When we arrive, he takes my suitcase and brings me inside, and I don’t object, even though I’m aware he’s making this increasingly difficult.
Once we reach security, we stop. He can’t follow me through.
“I’d love to come to the gate.”
“What for?” I ask.
“I don’t know, in the hopes you might change your mind at the last minute.”
“Or you could change yours,” I venture, but his silence in return is a tacit no, and our attempt to ignore it fails miserably.
“We could try to do this long distance,” he suggests.
“So, what, I’d come here one weekend and you’d come to Belvedere the next?”
“Yeah,” he replies, sounding convinced.
“For how long? Six months? A year? And then what? One weekend I won’t be able to come, the next you’ll be too busy, then we’ll argue about not seeing each other enough, then we’ll have to decide how to move forward, and we’ll be right back here again.”
“Can we at least try not to argue? Christ, I’ve never felt worse in my life, Elisa. How can I watch the only person I’ve ever loved walk away?”
“I love you too, Michael.”
“Then why are we hurting each other?”
“I will always love the Michael I met at Le Giuggiole, the smiling Michael, the Michael who sings ‘Fiumi di Parole’ with me, the Michael who takes me to Florence in the Cinquecento he restored with his own hands, the Michael who helps me birth a foal ... but the London Michael, the Michael who doesn’t have a second for himself, the guest-in-his-own-house Michael—that’s not my Michael.”
He lowers his head and tilts my chin with his hand so I can look at him. “I will always be your Michael,” he whispers against my lips. “And you will always be my Elisa.” He brushes my lips with his. “Always.”
The kiss is like a movie, long, intense, passionate, breathtaking. I try to imprint every detail in my memory, the scent of his skin that still smells of aftershave, the warmth of his breath, the softness of his lips, his taste, the velvety vigor of his tongue caressing mine.
We separate with a sigh, and I walk away toward the security line, struggling to counteract the magnetic force drawing me back to him.
I promise myself I won’t look back, but I do it once, twice, three times, and Michael is always there, holding me in his gaze.
At least we tried—we owed that much to ourselves. It didn’t work out, but it never could have lasted between two people like us.
I put my suitcase on the belt, go through the metal detector, and retrieve my luggage on the other side. Now there’s no turning back.
I turn to look at Michael again, now just a speck in the crowd, but he sees me and I see him.
I don’t know how long we stay like this, but in the end an agent asks me to go to my gate to make room for the other passengers in security.
After a few more steps, Michael disappears from my sight. It really is over.
67
Michael
I’m physically present at the preliminary sale, but my mind is elsewhere.
I’ve just been through forty-eight hours of pure, self-inflicted psychological torture: on Saturday I stayed at the airport all morning, doing what I don’t know.
Hoping, nothing more.
Hoping to see Elisa leave the departures area as I stared at the departures board with my heart in my throat when the one for Florence started flashingNow Boardingat the top of the list.
Then it disappeared. I waited for her, but after an hour and an untouched cup of coffee gone cold, I gave up and went home.
