I did.
I had smiled at things all through the trip. Laundry drying between old stone buildings. An espresso so strong it made my eyes water. A church bell at noon. Two women arguing over peaches at a market stall. The way old cities make you feel both tiny and strangely vindicated for lasting this long.
James should have been there.
That grief did not disappear just because I was happy. It sat beside the happiness, gentler now, like an old ache before rain. I thought of him constantly. I thought of the trip we never took, of all the years after he died when I turned my whole life into a waiting room for other people’s needs. I thought of how astonished he would have been—not that I went to Italy, but that it took me this long to choose myself.
My phone buzzed.
A photograph from Rebecca: her tiny kitchen, now fixed up with a blue runner rug and a basil plant on the windowsill.
Grandma, can’t wait to show you everything when you get back. Hope Italy is as beautiful as you imagined.
I smiled and sent her a picture of the hills.
More beautiful, I typed. And I brought my appetite.
A minute later, the phone buzzed again.
Garrett.
His name stayed on the screen.