Aida gaped at her friend. “But that’s just absurd. How can biking or jogging be bad for the environment?”
Yumi gave a snort. “Apparently, the argument is that the foot and bike traffic near the water’s edge contributes to erosion, disturbs nesting birds, and affects the river’s health. They want to limit human impact altogether.”
Aida stared at the empty space where the Hatch Shell had once stood, memories flooding in like a tide she couldn’t hold back. She remembered sitting on a picnic blanket with Erin and her parents, playing cards and sipping cold Cokes from the concession stand while the Pops warmed up in the background. Her father had always loved watching the symphony, and her mother had cherished the rare moments when the four of them were together. Erin had been like family then, Aida’s closest friend.
Now it wasn’t just the Hatch Shell that was gone; it was the last trace of those happy times. Her parents were both gonetoo. And Erin—who had not only betrayed their friendship but shattered Aida’s life by sleeping with Graham—was gone in a different way. Aida’s throat tightened, and before she realized it, tears were streaming down her face. It wasn’t just the physical loss of the Hatch Shell; it was the loss of the life she once had, the people she once loved. “How can it be gone?”
“Ohh, Aidddy.” Yumi put an arm around her and hugged her tight. “I forgot that you used to come here all the time. It really is terrible.”
A black weight of grief filled Aida’s heart. How could she have so much loss in just a day?
Yumi let her cry on her shoulder for a little bit, then wiped Aida’s eyes with her thumbs. “Come on. You must be so tired. Let’s get a little food and some coffee in you. You need to stay up and push past the jet lag.”
Aida let Yumi lead her back into the city, across another footbridge and then down the street until they were in the Public Garden. On a whim, Aida suggested a ride on one of the swan boats, a gimmicky tourist attraction but something that had always given her a little childish joy. Yumi crushed that idea quickly when she told Aida that a child had fallen off and struck her head on the boat the week before. The child was still in the hospital. Out of an abundance of caution, the boats were closed indefinitely.
They found their way to a sushi restaurant on Newbury Street to eat. Aida was quiet during the meal. Between leaving Graham and the destruction of the Hatch Shell, she was terribly unnerved. None of it added up for her. The city’s changes also gave her a weird feeling of déjà vu—not that she’d seen any of these specific things happen before, but rather that she’d had the same feeling, that something had been taken from her, wrested from her memory.
“Aida, did you hear me?” Yumi waved a chopstick at her.
“Sorry, what were you saying?”
Yumi gave her a sympathetic look. “You have so many reasons to be distracted. It’s okay. I was waiting till you visited to tell you that I’m going to come hang with you in Rome.”
Aida lit up. “Oh my god, that would be incredible!” Aida’s excitement banished all thought of the Esplanade and the Public Garden. “When?”
“I have projects that will tie me up for most of the year, but once those are done I’ll have nearly three weeks of vacation saved up that I have to take before the end of the year. I was thinking of coming to see you in Rome after Thanksgiving. I just need to figure out where I’ll stay. No offense, but I don’t think I want to stay with you. I’d be too creeped out about being watched.”
Aida was so pleased she almost started crying. “I’ll hook you up with Felix. He may know of a good place. Oh, I’m so thrilled!” Then it hit her that Yumi would be returning home right before Christmas. And Aida would have nowhere to go for the holidays.
II
11
June 2019
After returning to Rome, Aida threw herself into her work with a desperate fervor, trying to escape the emptiness that had settled within her. Two months had passed since she left London, since she cut ties with Graham and called off the wedding. She hadn’t spoken to Erin. The betrayal still festered, but beneath the anger was something heavier—grief for the friend she had once trusted, the girl who had been part of her life for as long as she could remember.
Rome was alive with the energy of tourists flocking to the city as the season ramped up, but the bustling crowds and vibrant streets only served to highlight how isolated she felt. At least her days were consumed by the demands of MODA, and she welcomed the distraction, using her work to numb the lingering pain. Each site she recorded, each artifact she cataloged, was a small victory toward keeping the ache at bay.
But even the rigor of her work couldn’t fully silence the thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her. So, following Fran’s suggestion, Aida had turned to a different kind of escape. Mo’s words about writing something that people would want to read continued to ring in her ears, prompting her to dig up the manuscript she had nearly forgotten, a mystery titledThe Shadows of Tuscanythat she had abandoned years ago, doubting her talent for fiction.
It became her refuge. Aida threw herself into editingTheShadows of Tuscanywith a single-minded intensity. Each chapter she revised allowed her to escape the relentless replay of her last moments with Graham, the bitter taste of betrayal, and the void of their abandoned future together. She wrote at a breathtaking pace when she wasn’t working for MODA, and before she knew it, the edits were complete. She passed the finished manuscript to Mara, the new agent that MODA had arranged for her, feeling a strange mix of relief and trepidation.
But Aida didn’t let herself linger in the uncertainty of what would happen next. She immediately began working on a new project,The Botanist’s Muse, inspired by her earlier conversation with Felix about Goethe’sItalian Journey. This novel, set in eighteenth-century Italy, would weave together art and science through the eyes of a young woman caught between the ambitions of a famous German writer and a charismatic Italian painter. Diving into this fresh narrative, Aida found a different kind of solace, a way to channel her academic interests into something imaginative and compelling.
As she crafted scenes and developed her characters, she was no longer just working to forget her past. She was beginning to imagine a future where she could create something beautiful from the wreckage. It was a means to reclaim a part of herself, to find meaning beyond the pain. With every page she wrote, Aida felt the faint stirrings of hope—the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she could write her own new beginning. It made her feel alive. No, it made herhappy.
One sunny June morning, Aida sat at the breakfast table in the garden loggia. “Mammamia,” she said aloud. She put down her coffee cup, alarmed at the news she read on the tablet before her.
“Ètuttook?” Chef Ilario set a plate of eggs and sausage on the table before her. He prided himself on being able to make a proper American breakfast, which had always amused Aida. She was more partial to a good chocolate-filled cornetto pastry but a couple times a week she indulged the chef.
“Sì.It’s just that they’re closing the Goethe museum indefinitely. It lost its funding. They may have to sell off the collection.”
“Is that tragic?”
“It is to me. It was the first place I recorded when I first came here to Italy. I have such love for Goethe and hisItalian Journey,” she said. Losing the museum was like losing a part of her connection to her research and the novel she was pouring herself into. “It’s also vital to my research. I was hoping to revisit some of Goethe’s original manuscripts and personal letters there, to weave more authenticity into the story I’m writing.”
“MODA certainly has enough money to support it. What if you talked to them? If you recorded its history, it must be important to them too.” Ilario poured her a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice from a carafe on the marble counter next to them.
