"Life Imitating" Part 3: Pisa

Chapters 13-18

Chapter 13

I slept late into the morning before the bright illumination of my phone screen pierced my eyelids through the dim light of my hotel room. I fumbled on the nightstand to retrieve my phone and bring it close to my dry, waking eyes. Olivia had sent me a message that contained a photo of she and her friends atop some mountain. They all smiled despite their haggard and glistening expression. Olivia captioned it:

Summit of Quandary Peak. Despite the name, one of the easier of Colorado’s 14ers

I gave it a thumbs up emoji, deliberately ignoring the painful irony of my evening and the Colorado mountain’s name. The next message from her said:

I’m happy for you, Dad!

I gave her a thumbs up emoji.

Her next response came through quickly:

I know Mom would only be disappointed by you letting someone get away.

I mused for a moment, knowing she was right and fighting my reflex to be obstinate. After a few hard breaths, trying to build up the nerve to defend myself, I lost and simply responded:

You are probably right.

Familiar guilt and a newer, exotic shame threatened to derail me again. Forward progress seemed, suddenly, to be the antidote, driving me to my feet and into the bathroom. Part of me wanted distraction from the unprovoked and largely unwanted thoughts running through my head and the roiling emotions that accompanied them like shadows cast by a single, massive, leafless tree in the middle of a barren field. Meeting Megan had been a parting of clouds as I envisioned the world running forward all around me while facing backward. I had been like the frauds of Dante’s Hell—a hell of my own creation—ever doomed to cast my gaze backward.

I spit dentifrice-frothed spittle into the black-enameled sink and raised my head to stare into the mirror. I hadn’t viewed my reflection with with anything like self-awareness for some time. I knew the conclusion I would draw and had to be on guard. I’d done menial tasks like straighten a tie or comb my hair by aid of reflection. Reflection…not in a mirror for me but in the art and literature of Rome and Florence and with the incentive of someone who listened to me.

I’d passed four New Year’s without meaningful self-reflection, stuck in a rut of guilt and the turbulent comfort of rituals that can ensure no real dénouement. The man staring back at me I recognized, but I didn’t admire him. It was a largely unchanged face—the same as it had been for nearly five years. He had stopped progressing when the doctor gave Katie her ALS diagnosis. All their attention focused on minimizing the effects of her rapid, physical decline. I’d stagnated and gone into an orbit of sorts. Caretaking, comforting, seeing to Katie’s needs. I hadn’t the propulsion to break free and my orbit decayed until I was ready to crash into my gravitational anchor.

I shook my head with a sudden, oscillating jerk.

“NO!” I said to the man in the mirror. “It was about you that whole damn time! She was the one trying to take care of you and comfort you while she was dying. You mourned while she was dying and it crippled the final weeks and months you had with her! Is that why you do this! Is that why you go on these damned trips because you should have done them while she was still alive? But you convinced yourself you needed to work…to keep the insurance premiums paid? To make up for your shameful deceit!”

I slammed my palms down on the narrow counter around the sink. The toothbrush I still held between my thumb and the base of my forefinger pinched the pliable frenulum of tissue.

“GODDAMMIT!”

My reactionary arm-flailing sent my toothbrush skittering into the bidet behind me. I turned the tap onto cold and ran my smarting hand under the stream.

Dammit to Hell!

I looked up at the man in the mirror and sneered at him. “FU—”

The buzz of my cell phone on the counter beside me captured my attention. A grey text bubble lit up the bottom of the screen. It was from Olivia. I turned off the water, dried my hands on a nearby towel, and retrieved my phone.

I see in you a great Dad and Mom saw a good man I know that

I couldn’t help but glance in the mirror and see a different reflection, if for just a moment. While I dried my hands, another text came through.

I just want you to choose to be happy, Dad

I typed quickly with my thumbs, grateful for the typically accurate auto-correct: Thanks sweetie. You’re up late.

Typing ellipses appeared in a small, green bubble. It’s only 11 here.

Right

I pressed my thumb against the quick-formed, Pinot Noir-hued blood-blister and found a slight amount of relief.

Summer mid-term next week. Roommates gone for the weekend. A bit lonely.

Memories of Olivia as an eighteen month-old came to mind. Sweet memories of her being unable to sleep when she was young unless I was in the room with her. Lying on the floor for one or even two hours until I could sneak out. A dark room with no smart phone and not enough light to read. Alone with my thoughts in the dark. I typed: You alright?

Yup

While I tried to think about what to say, another text came through from Olivia:

Tell me about this woman you met

It was a request I really wanted to answer, but my compulsions restrained me. Finally, I sent: I don’t know what to say. I let her go. It’s up to fate now.

I smiled at the little inside joke about fate that Megan had started the previous evening.

I don’t think you should trust in fate, Dad. I think you should choose to be happy instead of hoping it will just happen.

The amusement dissipated in an instant. That’s not what I meant.

Maybe not…but it’s true. You do that. If it makes you happy to chase memories, then do that. I love you. I don’t think you’re happy. Can you look at yourself and say you’re happy?

I tried to stop myself from looking in the mirror and did a shameful double-take before just staring at him…at me. I’d stopped seeing the man I wanted to be and had focused on the man I hadn’t been. I recognized the futility of my efforts could change the past, somehow. Yet, I felt the primeval desire for forgiveness through penance. Self-flagellation was as weirdly selfish as self-fulfillment, or it was simply another branch of the same tree.

I don’t think I remember what happy means for me.

A long pause ensued in which I refrained from looking in the mirror. Having showered off the sweat and grime before bed, I finished my routine and dressed before fishing my toothbrush from the bidet then tossing it in the trash. My phone buzzed as I sneered at my fingers. Despite knowing the bidet remained unused by me, I vigorously washed them three times with soap and even tossed the hand towel on the floor to for housekeeping to replace.

Olivia had sent: No one else can know it either. But I’m sure the you from five years ago doesn’t know what the you of today needs to be happy either.

I put sunscreen on my exposed skin and pulled on my shoes before picking up my phone and typing: Thanks for your support. Get some sleep. I think I’m a little less afraid of what I see in the mirror today.

* * * * *

My ticket into the Galleria dell’Accademia allowed me entrance for that morning. Michelangelo’s masterpiece of marble sculpting, David, had alone been worth the trip last time. We spent forty-five minutes staring at it, reluctant to blink, and wondering at its magnificence. Certainly, it was the ecstasy of his artistic life, fulfilling the artist in every way that mattered most to him. I was pleased that it was the first thing on my agenda today. I tried to tell myself it was for the opportunity to see it again, to imagine Katie with me, and to evoke memories of that time in the very place they were made. But, as I descended the stone staircase from the third floor hotel, I had to admit that I was thinking of Megan’s last words to me the night before.

I could imagine her voice clearly:“David, eh?”

Now at the base of the stairs, I closed my eyes, still holding the guardrail. I felt her warmth as she drew closer to me, closing a distance that, in this moment, seemed as uncrossable as the vacuous void between death and the land of the living. Except, Megan and I were not separated by death. We were separated merely by the busy streets of Florence. She was near. She knew where I would be. I wasn’t trusting fate, I was trusting her to search me out. She was trusting me to make myself findable. If she hadn’t given up on a truly hopeless romantic.

“I hadn’t known a naked man in Italy with such cold hands since I last visited the Academia…”

I know she was talking about my shy hands. She’d done everything she could to encourage me short of saying, “When are you going to touch me already?”

My throat went tight as my heart leapt with something like teenaged, twitter-pated excitement. I was genuinely excited to go out just for the chance to see Megan again. Before the feeling could dissipate into the atmosphere, I jogged out the door of the building and onto the busy street with Piazza San Marco just to my right. I turned toward it and followed the street around the piazza, stopping at a small cafe for a fresh, apricot-filled croissant. Despite my appointment at the Accademia Gallery still half-an-hour away, I still felt irritated at the deliberate care with which the baker slowly collected and bagged my breakfast. Five minutes later, I’d completed my own deliberate and glacially slow amble around the corner from the piazza onto Via Ricasoli. I rested my back against a warm, stone wall on the west side of the street, staring at the entrance to the museum.

Between nervous nibbles of the croissant, I watched the entrance with the intent of a secret agent casing a building and on the lookout for a person of interest. Already quite warm by 9:00 AM, everyone wore loose clothing, short-sleeves if any sleeves at all, and a tourist’s early morning optimism in their expressions. If I had been expecting her, I’m sure the time would have passed at a seeming standstill, but with me hoping yet feeling that each minute that passed meant less likelihood of seeing her, the thirty minutes were over before I dared to blink. She hadn’t entered or exited.

