It was four years ago that, for the first time, Darcy left Gavin and Steven behind and went to Rome to visit her sister by herself. At the time, Steven had urged her to go, telling her that he could take care of Gavin on his own, that it wasn’t a big deal. “We’re a team. I can handle it.” And he could. More than that, he knew how much Darcy missed her sister, how much she needed to reunite with Rachelle and pretend they were girls again. Maybe it was their last chance, he’d insinuated. He was right.
Darcy’s mother had been the one to drive her to the airport. Darcy remembered the drive, remembered how skittish she’d felt, nervous about leaving the country and leaving her baby behind. Her mother was upbeat, trying to lift Darcy’s spirits. But at drop-off, Sam had squeezed Darcy’s hand and said, “It’s good you’re going. It’s good. But maybe you should ask her…” She trailed off. It wasn’t like Samantha Coleman to be so cagey.
“Ask her what?” Darcy frowned at her mother.
“I don’t know if we can ever ask her to come home,” Sam said. “But gosh, don’t you get the sense that she’s making a mistake? She’s living her entire life apart from us. Why?”
Darcy’s heart thudded. “I can’t ask her. I don’t want to ruin it.”
But Darcy felt, as her mother did, that by going to Rome and building a life in Italy, Rachelle had split their little family in two. She squeezed her mother tightly, then wheeled her suitcase into the airport and prepared to fly away. She marveled at the idea that one day, Gavin would choose to live a life away from her and Steven. It felt beyond her comprehension. Such was life.
This was four years ago, so at the time Darcy was twenty-eight and Rachelle was twenty-six. Maybe they were lighter and freer than now, at least at the beginning of the trip. Darcy remembered running out of the Rome airport and directly into Rachelle’s tanned arms. They leaped up and down, screaming with joy at seeing one another. Then they slid into the back of a taxi and sped into Rome.
It was like they couldn’t speak fast enough. They couldn’t say everything they needed to say in such a short amount of time. They’d lived together before, and now they had only eight days left.
That first night, Rachelle took Darcy to a bar to meet some of her friends. “This is my sister! This is my favorite person in the world!” Rachelle called out to everyone. After that, they went dancing, then went to a house party, where Darcy and Rachelle watched the sun rise over the city. Darcy was jet-lagged, confused, and euphoric. She wanted to call Steven and gush about how much she loved him and their baby. But she also wanted to live in this moment of youth and freedom.
That morning, Rachelle and Darcy headed back to Rachelle’s apartment, where she lived alone. They collapsed in bed, then slept till midafternoon, when they showered and went to a piazza to drink coffee and people-watch. To Darcy, Rachelle seemed so free and beautiful and separate from anything they’d ever knowntogether as girls. She couldn’t imagine how Rachelle could ever pull herself away from such an incredible life.
“I think we should go to the sea,” Rachelle told Darcy conspiratorially. “Diana’s giving me the entire week off, and I think we should use it. Are you in?”
Darcy couldn’t say no to anything. Right there in the piazza, on Rachelle’s phone, they bought train tickets to Naples and ferry tickets to the island of Capri, which was a playground for the wealthy, according to Rachelle. But Rachelle knew a few chefs and restaurateurs down there who could set them up with a small apartment for a few days.
That night, Darcy called Steven to check in. She told him, “Rachelle’s life is crazy. I don’t know how she does it all. It’s like she can never slow down.”
“Are you having fun?” Steven asked.
“So much fun,” Darcy said, feeling giddy and also exhausted.
The following morning, they left for Naples. The train was only a few hours, but the landscape out their windows changed enormously. In Naples, they grabbed a ferry to Capri, standing on deck and watching the craggy Italian island draw closer over the turquoise waters. It couldn’t have been more different from Nantucket, save for the fact that it was an island.
Darcy had never seen a more beautiful place.
Rachelle’s restaurant friends had hidden a key under the mat outside a little apartment, which felt risky and funny to Darcy. They let themselves into a one-bedroom place, where, on the kitchen table, Rachelle’s friends had set out a bottle of wine and written them a note telling them to enjoy themselves. Rachelle opened the bottle and poured them each a glass. “Let’s explore!” she cried when they finished them.
Darcy and Rachelle wandered the ornate, cobblestoned streets. Rachelle’s Italian was genuinely impressive to Darcy, who had never really learned a second language. Darcy hungback, amazed, as Rachelle flirted their way in Italian onto a rooftop bar with no seats available. Up there, drinking an Aperol spritz, Darcy tried to find the sister she’d once known in this stranger’s face. Rachelle beamed.
It was up there on the rooftop that Darcy asked her, “Do you ever miss home?”
Rachelle considered this, her eyes to the horizon. Around them were beautiful Europeans enjoying a swanky summer holiday.
“I guess so,” Rachelle said. “But I’m chasing my dreams. I’m building something. I feel like it’s what I’m meant to be doing.”
Darcy filled her mouth with Aperol to keep from asking her sister, “What about me?”
They spent the next day on the beach, tanning and gossiping about people Rachelle used to know, people who were still on Nantucket, who made up Darcy’s real life. Darcy noticed that Rachelle always changed the subject when Darcy spoke about parenting, as though Rachelle didn’t want to talk about something she couldn’t relate to. That, or it pained Rachelle to know that her nephew was growing up without knowing her, really.
During the last hour at the beach, the air changed. Clouds billowed and morphed, becoming lilac and red. Rachelle and Darcy hurried to the beach bar to take cover as rain poured from overhead. Everyone at the beach bar began drinking as if it were the end of the world. Cocktails were shaken, and wines were poured. Darcy and Rachelle ordered drinks, too. “I swear, Darcy, I don’t think we’ve ever had so much fun,” Rachelle said.
And then, on cue, Darcy’s phone rang. It was Steven. She considered not answering it, avoiding her responsibilities so that she could continue acting insane with Rachelle.
But she couldn’t. Her love for them was too powerful.
“Hi!” she answered, turning her back from Rachelle and everyone else drinking at the bar.
“Hey. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m going to say it fast. Gavin is in the hospital.”
Darcy felt her world tilt. Collapsing onto a chair, she demanded, “What? What happened?”
