“Friends,” he clarifies, meeting my gaze. I nod.
“There are people you meet in life that seem to just fit into a place inside of you. It’s almost as if you, or He”—he points upward—“built that place knowing who would come to fill it. It was like that. Anna just fit. And that stray—Dante,” his eyes fill again and I reach for his arm. “That dog took his place in my soul just as your mother did.”
His huge hand covers mine and I forget who is comforting who.
“You will take this, no?” He gestures toward the painting. “It is yours.”
I shake my head so hard my ponytail holder slides back an inch.
“Absolutely not. She gave that to you. It is yours. It belongs here. In Urbino.” Not in the storage container that I can’t seem to work up the courage to enter, with the rest of her paintings and pictures.
“They are still there, you know,” he whispers, pointing to his chest. For a moment I think he’s talking about the paintings. Then I realize he means those we’ve lost. “Once they take their place they never leave. Sempre con te.”
Always with you.
She’d signed every note she’d ever written me with that closing, and when she passed, I can remember reading those words with anger, thinking that it was a lie—the bullshit parents feed children to help them sleep at night.
But now, standing next to this mountain of a man, staring at the picture she painted for him, his Italian words still caressing mybrain with their gentle fingertips, I feel something flutter between my ribs—something yawns and stirs in the hole she left.
“Sempre con te,” I repeat to the painting.
And the stranger beside me puts his arm around my shoulder. As if it belonged there all along.
VENTIDUE
James
This time of evening brings peace to the bustle of Urbino. The hours for aperitivi have passed, the piazzas have nearly emptied, and people have walked, happy and buzzed, back to their home or restaurant. They’ve sat down and tucked themselves around the table to enjoy a long, delicious dinner with the people they love. They are all settled in just as the sun settles down beneath the hills that sweep in every direction from Urbino’s walls. The darkness falls gently, a warm blanket over a sleeping child, and the quiet in the streets brings quiet to my soul.
But then she arrives—five minutes late—in a black dress that holds her perfectly, and my soul is anything but quiet.
She gives a little curtsy and one of her golden curls falls forward over her shoulder when she dips her head. I step out from beneath the portico, some absurd instinct demanding that I tuck her hair back in place, while sanity keeps my hands firmly in my pockets.But she ends my internal battle by twisting it behind her ear and gestures around us to the empty square.
“I feel like I’m in the opening act of a vampire film. Doesn’t the museum close?” she asks, pointing to the huge closed wooden doors.
I nod, look down at my watch. “About an hour ago.” I slide the keys from my pocket and dangle them. “The superintendent is an old friend. She allows after-hours access to the dean and me—”
“And the women you want to impress,” she says with a smug smile as she approaches the entrance.
“And the assistant who needs to learn about the collection I’m lecturing about so she doesn’t tell the students that Raffaello is a mutant turtle,” I correct.
She keeps her distance as she passes by me, murmuring that Raphaelisa mutant turtle. The sound of laughter reaches us from behind as a group of young people make their way past the square, perhaps one aperitivo too many between them. We are invisible to them, thank the darkness and their single-minded focus, and something about that makes my heart pick up its pace as I work the key into the heavy door and pull it open. I take a steadying breath and remind myself why I’m here.
We step through the door and it closes behind us with a dramatic thud and a metallic click.
Ava looks up at me with a wide smile as we step into the open-air courtyard.
“I feel like I’m doing something illegal.” She rubs her hands together and bounces a little. I force myself to look away. She’s fucking dangerously beautiful when her eyes twinkle with mischief like this.
“You’d think a future lawyer might take issue with that,” I point out.
“At home—yes. I’m boring—”
“I doubt that.”
“But Italian Ava seems to be a bit more exciting.” She waggles her eyebrows at me and I shake my head.
“How was your shoot?” she asks.
