Page 103

I laugh, and there it is again, that look. I look around us, at all this yellow and all this light.

“How did you find this place?”

“Been riding past it for years.”

“And you just decided to bring me?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

He looks toward the horizon, and for a moment I don’t think he’s going to answer.

Then he does.

“Thought you could use something beautiful.”

My heart squeezes.

I stare at him, but he doesn’t look back or make it bigger than it is, because that’s Jude. He hands you something enormous and acts like he passed you the salt.

I turn toward the sunrise again, watching the sun climb higher above the mountains while all those young flowers face the first light of the day, and I breathe it in until my lungs ache.

“Thank you.”

Jude comes to stand beside me.

“You’re welcome.”

We watch the sun rise in silence as the world around us slowly comes alive, and for once the silence doesn’t feel sad. It feels full.

Safe.

“I wish he could see this,” I whisper.

Jude grunts in agreement.

I glance at the man beside me.

Jude is staring at the horizon, hands still buried in his pockets, and something settles inside me, something I haven’t realized I’ve needed until now, because with Jude I don’t have to be okay or decide whether I’m Nora-before-Damiano-died or Nora-after-Damiano-died. I don’t have to pretend I don’t miss my husband, and I don’t have to apologize when, for five stupid minutes in a field full of sunflowers, I forget to be sad.

I can simply be me, and somehow I know Jude will still be standing there.

Maybe that’s why I look at him and bump my shoulder against his.

His eyes drop to mine.

I shrug.

“Don’t make it weird.”

That crooked smile comes back.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

We turn toward the sunrise, and I smile.

“Ok, so what now?” I ask after a while.