Taking a moment to close my eyes and breathe, I tried to push the idea from my mind that I might see Megan. In a way, it helped to put Katie from my mind as well. Having David as a distraction would help pass the time. The first time I’d seen David, I had done little reading about the artist and the piece beforehand. I’d given Katie a beautifully printed book that displayed all of the work of Michelangelo. We’d read The Agony and the Ecstasy together, but we’d been unable to return to view the sculpture again as we mused about doing even during her final days.

Minutes later I found myself milling with and through a not-too crowded marble hallway lined with partially sculpted marble. The pieces were incomplete with male forms that seemed almost alive, as if captured in a moment of their struggle to escape the straight-jacket of marble that had been left un-chiseled. There was something primitive and visceral about them. A gift from the artist to any viewer, allowing them to finish the work in their own mind. A testament to the unfinished nature of mankind as a species and to men as individuals. I couldn’t help but feel compassion for the trapped, marble souls struggling for release from their petrified states. They needed someone with a vision of what they could be to come along and break them free by careful carving.

Suddenly, in the press of people around me, I felt despair. What were the chances that I would actually run into Megan here? I’d effectively abandoned her last night to go to my lonely hotel room! What conclusion did she draw during her evening alone? Some strange guy got himself off to thoughts of his dead wife rather than lay a hand on me or spend the evening with me eating sushi.

I shook my head like a bull trying to throw a cowboy and earned a few looks and some wider berths from those around me. I said “scuzi” so anemically that no one was likely to have noticed. Moaning a heavy sigh, I ignored the incomplete sculptures lining the walls and thoughts of the petrification that encased me and set my eyes on the seventeen-foot tall marble statue of David that occupied the bright rotunda thirty-feet ahead of where I stood. The Hebrew shepherd turned conqueror and king was strikingly different from sculptures done by earlier artists like Donatello’s child-like bronze rendering. Michelangelo’s conception was of a masculine hero who, though he played the harp and sang, also strangled lions and bested bears. Instead of showing us David after he’d slain the giant, Michelangelo presented a David who wasn’t looking back on his victory, but forward to the task before him.

I heard Matt’s voice in my head. This putt.

When I chuckled, it brought me into the moment, aware of my longing but, for a moment, at peace with what I lacked. I didn’t imagine Katie and only peripherally wished for Megan to be beside me. So many sculptures of so many masters still lacked the quality of movement. They appeared as a person posing with the intent of capturing their likeness but not their intentions. I was put in mind of my own reflection in the mirror that morning. However, Michelangelo’s David, like his other works, seemed to capture a candid moment of the person while they went about normal activity. It inspired the Italian maestro, Vasari, to later say that Michelangelo had performed a miracle in his sculpting of the young, Hebrew king. That he had restored “to life one who was dead.”

Resurrection put me in mind of myself rather than of Katie. I’d spent four years carving myself into a pathetic form of a man, dead like the sculptures of lesser carvers. Michelangelo carved and finished David in three years despite choosing a marvelous but flawed marble that more than one artist had already began carving only to abandon their efforts due to an irredeemable piece of rock.

I admired the enormous sculpture from various points, sometimes standing and others seated on a bench along the back wall, always staring upward, captivated by the nearly flawless attempt to capture the essence of not just the man, David, but mankind. I thought now, as I did four years earlier, that if I were to select one thing to express to an alien race, the essence of humanity, it might be David, by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The near flawlessness is what completed the perfection of the sculpture. No man is perfect and neither should his or her likeness be.

I spent nearly two hours in the presence of the masterpiece. Not always staring, often with my eyes closed in contemplation, experiencing a mix of emotions as I studied the composed, poised, and courageous expression in body and face. Trust in a power beyond himself to deliver him the victory. Perhaps Olivia and Megan were both only half correct. I could choose my stones and load my sling, but I couldn’t make my wife’s memory pass nor could I pull someone new into my life. I had to be willing to face the future, unlike previous David’s who were depicted after having faced and conquered their Goliath. Whatever I was doing with my devotion to Katie, whether out of guilt or out of love or both, hadn’t been the answer. Either trying to recapture our memories and trying to avoid them served as a constant reminder of her.

I entered the Accademia alone, viewed David alone, and left alone and reminded myself of many painful as well as pleasant memories. The contrast put me in mind of the sculptural technique in which Michelangelo captured his David. Contrapposto—counterpoise. Weight bearing out of balance and further challenged by a twist in the torso and shoulders made doubly apparent in David’s further opposing turn of the head to stare at Goliath. A necessity of the wounded marble block Michelangelo had been given; a powerful vision for what the misshapen block could become. Perfect quality stone. A master’s hand and the master’s vision of possibility within the marble.

After a light lunch, I aimlessly wandered the streets of Florence. My feet took me back to the Ponte Vecchio and stopped at the familiar viewpoint at the center where, today, the people on the Ponte alle Graziè all walked forward and looked forward. I paid the entrance fee to the Bardini Garden and climbed the switch-backed path to the piazza at the top. I ordered the Chianti Megan drank the day before and thought of myself blushing the same hue of crimson of the wine in my glass. I stared out over the city across the Arno, wondering where in the beautiful city I could find her. I’d gone from searching for my wife in memories to searching for Megan in the same way.

Dinner time approached as I made my way back across the Arno, taking the Vecchio this time and finding satisfaction in the simple act of defiance against my own compulsion. I found a ristorante in the Piazza della Signoria—not far from the Cattedrale dell’Immagine, where the three tenors concert would be held in a couple of hours. A table for one.

In full view of Neptune’s Fountain, I drank two glasses of Chianti in rapid succession before I let myself look at the captivating sculpture in the fading, evening light. Compulsively, I tapped the screen of my iPhone and stared at the picture of myself and Katie standing before the very same fountain five years earlier. She’d relieved her bare shoulders of the extra layers that made the July heat go from severe to overwhelming. She was still strong. Still alive and happy. The big deal I made in my mind of her not wearing a bra. Such a simple thing. It shouldn’t have been exciting except for how out of character it was for her. Now, staring at the fountain of Neptune, and glancing at the photo on my phone’s lock screen, I imagined Megan in the sleeveless dress beside me.

On impulse, I swiped my phone open before I was aware of why. A tap to open the photos and select “recents”. The last several photos were of Megan and I on a Vespa together. The hazy Tuscan hills rolled out behind us with their perfect rows of vines in red-brown, mounded soil and statuesque Cyprus’s lining roadsides and property lines. I set the phone down, and snorted at hearing my own comment repeated back to me: “Romance must be shared.”

The pleasant din of cutlery on plates, wine-bottle necks tapping stemware rims, conversations in German, Italian, and English and the soft hum of an international city after sunset testified to my lack of solitude. It only magnified my sense of being alone. Even my imagination failed to conjure the reassurance of having been wanted and having shared this place with someone I loved. Companionship was necessary if not sufficient for romance.

The first trips after Katie’s death had not been this way. The first, to England, had been almost exhilarating, just months after Katie’s memorial service. Washington, D.C. began to feel lonely within a day, and I’d cut the trip short. Walking the beaches of Hawaii, climbing steep, muddy trails into its tropical forest became less a balm and more a bruising reminder of what was missing. Every trip decayed quickly into painful reminiscence. Then there was Rome. A city cloaked in memories and imaginings that nearly drove me to despair on the first day. How had I managed to reach Florence? Here, in the first hours, I’d been relegated to wander in resignation until Megan, literally, took me by the hand. I’d had a chance, given to me by my own failures and perhaps some funny coincidence or providence or grace—alle Grazie—and I’d chosen to abandon it. The pain of the past was familiar, overwhelming but not frightening, unlike the fear of pain that might come. At least, with Megan, like romance, there would be someone with whom to share the pain. Even for stalkers and lonely, pathetic widowers, romance isn’t a place or a memory. It’s the sharing of a place and time and experience that brings anything meaningful into existence.

Raising my view, I took in the the stark white statue of Neptune surrounded by ebony sculptures about him. Like my experience on the Ponte Vecchio the previous day, some idea or insight about the fountain stubbornly resisted my attempts at recall. I clenched my fists in frustration and thought that perhaps all my attempts at living were an attempt to grasp at some profundity. Like artists whose work I so admired, they grasped, reaching for the heavens to place their own mortality into an eternal and meaningful perspective.

I glanced at my watch, realizing I’d mused for longer than I’d planned. The Three Tenors concert would begin in fifteen minutes. I waved to the waiter and asked for my check, quickly if possible. While he prepared the check, I finished my last glass of Chianti. During the final sip, I peered over the brim toward the fountain. At that instant, a familiar form in a green dress slipped into the crowd. My heart skipped and I stood, scanning the throng where a dark blond head bobbed as she made her way northward out of the Piazza.

