaching English to Italian businessmen. She used Gian Paolo’s beat-up Motorino scooter to get to her teaching assignments.
In 1991, her twin sister came to visit her for the summer. The two of them traveled around Italy, dated Italian men and explored Rome on the Motorino. When Maksym got into an accident and wrecked her Honda Pilot, she and Maksym-Schorr bought a light green, retro-style Fiat 500 with the license plate Roma91.