Feverishly, I searched for the waiter. A few tables away, he took an order from a large group. I tried to do quick math and settled on throwing down a 50 Euro note and calling out a “grazie” to him as I slid sideward between tables. Near the opening in the half-fence that surrounded the outdoor dining area, I realized I’d forgotten my backpack in my haste. Repeating “scuzi” to no one in particular and yet to everyone at once, I slid past again. I tripped on a chair leg as I snatched my bag and somehow recovered to hop the black-metal half-fence, and sprint toward the last place I’d seen the bobbing, blond-haired head.

I blabbed more appeals for pardon as I attempted to politely push my way through the crowd, wishing that I could make a path like the parting of the Red Sea. Here I was, in the Piazza of Neptune himself. He held sway only over water and horses. Who could do the same to flesh and blood and the human mind? Through the crowd and past the sea-green patina-covered bronze statue of Cosimo Medici on his huge horse. Sea-green as if Neptune’s proximity had an influence on the hue of corroding bronze. I jogged northward between a narrow gap in buildings as I scanned those ahead of me walking in the direction of the person I’d seen.

Two intersections ahead, in the dim light that was available, a flash of pale, gray-green turned westward. I sprinted toward it, grateful that there was little crowd to be navigated and only one busy road to cross. In my haste, I didn’t notice the names of the streets, I just knew that I was headed toward the Duomo and it’s Piazza’s throng of crowds and many exits. If only I hadn’t forgotten my backpack!

By the time I reached the intersection, there was no green dress or dark blond hair to be seen. She may have entered a store. I tried to peer into the window of each store I passed, painfully aware that I couldn’t adequately scan both sides of the street. When I reached the next intersection, I stood on tip-toes. I reasoned that she would not turn back the way she’d come nor would she be likely to go south, having already come from that direction. Did she even know I had been in that piazza eating dinner? If she knew I was following her would she welcome being chased?

I spent too long trying to find her and, finally, following some instinctual prompting, proceeded northward toward the Piazza del Duomo. If there were so many roadways leading to and from the square, perhaps statistics and fate could work together for my benefit. Thinking I caught another glimpse of green a hundred yards ahead of me, entering the piazza, I managed to quicken my pace and even smiled at myself when others on the street paused to watch the crazy American. I thought of myself sprinting in Tom Cruise’s iconic manner which Katie and I had always shared a knowing glance when we saw it.

When the roadway opened into the wide, sprawling piazza, I slowed and stopped and willed myself to see over, beyond, and through the throng. Sweat dripped from my head and I began to feel as if my torso were a steam iron. I raised my shirt and wiped from my forehead the beaded sweat that threatened to give into gravity and cascade downward to obscure my vision. Venders selling cheap watercolors of Tuscan and Florentine landscapes spread their prints along the edges and even in the middle of the cobbled square. Proprietors of carts with cheap leather purses and vestigial souvenir trinkets packed up and secured their wares for the night. Street musicians, instrument cases open before them, performed a classical, Italian tune, nodding to those who dropped a coin or a note in their awaiting case. Tourists posed before the multi-colored, ornately decorated, and massive walls of the imposing Duomo. Ghiberti’s golden, Gates of Paradise, surrounded by a protective, metal fence, still attracted a throng of greedy onlookers. It was hard to stare at that much gold and not feel some avarice. I didn’t want their gold! All I wanted was the sight of Megan’s dark blonde hair and pale skin, and…Whoever I had been chasing was beyond my sight, and I lost any sense prompting me as to which direction I should go.

Chapter 14

As much wine as I’d taken in that evening put me to sleep but kept me from resting. Megan was right, I am a lightweight. I didn’t feel it wise to take any sleeping medications thus, I tossed and turned all night and nearly resigned myself to walk the streets of Florence as an escape from the torment of a sleepless night. Through grim determination, I managed a couple of hours of fitful rest before giving up. I took a shower and left the hotel as the sun rose.

Not yet hungry, I didn’t bother to get anything to eat and chose, instead to simply wander the streets. In the back of my mind, I knew where I would be by 8:30 that morning, but I let my feet carry me toward Santa Maria Novella. When I arrived at the already bustling area near the train station, I watched the commuters disembarking into Florence and others lugging their wheeled suitcases into the station. I felt a sudden urge to simply enter, buy a ticket, leave everything behind in the Hotel Miceli, and quit the city of the Renaissance. My life could simply be stuck in the dark ages my mind created, reactionary and intent on conserving a golden age I couldn’t possibly hope to resurrect. It wasn’t like me to leave things behind. I such dramatic change like starting a new diet. You didn’t wait until you’d eaten the junk food you had, you threw it out as a sacrifice to mentally and tangibly commit to the new, preferred lifestyle.

I considered the choice for sometime on the street corner across from the station. This distracted me until my thoughts found their way to Katie, and I realized that she hadn’t been on my mind the night before. Impulsively, I turned and made my way back toward San Marco’s. Feeling light as if I’d emptied some reservoir of mass from my body, I stopped at a cafe as I passed by and ordered a latte. I passed the next two hours, aimlessly perusing my phone, plugging in the name Megan and seeing what came up. After a perilous and meaningless, wide-netted search, I narrowed my query to Megan American in Florence. This resulted in dozens of blog posts, TikTok videos, and Twitter posts from tourists over the years. I perused more than two dozen—none were of her.

I reasoned that despite not having a cell phone she must have a computer or tablet at the very least. Unsure what she did and remembering her saying that she was a trust fund kid, I searched for Megan Leesburg Art History Florence. I did find an old student profile from Syracuse that had her photo with a group of what I assumed were her fellow master’s students and some faculty. It was taken in the Accademia Galleria near David. Other than that, I found nothing tangible.

I closed my eyes and pondered a moment, trying to do as I had done this whole trip, and tried to relive our first moments together. Recalling everything she had said about herself proved somehow easier than I might have thought. The idea that I was chasing a living person by remembering our time together seemed to focus my mind. I knew few details about her but one phrase came to mind: Looking for the art in everyday life.

I typed it into my phone’s browser with Florence, Italy, Art History, and Philadelphia.

The search engine offered dozens of options in an instant. Galleries, Quora and Reddit links, LinkedIn and Amazon and .gov were at the top. On a whim or prompting, I narrowed my search to blogs.

…

https://www.beamused.com>looking-for-the-art-in-everyday-life

BEA MUSED - Moving Forward; Facing Backward

I discovered him on the Ponte Vecchio in my search for art today. Tall, not-too-light, and handsome. I might have passed him by in my rush to find the art in life, were it not for the…

Art History | Florence | Italy | Life Imitating Art

The sensation of my heart falling into my stomach and my throat following made me hesitate with my finger suspended over the bold-faced link on my screen. This was Megan! How could it not be her? Curiosity churned and my hands began to shake. I wanted to read it yet feared how I would feel when I finished. Would I be flattered or flattened? Her quip about art in everyday life was quite literally what she did. It hadn’t been an evasive remark. Had I simply been a mark for her? A case study to write about and to feed her stream of subscribers and readers?

I clicked the button on the top of my phone, rendering the screen dark and flipped the device face-down on the table. I sat back, wanting and even needing to jump to conclusions while telling myself I was far too mature to not give someone the benefit of the doubt. Yet, I couldn’t help it. No wonder she hadn’t been anywhere to find me yesterday. Yes, that was the reason! She’d extracted what she needed from me for her blog, coercing with kindness and kisses and interest. I recoiled into my habits, thinking of Katie and thanking my nostalgic nature for keeping me from going any further with Megan. I didn’t need her telling the world how lousy a lover this pathetic widower could be! Did she name me? Did she say where I was from? What were the chances of anyone who knew me actually reading the post?

I slammed my fist down on the table causing the empty, paper coffee cup to teeter and fall where it rolled in a circular pattern until it clattered with a muted echo to the ground. I flipped my phone, letting it clatter carelessly, opened the screen, and prepared to close the browser window, clear my history, and get the hell out of Florence! I’d come here for myself and my memories, not to be used by someone looking for an outrageous story to entertain their readers. Why should I let her get the better of me? Why should she or anyone change my plan? I closed the phone without taking any action, pocketed it and made my way eastward, near the Arno, toward the Uffizi Gallery.

After a long wait in the queue, I had my ticket and entered. My agenda changed in my anger and the few pieces I really wanted to see seemed silly. Katie’s memory wasn’t sufficient in the moment to make me care. I was here because I didn’t know what else to do. As I ascended the long, marble stairs with the flow of tourists, I promised myself that, as much as I had loved Katie, I wouldn’t let her memory and my commitment to her make me into a fool! I couldn’t simply hide how I felt, I needed to find the reason and the motivation to move on. Not to let Katie go but to discontinue carrying her with me into every moment. What person might Megan have met two days ago if I’d managed to move from hopeless romantic to hopeful before their meeting rather than during? I’d transitioned while we were together. Not entirely, but the beginnings of yearning and wanting to move on into the present from the past had not only germinated, they’d taken root. I’d spent the following day feeding the growing sense of desire, hoping for what I couldn’t see. Hoping for what I’d let go the night before. Megan had expressed a desire to see each other again. She’d been flirtatious and disappointed and hopeful and maybe genuine. It hadn’t felt like a ploy. It hadn’t felt like an act to see how I would respond.

Almost unthinking, I reached into the pocket at my hip and removed my phone. The unopened blog post remained as it had. I looked up to find myself in Room 9. Before me were the seven portraits of women depicting the seven Cardinal virtues. And there was Hope. Sitting on her simple throne in her unadorned finery with hands pressed together in the attitude of prayer, head tilted slightly backward and eyes gazing heavenward. That for which she hoped, out of sight yet ever on her mind.

Distracted by the log post in my hand, I backed away from the Virtues with my eyes reflexively moving to the left in the habit developed from reading, and fell on the only virtue painted by Botticelli, Fortitude. I registered pearls in her hair and about her neck and knew the gentle awareness of some connection made beyond my consciousness before the painting disappeared behind a barrier.

It was easy! Why did I torture myself? If Megan kept a blog, I could reach out to her through it. Surely there was a way to contact her.

With few places to sit, I found a corner with no one passing nearby and where I wouldn’t bump a barrier and set off the proximity alarms surrounding much of the gallery’s precious artwork. After a few rapid, deep breaths, I tapped the link for the blog and closed my eyes as it sluggishly loaded. I nearly lost my nerve before the page populated with a simple design and no annoying adds.

I read as a starving dog would devour anything placed before it, only aware of one tenth of what I actually took in:

Tall, not-too-light, and handsome…

Dreamily staring toward the Ponte alle Grazie…

Nice smile hiding a deeper…

…sweet at first, due to its ubiquity in every observation, became…

I saw the side of a sculpture, often hidden in the recess of the nave behind, a pathetic…

…lively and stimulating conversation.

…more to him than could pierce his grief.

…spontaneously accompanied him into Tuscany.

…wonderful evening!

Despite seeing everything though the lens of loss, what he did manage to see…

…like the veins over the sinewed muscles of David.

…couldn’t help but give in to the urge to kiss him.

…hoping a connection could be made without trampling the memory…

He returned the kiss!

He held me and made me feel he wanted to know me before he groped me.

…the handsy tour guide who was that rugged attractive of many Italian men.

Even his expression of shame was endearing, almost cute, and made me feel safe.

We love David for his honesty. We love the works of the masters for their capacity to show us reality in the face of dishonesty. Michelangelo giving us a real child in his Holy Family and Caravaggio giving us a terrified Isaac and demented Abraham that speak to real people regardless of piety. They don’t need iconography to impress, as Patrons of the arts long paid artists to create in adorning their church’s and their palaces.

Those were two paintings I personally admired. Two of my favorites in the gallery. And for similar reasons. She was repeating what we had talked about, expressing a shared sentiment.

…There is nothing pathetic in being real. Beauty was all that…

…began our relationship with me calling him Mr. Stranger. Imagine that: safe with a stranger.

My only disappointment is that the part of me that craved to be with him, the carnal, sensuous part that loves art and can’t always tell you why, had to leave him because he had to leave me. I hope fate…

“Reid?”

Through a thin rim of tears, I saw her staring at me from two steps away. I doubt she saw my phone, but I hastily darkened the screen with a click and slid it into my pocket. “Oh my, God! Megan!”

I stepped toward her with the intention of taking her into a twirling hug, but I wasn’t quite sure what she wanted. With my hesitation, she took the initiative and stepped into me, pulling me in and laying her head against my chest. I returned the brief embrace then she stepped back and said, “I missed you, you know.”

Missed? Considering how a person who misses someone can feel, I thought of Katie and how much and for how long I’d missed her. The typical edge to my anguish did not come through. I sighed, utterly satisfied. “I must say, it feels kinda nice to be missed.”

She twisted slightly back and forth and chuckled, then took my hand. I noted, as the hem coiled and uncoiled about her waist, that Megan wore another summer dress with spaghetti-straps and white fabric adorned with hundreds of tiny purple flowers over a short-sleeved, wide-necked, lavender silk undershirt. Her hair was in a loose French braid that she pulled forward over her shoulder with her free hand. She gestured to my pocket where I’d just placed my phone and then to the gallery around us. “Reading up on some piece in particular?”

“Only if living humans count as a piece from time to time.”

“Sure they do.”

“Then, yes.”

“Which one?” She looked around at the tourists all around and then the many busts that lined the hall.

“I guess,” I said, “I ended up learning a bit about myself.”

“Ooohhhh,” she teased. “I’d really like to learn more about that piece, too.”

I worried that anything I said or did would now be disingenuous, trying to be who she thought I was or, rather, who I thought she expected me to be. Perhaps reading her blog posting had been a bad idea but, had I not read it, would I be upset instead of relieved to see her? I’d possibly encountered thoughts about me she wasn’t ready to share with me. She had put them out on the internet for anyone to see, but certainly she couldn’t have expected I would stumble across it. I suspected, through my brief interaction, that her blog was anonymous for anyone who didn’t already know it was her.

“So,” she said, pulling me out of my own thoughts, “what did you come here to see?”

“I think the beautiful piece I was looking for actually found me.”

She affected a serious expression, bringing her fingers to her chin as she made a show of deep contemplation. “How interesting, Sir Stranger.”

“Amazing what you can see when you’re looking the same way your walking.”

“So life does imitate art.”

“For better or worse.”

She gazed into my eyes with a demure, lovely expression until I tugged at her hand and pulled her in the direction of the natural flow of observers. After an awkward silence, I cleared my throat as if it might purge me of a sudden unease. “So, do you come her often?”

She slugged my shoulder. “We’re past cheap pick-up lines, Reid.”

I raised my palm in preparation for defense. “If we are past cheap jokes, this isn’t going to work.”

She took a small step away as we continued to walk. We we were near the crowded, cordoned room in which the first century, Greek, marble statue of Venus had it’s place. Megan still stared downward. I was tall enough to see over most of the heads.

“You probably can’t see at all.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“You know,” I said, driven on by my growing, unaffected unease, “Katie loved this one. I think it’s okay. But, right now, all I want to know is what you, Megan, the Florence girl in search of art in everyday life, thinks about it?”

Surprised at how spontaneously I’d just spoken those words put me at ease. Maybe she had developed an interest in a genuine me.

She shifted her weight and uncomfortably chuckled as she said, “Did I say that yesterday?”

“Two days ago,” I said, holding up two fingers. “I’ve been counting the—” I began cycling through raised and lowered fingers, “—well, hours, actually.”

When she finally looked up at me, she was, for the first time since I’d met her, actually blushing. “You can be kinda sweet for an old man.”

Trying to force down my own blush, I coughed and said, “What do you think about it?”

She shook her head with a confused expression. “A sweet old man?”

Now I chuckled uncomfortably. “No—well, yes. But, Venus, I mean.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Are you asking me as an art historian or a human being with feelings?”

“Kinda both…I guess. But, absolutely a sweet young art historian slash human being with feelings.”

“She’s beautiful, feminine, divinely and pleasantly plump by today’s supermodel, beauty standards.” She pulled me away from the doorway and throng of photo-ravenous viewers. “I wrote about it during my degree program. Everyone did.”

I was deliberately slow in asking, “You sound like you don’t really like it that much.”

Another shrug. “It’s a masterpiece but after school…you know? I just decided that if I was going to write about something beautiful, it was going to be because I really admired it for some reason, and I didn’t care if anyone else felt the same way about it.”

Swallowing a lump of elation in my throat, I said the first thing that came to mind that wasn’t about her blog. “That reminds me of the Disney movie, Ratatouille. Have you seen it?”

She chuckled. “Are you kidding! I wrote about it!”

“Wow,” I said. “You must really have liked it.”

Megan generated a decent British accent as she said, “I don’t like art, I love it. And if I don’t love it, I don’t—” she made a rolling gesture with her hand. “…write about it.”

“That was a fantastic Peter O’Toole!”

She puffed up her shoulders and said, in the same accent, “Great art can come from anywhere.”

I wanted to repeat the rat, Emil’s line, you have a gift! but, instead, I released our interlaced fingers to clap. “Bravo!”

She rolled her hand about her waist and made a slight bow. “In that spirit, I literally go around the city of the Renaissance, the home of masters of art and science, and instead of examining their art as a critic—”

Anton Ego’s speech from the end of Ratatouille echoed in my mind.

“—I look for the beauty that comes from everyday life. From the places we don’t look for anymore because they seem banal or don’t match our socially conditioned idea of what is beautiful.” She became animated in her excitement. “This is the stuff that Michelangelo looked for, beyond the iconography and the artistic conventions that prevailed when he began his work. And, for everyone, its the stuff that affects us everyday whether we are conscious of the affect or not…why are we stopping here?”

I pointed into the room ahead of me, another one roped off from the crowd. “That is one I like.”

She shook her head. “This is the same room.”

I had led us around the corner to a less crowded doorway to The Tribune room. Venus was not as easily visible from here but the smaller crowd permitted us a better view of a sculpture known as Wrestlers. The Roman reproduction of a lost Greek, macael-white marble depicted two nude men in an aggressive grapple.

I could tell by the silence that she was taking in the sculpture, perhaps seeing it anew. She asked, softly, inquisitively, “Why this one?”

Taking my own time to consider her question, I shuffled my feet uneasily. “I don’t know, really. It just seems full of life and vigor. Not like a pose captured in stone but like two real men frozen in an instant of activity—like a candid photo. Their likenesses are stuck in time, and we are only here to view that moment and speculate about what got them to where they are and what the outcome might be. That remains undetermined.”

“In a way, it captures life.”

Folding my arms, I found I held my breath and forced a long, slow, exhalation. I considered the ramifications of what I was about to say before I was even aware I would say it. “Thank goodness we’re not made of stone.”

We accompanied each other through the various rooms and hallways of the Uffizi, and I found that every time I might have been naturally inclined to mention Katie, the urge to know Megan’s opinion superseded it. I wasn’t prepared for the moment she said, “I thought about what you said yesterday.”

“Two days ago,” I reminded her.

“You’ve really been counting.”

Through an embarrassed chuckle, I said, “I spent two hours yesterday morning in the Accademia, hoping fate or something would bring you there. Then I went back to the Bardini Garden, hoping to find you there. Then I thought I saw you walking past Neptune’s Fountain and tried to chase you down. It probably wasn’t you.”

She shook her head and pursed her lips amusedly. “I stayed south of the Arno all day yesterday.”

“So, yeah, I’ve been counting.”

Megan clasped her hands on straight arms before her waist. “I wondered if you regretted not joining me for dinner.”

“Oh, I did. I’ve been trying to convince myself not to regret what brought me to where I am.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“No one is more surprised than me.” I folded my arms.

She tipped her head to the side and said suggestively, “Imperfection can sexy as hell.”

“Oh! Well then…consider me George Clooney.”

This time she blushed and stared into my eyes for a long breath which I think we each held. Then she said, “Do you remember your thoughts on this one?”

We stood before Michelangelo’s richly, almost comically colored painting of the Holy Family.

“I remember what I think about it,” I said honestly. “I’m not sure I could tell you what I said to you about it yesterday?”

She grinned. “Two days ago, Reid.”

Almost in a whisper, I said, “Oh, eff me.”

She patted my arm. “Later. Right now, I’d like to know what you think.”

I had well-formed thoughts about the Holy Family. “With all the pious little haloed babies blessing and sanctifying church fathers and all the iconography we’ve seen so far, I think it’s refreshing to see someone present a real baby to the world. It makes me think Jesus could be real. Even more perfect in his imperfection because he’s just a real baby.”

“Right! Imperfection is what is real. It’s sexy as hell!”

A few onlookers near us recoiled in shock, whispered their condemnation of the dirty language even if it was spoken in English. One older Italian woman, her hair covered in a lace kerchief tied beneath her chin muttered a “Mio Dio” as she took a step back and crossed her self, leaving her trembling hand over her heart.

“Scuzi,” I said.

“Scuzi,” Megan repeated. Then she said to me, “I should have said inferno…what?”

“Are you saying that Michelangelo’s baby Jesus, being imperfect, is….”

She gasped and punched my shoulder then looked at the painting, her head tilting to the side. “Now that I think about it…”

I grinned and pulled her away. “Enough of that young lady.”

She protested, something including Mister Stranger but followed me as we made our way through the remaining rooms and down the stairs making simple and trite comments on the sculptures, frescos, and paintings. The last painting we stopped to really examine before leaving was Megan’s choice. “You said something about imperfection and reality when we spoke about this Caravaggio yesterday.”

“The Sacrifice of Isaac,” I said. “Yeah. Last time we were here I was tired of this place and the crowd and the heat and nearly missed it. I honestly didn’t even know it was here until I was nearly past it.”

Her voice was musing when she said, “I like the art of everyday life. The stuff that surprises you because it’s real and unadorned. You know? No pretense. No shame for baring its tiny stone genitals. Piety and modesty are just a show people put on for other people. Isaac would have to have been terrified and to me Abraham is utterly delusional. A kid or a man about to have his guts spilled wouldn’t be standing under a halo with his hands pressed together in an attitude of submission. Because the human part of us can’t be ignored or so completely suppressed.”

I grunted in agreement.

“You also told me,” she started, “that you were pathetic. For a little while I believed you. But…you only think that because society has tried to tell you that something about how you feel love or shame or pain is pathetic. Even I bought into that as a natural reflex.”

“Some people who know me well do think I’m pathetic…because of…” I sniffed, rubbed my hands together and finally said, “in that way.”

“THERE!” She pointed at me. “That. Pathetic but self-effacing. Honest and not always strong. There’s nothing more decent in a human than that. Besides, a strong man who seems put together and cool is the kind of guy to disappoint you and hurt you and make you feel guilty for his betrayal.”

I tried to speak but my voice caught, and I had to stop to hold back a sudden flow of emotion. I wiped at my eyes with my shirt collar and welcomed her gentle touch on my shoulder. Finally, I managed to say through a quavering voice, “I think a guy just needs to hear someone say that to him once in his life.”

Megan slid her hand down my arm and took me by the hand again. “Let’s just say I’m not done studying this piece yet.”

“Will you write about it?”

“Maybe I already have.”

Chapter 15

We wandered through Florence together without a plan or a purpose. The aimlessness of it all and Megan’s easy company invigorated me in realizing that my motives at that moment were simply to exist where I was. I worried that the power of novelty was the primary high I experienced and that it might fade before I was ready to let it. How could I know? Katie and I had been together since early in college, and I’d had no relationships since. I wished I could see the future, but that seemed as dangerous as dwelling on the past in compromising the value of the present.

“Two hours, huh?”

“What?” I stepped around a young woman backing up to take a photo of another, giggling as she gave instructions in Italian.

“Did you really wait two hours staring at a naked man in hopes of seeing me again?”

“Yeah, but—I mean…He is the perfect male form.”

She giggled and leaned in close, resting her head against the side of my arm for a few steps.

“Aside from that curly hair..” She proceeded carefully and took several, end-cropped breaths before finally saying, “Can I ask you…”

I let the silence linger. Maybe she had said all she wanted. “Anything.”

Staring passively at the ground just ahead of her feet, she asked, “What is it about your wife that makes you take these trips? Especially after four years?”

I think I expected the question, but it remained difficult to formulate a response. Part of me worried this was an expression of her interest in me merely as a piece for her blog. But another part felt a massive release at a ready ear so near. She didn’t say any more as we simply walked along the grass and tree lined paths of the Area Cani Cascine. The Arno to our left and the multi-apportioned, narrow city park stretched far to the west before us. It felt like a small reprieve from the bustle of city life and was not inundated with tourists like the areas of the city east of Santa Maria Novella. Before I spoke, I realized we’d just walked in silence for some time.

“I’ve never been to this place before.”

“It’s a nice place to get away from the frenzy of Firenze.” I recognized a playful smile in her tone.

“I like that.”

“Thanks.”

“Megan, honestly, I don’t know if I could explain it other than it means something to me. It might be misguided—my daughter thinks so; it might be dangerous; it might be ridiculous. It’s probably all of them together. All I know is that when I get home, no matter how miserable the trip made me feel, within a week, I’m already trying to plan my next one. It’s a compulsion that doesn’t make me any money and often results in—well, agony. But,” I thought of my current read and said without any hint of jest, “and I know it’s a bit dramatic, but also an ecstasy. In a strange way.”

When I opened my mouth to say more, she cut me off. “I’m still trying to figure out why I find myself interested in being with you.”

“I get that.”

“You would say that.” She placed her fingers on my arm. “I know its a bit juvenile but…can I hold your hand?”

I realized that I had my hands in my pockets and pulled them both out, holding the palm up before me.

She snatched my nearer, right hand and said, “I’ll take this one.”

“That’s I relief,” I said, wiggling the fingers of me free hand.

She eyed me quizzically.

“Otherwise I’d have to walk backward to stay with you.”

“I’d hate to make a fraud out of you.”

Our pace quickened to pass through an intersection. When we slowed, I asked, “What do you do all day, then? I mean, without a phone call or a change of plans that I could tell, you dropped your day to take me to the Bardini Garden and then joined me on an impromptu Vespa tour of an obscure area of Tuscany. All I remember is trust fund and art history that give any clues as to why you’re here and what you do?”

Suddenly reserved, she asked, “Why are you curious about that?”

I wanted to say that, with her already very direct expressions—even if in jest—of a desire to sleep with me, I thought a little more mutual understanding of one another seemed in order. She’d asked me about my deceased wife and my attachment to her. Why did wondering what she did with her time constitute excessive curiosity? I settled for a joke: “Well, I need to know just how much trust fund there is if I’m going to romance it away from you.”

“My God!” She said with a sigh. “I loved that movie!”

“Me too.”

“My life here—” She paused in stern contemplation. “It’s a long story.”

“Don’t feel any pressure from me. I hope you don’t.”

“Thanks.” With a sweet smile as she pulled my hand to direct me off our wandering course. “There’s no trust fund.”

“Whew!”

“What’s that? I was afraid you’d be at least a little disappointed.”

I made a smoothing motion with my palms down. “Oh no. That’s a relief for sure. I can try to woo you for its own sake.”

We fell silent until she pulled me along another street and finally stopped at a narrow, tall brick building with an exterior, gated entry. She pulled a key from her pocket and opened the gate.

“Is this…?” I said, stepping back and looking up. “I wasn’t paying attention to how we even got here.”

“Yup.” She nodded and reached out to pull me though the gate.

We ascended a narrow staircase up three flights of stairs with two doors at each landing. On the fourth floor, the stairs ended at a single, worn door which she opened with another key. Shamelessly, she swung it open and gestured inside, “Home sweet home.”

I hesitated as a reflex. She gently pushed me three steps into the dim room before I heard the door click shut behind me and was then greeted by the sudden illumination of soft lights in a wide room beyond the entryway. “Go on in, make yourself comfortable.”

“I was worried you were being nice to me for my kidneys.”

She shrugged as if disappointed. “I don’t even have a tub to leave you in. Sorry to disappoint.”

The apartment had the subtle, musty smell of an old building that was kept clean and refreshed with mild incense from time to time. Straight ahead, a very small, tidy kitchen with a tiny refrigerator on the floor, an antique, plug-in hot plate on the only counter-space next to a single-welled sink took up a sizable percentage of the tiny studio apartment. Her bed was a simple twin with a clean, white duvet, tucked into a corner with single arm chair near the head, along the wall nearest the entrance and to another door at the bed’s foot that separated the main space from a Lilliputian lavatory and washroom.

“What do you think?”

“I think,” I said, scanning the room from side to side, “that you led me to believe we were simply wandering when all-the-while you were spiriting me away to a charming apartment.”

She slugged my shoulder and then moved around me and gestured for me to follow. “You haven’t seen the best part, yet.”

She led me across the ten steps from the entry way to the farthest wall where she threw back a set of blinds and tugged open a multi-pane, windowed door with a sheer white curtain. I followed her through to find myself on a rooftop deck twice as a large as the entire apartment behind us. Planters filled with thick vines of tomatoes in various stages of ripening, bright yellow squash, and deep green zucchini, just to name a few, covered its entirety. Smaller pots of herbs near the door and, along the half-wall railing, hanging pots with flowers of every hue.

“I don’t think charming is quite enough.” I made my way to a metal table with two chairs beside it. “Is this where you sit and write—” I caught myself and added almost too quickly, “or read or just look at the city?” I realized we were staring out over the lower portions of the Bardini Garden. “Could I have seen this from Bardini yesterday?”

“Two days ago and yes. I literally pointed right at it,” Megan said with a giggle. She gestured back inside. “This is why I don’t mind that little apartment. As you can see, I do some gardening and, yes, I do a little writing. I did both yesterday, and that was about it.”

I took some time, going from one plant to another, lightly touching leaves or bending over to smell a flower. She just watched me for a time, and I suddenly began to feel as if I were being evaluated for another blog post. “What do you write about?”

She shrugged. “Art…in everyday life. I hope you won’t mind if I say that I wrote about meeting you.”

“Should I mind?”

She walked toward me with a subtle sashay, seeming brave despite a prevailing reluctance. It seemed to me she she’d cultivated this reticence as much as I had nourished my penchant for solitude. She finally raised her gaze to meet my own where I stood near the balcony overlooking a narrow street I’d not taken the thought to notice while we walked. She leaned sideways against the top of the rail and stared out at the city.

“I met James in Paris on a weekend abroad during my program here. He was charming, confident, exciting, and he was an artist. So much passion and feeling and wonderful conversations. I was swept off my feet by the whole package. And he was a talented painter. He managed to really capture…the soul of his subject! When he painted my portrait, I cried. He seemed to really know me even just half-a-day after meeting me. I didn’t even care when he invited me to sit for a nude. It was…incredible, really.”

She spoke without bitterness or nostalgia. “But all my schooling in art wasn’t enough. We were only married for four months when I came home to find him with…well, you know.”

It felt wrong to say anything since this was obviously something from long ago. She’d processed it, moved on. This recitation was for me. Except, there was a yearning in her eyes and her tone. Not for sympathy for her own sake, but for me to express some solidarity for our sake.

“You don’t have to say anymore, Megan.” I stared out over Florence, the heat of the afternoon sun making me feel dizzy in the heat on the roof.

Her hand lit on my shoulder. “Let’s go in. Get a little air conditioner action. This is what I usually have to do during the summer afternoons.”

The prodding got me quickly back inside where I looked up to find the A/C over the doorway to the garden. “I can’t believe this little apartment has air conditioning.”

‘It’s not much. As you can see, it doesn’t need much.” She filled a glass of water and handed it to me.

I sat at the small dining room table and leaned heavily on one elbow. “So you came here to…”

“Really,” she said, drinking from her own glass of water, “I look for art where we usually don’t see it. Beauty is probably a better word. What I perceive as beauty at least. Eye of the beholder and all that. Anything can be beautiful if we’re willing to see it. But beauty and attractiveness are very different. And…”

I didn’t want to scare her so I remained silent, leaning a bit forward with a genuinely interested expression.

“I blog about it. Almost every day. I mean, my tagline contains everyday life. So there’s that.”

“Wow!” My exclamation was cut by a sudden yawn. When it passed I continued: “Does that pay the bills?”

“Actually, it does.”

Raising my brow, I practically begged her to indulge me without saying a word.

“I have a steady, dedicated following. Ads and sponsorships provide more than you’d imagine.” She sneered. “I keep getting told to make a YouTube channel, but I don’t care for video media in that way.”

Yawning again, I managed to say, “You’ve got the face and body for it.”

“Reid?”

Still yawning as if it were an annoying song on repeat. “I’m so sorry! I don’t want you to think you’re boring me or anything like that. Just…suddenly very tired. Didn’t sleep well last night.” I chuckled. “Let me rephrase that: I didn’t sleep last night.”

Megan pushed back from the table. “Don’t worry about it. I remember those first days here in the summer. I took a two hour nap every day—the urge always hit like that. Feel free to lay down, the bed…no couch, sorry.”

I waved her off. “Oh. God no! I need a shower before tainting your sheets. Give me a just a minute.” I laid my head on my arms folded on the table. “Sorry.”

“I’m just glad I haven’t just shown you my boobs. If you’d gotten tired after that, I’d really be dealing with confidence issues.”

I waved weakly with my hand now stuck beneath my head. “That’s a lot of pressure.” I yawned again. “I’m listening…”

* * * * *

“Did I snore?” I asked as we made our way back across the Arno and toward the Cattedrale dell’Immagine where the current composition of Florence’s The Three Tenors would sing that evening.

“Not even a little. Is that something you’re worried about?”

“After ten years of marriage and many complaints about my tossing at night, Katie finally moved to a separate bed and, eventually a separate room. Well, we went through a few arrangements. I even slept in the closet for a few weeks at one time. It was a big closet.” I realized that I was reminiscing about something that, as Olivia said, wasn’t good. It had been a tremendous sore spot for me. I was naturally affectionate but trained to refrain by the woman I’d married. My tone was stricken, almost vacant in the remembering. “I made a solid bed frame that didn’t squeak at all. I got a vasectomy. I, pathetically, did everything to make her comfortable. We slept the last few years of our marriage in separate rooms until near the end.”

“That’s horrible.”

“I’m finding out its pretty normal. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t let my selfishness determine our relationship any more than I expected her to acquiesce to me. Romance can’t be one sided,” I repeated my earlier axiom with a slight twist. “Maybe that’s why I like memories so much. I can choose to think of them just how I want.”

I casually glanced into different store fronts as we walked, not really noticing what I was seeing. More than shopping, I was trying to be distracted. It didn’t work. Bitterly, I said, “Some people come home to find the person they love in bed with another, and I think that could be worse. I got to come home and slowly find my wife no longer in bed with me.”

Megan stayed silent.

“I don’t mean to compare…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I understand.” She touched my shoulder again, lightly with her finger tips. “Actually, I was lucky. Only four months wasted. We tried to work it out, but he was what he was. It only took two months to find out he was still fucking other women—almost every week. So, I only wasted half-a-year with him. To be desired as one of many or to not be desired?”

“Katie wasn’t a piece of shit.” I held my breath before saying anemically, “She was actually a really good person. We just weren’t good for each other unless we were struggling through something.”

I could feel her tension. She wanted to ask more even if she’d asked it before. Why do you do this then!?

She did say: “Give yourself some credit, Reid. I was done in six months. Angry for another six. Withdrawn for another six. Found my meaning and my place. How long did you spend enduring feeling no good for your spouse? No wonder it’s taken four years to get here.”

“That’s not why.” As I walked, I slid my feet in short, sweeping steps on the smooth cobbles. “Good love enables and makes it easy for someone to move on and grow. Guilt and shame are what keep us fettered. Overall, it was pretty good. I don’t want to be dishonest. Our Italy trip was the last one before Katie got sick. Love felt possible again, but that was a poisoned chalice of hope, really. It was gone as soon as we came home. We were right back where we started…like nothing had happened. That was exhausting. Five months later she was diagnosed. Seven months after that…she was gone.”

For a time, we basked in the pitter-patter of our own feet and the conversations and laughter of those around us. After a few street crossings, I said, “Thanks for letting me take a nap.”

“I can’t believe you napped on my table like that.”

“I hope whatever pose I struck was sufficient to qualify as art in everyday life.”

“If you’re wondering, I didn’t write about it…not yet.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

“I sketched it.”

I looked at her in sudden alarm.

She smiled mischievously. “Don’t worry. I only draw stick figures. Fit only for cave walls.”

“Hey!” I said as we passed a small grocery store. “I have an idea for dinner! I did this all the time when I was last in Italy.”

She followed me in and we collected some watery mozzarella, firm ciabatta, marbled prosciutto, lemon-sized apricots, and smooth, green olives. Megan led us behind the Uffizi to stone steps that led down the bank toward the Arno where a long, elevated berm of green grass offered a place to sit and enjoy our make-shift picnic.

We spread the fare before us and watched tourists cross the bridges—Ponte Vecchio and Ponte alle Grazie—on either side. A small dock another level below where we sat, moored long, narrow boats but had no one milling about. Only a a few other couples, families, and individuals, presumably not in a hurry to stand on the iconic Vecchio or in a rush to reach Piazzale Michelangelo by sunset, had made their way here. We ate slowly, commenting on the food and people around us, and I could sense that she was avoiding asking or commenting about what was really on her mind. As we packaged up the remains, I said, “I know it’s only a few bites, but it’s a shame we’ll just have to throw this away.”

As if she were simply waiting for some sound to pierce the silence, she said, “You said you did this the last time you were here. Was that with your wife?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you wanted to do it tonight?”

“I mean,” I licked under my upper lip in an attempt to remove some bread or apricot lodged in the gum line embrasure between two teeth, “it’s a nice way to eat relatively cheap that we learned together. I’ve actually thought about this, even yesterday. If I avoid something because we did it together, it’s just keeping her at the forefront of my mind. Equally influencing my decisions at every turn.”

“That’s an interesting thought.”

“Megan,” I took her hand in both of mine, “I can’t say her memory had nothing to do with it. I’m trying not to live for or in fear of her memory. I don’t know how to do that, but I’m really, really glad you’re here with me.”

After a moment with her head bowed and her eyes cast downward, she lifted my hand to her cheek, closed her eyes and held my fingers there. When she opened them, she said, “Me too.”

* * * * *

The concert at the Church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio was every bit as hot as the previous one had been. With only one fan attempting to move air about the enormous, de-consecrated church, there seemed to be almost no hope of relief. We gasped and fanned ourselves with the brochure-sized, flimsy program. Three programs layered over one another offered some semblance of air flow over our faces and necks. By intermission, we were both ready to quit the concert. It was already nearly 9:30 pm anyway.

“All the best gelato places are still open,” I said jokingly.

Megan, eyes wide in shock, said, “Let’s go to the restroom and then get out of here.”

I nodded and we walked toward the front of the hall where, at the very center, a wide set of steps took us down into a basement where a Da Vinci exhibition, showing the science of his mechanical inventions were on display. Weaving through the exhibit, we found our way to a small set of restrooms that would make an airplane lavatory seem palatial. Keeping in concert with gender characterization, there was no line for the men’s room while half-a-dozen women waited for their turn with the single toileted lavatory.

When I opened the door to exit after doing my business, Megan’s line had failed to move at all and she was standing before my door. When I’d barely gotten the door wide enough for a body to pass she said, “Just stay in there,” and shoved her way in.

“This—”

“Is no longer a consecrated church.” She closed the door behind her and set the lock. Then, entirely without shame, she pulled her dress off over her head and handed it to me. Feverishly, as if her life may depend on it, she then pulled off her lavender shirt and threw it at me before reaching behind her and freeing her pink-laced bra and tossing it on the pile as well. With that, she closed her eyes and stood still, basking in the touch of air to her bare skin, wearing only matching pink, lace panties and her worn, Chaco sandals.

When she finally opened her eyes and sighed, I closed my own and started to turn around. I felt her hand on my arm, turning me back as she said, “I’m not afraid of your eyes.”

Needing no more invitation, I slowly opened my eyes and stared, jaw slightly agape.

“In fact, I rather like you looking at me like that…you and your apparently paralytic hands.”

I obliged and she smiled, coy and flirtatious. Clasping her hands at her waist, she pulled her shoulders together, pressing her supple breasts together while she twisted side to side. She bit her lower lip and her dark blond hair cascaded around her cheeks, framing her slender face. “Can I have my dress back?”

“OH! Yeah!” Pulled from a trance, I fumbled with her clothing and handed her the white dress which she pulled over her head in one quick motion.

“Oh my god! So much better.”

She tucked her shirt and bra into her backpack and we exited the lavatory to a bevy of leering, stooping, American women in line for the women’s restroom. With their eyes on us and she said loud enough to hear: “Wow, Reid! That really made me want to sing!”

She tried to suppress her chuckle at the muted gasps we heard from the line of women. We leaned on each other, laughing our way through the Da Vinci replicas, up the stairs, and straight out the back of the church. We wouldn’t be there to hear the last half of the concert. If I’m honest with myself, whether we stayed the entire show or not, I would have been distracted from the show. Maybe it’s cheap to think of it this way, but I was also, utterly distracted from any memory of Katie.

Chapter 16

The next morning I let myself awaken slowly, lounging in my bed with a head full of waking dreams. Some of the old aches of body and mind seemed to be completely gone. Shortly after high school, I’d worked a summer job helping a man build custom homes. One afternoon, as I watched him descend from the roof on a ladder that teetered on the uneven ground around our mountainside build site, the ladder gave way and he fell twelve feet. I’ll never forget the dull thud of his body landing on the ground and the clank of the metal ladder partially beneath him. I thought I’d just watched my boss die and, in the age before cell phones and in our remote area of work, it would be thirty minutes before an ambulance could arrive—even if we could contact someone—and another thirty to get him to an emergency room. I approached, wondering if I was approaching a corpse or a body very near to becoming one. After three or four seconds which seemed like three or four minutes, he grunted, gingerly rolled to his hands and knees, and stood. Aside from a collection of bruises, he said he was fine. The reason he gave for remaining unmoving was to make sure everything was still in working order.

I smiled at the memory as I did a similar inventory of my body. When I rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed, there was a sense of lightness in my body and potency in my mind. I don’t know why, but I glanced back at the bed. It was only me, but the memories that inhabited my consciousness were of yesterday, not of yesteryear.

We hadn’t made any plans to meet for the day though the implication was almost explicit in our conversation last night before we parted ways. I thought of holding her hand as we ambled up the steep street to her apartment building. We talked about simple things, dwelling almost absent-mindedly on those topics a couple brings up when they have their minds on each other and impending physical intimacy. We danced around what we were feeling with half-hearted comments about the concert, approaching the events in the restroom but not acknowledging them. Even our steps were subtly side-sweeping, staying near the ground and not directly forward toward the direction we seemed inevitably to be tracking.

As we ascended the steps, Megan demurely tossed her hair over her shoulder more than once, laughing forcefully, her voice tense with something that sounded to me like anticipation. The experience was invigorating and thrilling yet, as I ascended the steps, my legs became leaden. It wasn’t that I’d not made love in almost five years. There may have been some apprehension that I’d had only one sexual partner in my life, but even that seemed minor. I wasn’t afraid of pregnancy on account of a successful vasectomy. And, I had little concern for STD’s though, perhaps, I should have had some. I was concerned with thoughts of Katie invading that moment. Most of all, I was worried about giving so much emotion toward this beautiful woman only to find that something rendered us incompatible. That a wonderful couple of days with each other would end in a heartbreaking one night stand. I’d put all of my emotion in too hastily. I still wasn’t sure if Megan saw me as more than a novelty. I didn’t need a long-term relationship, but I needed respect.

At her door above and away from any peeping neighbors, she put her key in the lock, and I set my hand on hers before she could turn the lock. He head turned slowly and her eyes lifted to meet mine. I stared at her with forced composure, watching a fire well within hers and then, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. Her tongue shot out and explored my lips and beyond. Then, she dropped her hands to my low back and pulled my hips into her own. I was already near attention when her pubic bone ground in to the bulge under my shorts. When she leapt up and wrapped her legs around my waist, I had to lower my hands and hold her under her buttocks. Excited as I was, this wasn’t what I wanted. Not yet.

When she reached for the key, fumbling with it manically, I pulled my face from hers and set her gently on the floor. She giggled as she turned the key and thrust the door open as if a long-anticipated and long sought-for treasure waited inside. Again, I took her key-bearing hand in my own, the forced calm I managed seemed to infect her, for her passion subsided in an instant.

“Are you alright, Reid?”

“I am. More than alright. I’m thrilled and excited and a bit in awe, really.”

She bounced her brows tantalizingly. “There’s more inside.”

“Megan, I can hardly wait. Really.” I squeezed her hand. “I think I’m going to make tonight that hardly part.”

She stared at me dumbfounded but not angry. “Okay…”

I let her hand slip from mine as I backed away down the stairs, staring at her intently as I said, “Tonight…WOW! I can hardly wait until tomorrow to see you again.”

Two things happened in that moment of decision: first, I emancipated myself from raw, carnal oblivion that I feared could destroy the potentially sweet relationship Megan and I were cultivating. Secondly, it filled me anticipation for tomorrow which lightened my steps as I made my way to my hotel. I savored the memory of Megan’s quizzical but flirtatious eyes on me as she peeked past her closing door until there was no hope of seeing beyond. Even now, I as I descended the stone steps from the third floor, Hotel Miceli, I clearly saw her bemused expression in my mind.

I pressed the loud, buzzing button on the hotel gate, stepped through and waited for the heavy gate to clack and then click behind me before I passed through the dim, narrow, stone hallway and through the exit. At this early hour, few street walkers and cars made their way up or down the street, even this close to San Marco’s.

“Last night was lonely.”

Megan stood just to my left, leaning against the wall of the adjacent building. It looked like a scene out of a movie—her arms folded and her hair in loose curls that bounced when she turned her head. One knee bent, foot resting on tip toes while she rested her weight on the other. She was made up for the day, more so than I’d yet seen from her typically casual look and lack of obtrusive make-up. Even now, there wasn’t much. Some subtle eye-liner, mascara, blush, and a glistening lip stick. She also carried a larger bag than normal at her side. I hope I looked happy to see her through the feeling of shock, but her sudden expression of concern drove me to step toward her and take her hand in mine.

“I guess you missed me, too,” she said, squeezing my fingers and tugging to gently draw me closer. She set the fingers of her free hand on my chest as if trying to make sure I was real.

“I did miss you.”

She bit at one side of her lower lip in a coy manner. “I hope you don’t mind, but I made plans for us today.”

“Why would I mind?”

“…and tomorrow.” She shrugged and secured her lower lip between her teeth again.

“Fantastic.”

“And tonight.”

I rubbed my hands together. “I can hardly wait.”

“You won’t have to wait long!” She pushed me back into the hotel. “Go get what you need for overnight. I’ve called in a favor. Our train leaves in thirty minutes.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, just shy of ninety kilometers from Florence along the Arno, we walked off the train platform into the blistering heat of Pisa. Though its streets were not as heavy with tourist traffic as Florence or Rome, I found the slower pace here refreshing. As we made our way northward through Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, circumnavigating the oval streets, I chuckled that I hadn’t said anything on the train ride about the fact that Katie and I never came here. I only thought about Katie because I hadn’t thought about her for so long.

“I’ve never been to Pisa.”

“You and you wife didn’t make a day trip?”

I shook my head. “We talked about Pisa and Luca when we planned our trip but only had two days in Florence. We didn’t want to cram too much in.”

“Well, then,” she said, taking my by the arm, “I get you all to myself for a day or two.”

North on Corso Italia to where it crossed the Arno at Ponte Mezzo then continuing on Borgo Stretto. Megan led us northwest on Via Ulysses Dini to Piazza dei Cavalieri. Just off the Piazza she led me through the door to a small hotel quaintly named La Lu Cozy Rooms. She smiled to the desk attendant and spoke in what I would consider very good Italian. The hostess gasped knowingly and handed Megan an envelope.

“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

When we were out of earshot, climbing a winding staircase, I asked, “Do you know her?”

“She’s seen me before. A friend of mine owns this place.” She winked at me. “I get a great rate.”

On the top floor, we stopped at the left-most of three doors. Megan opened the envelope, removed a keycard and let us in. “Toss your stuff wherever. Are you hungry?”

Grey walls and curtains with gray laminate wood floors. A white quilt on a queen bed with a black bed skirt. Arched architectural features inset in two walls. My feet echoed dully on the floor as I set my bag on a gray arm chair near the window. “This is nice!” I set my day pack on a chair near a curtained window. “I could eat.”

In less than two minutes of walking, we came around a corner where a colossal, easily recognizable, cylindrical structure came into view.

“Is that…?”

“Of course it is,” Megan said. “We’re in Pisa.”

I’d been thinking we were on our way to find lunch. My appetite became instantly deferrable. “Let’s skip lunch for now.”

She nodded though her demeanor told me she wasn’t planning to eat here anyway.

For some time, we made our way around the massive tower, taking it in from various viewpoints. Megan withheld any commentary and, aside from terse observations and occasional complaints about the crowd, we both silently mused. Her reticence made me suspect that she had more on her mind than just the tower. Without anywhere to sit in the Piazza del Duomo occupied by the leaning tower, a church and museum, and several fountains and sculptures we soon found ourselves wishing for a rest. Even the wide, grassy areas of the Piazza had been cordoned off.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

I stopped in some shade cast by the corner of a building and said, “I could keep looking, but it’s scorching!”

“Ready for a place to sit in the shade?”

I nodded, fanning myself with my hands.

“Get one last good look.”

I did before she nearly jerked me off my feet and whisked me off to a taxi stand. Trusting in her confidence, I blindly followed along. Within minutes we were already out of the bustle of Pisa and heading northwest on a narrow highway while amber and green fields sped past us. Within ten minutes, our course was almost directly west. Like most taxis, this driver depended on open windows to offer any cooling effect. I began to smell a change in the slightly muggy air. Something brought in on the breeze into which we drove. To our left, the Arno crept to the sea, wide and calm while, to the right, sparse forest and verdant hills undulated northward. A zig north and a zag west and suddenly the roadway opened. The wide, azure blue Ligurian Sea stretched out before us, rimmed nearest us by a narrow band of yellow-gray beach and accentuated by a subtle, salty-brine odor.

Megan paid our fare and we exited the white taxi into a circular parking area with a restaurant on the north and south ends. She said something to the driver in Italian to which he nodded before driving back the way we’d come.

She looked at me over her shoulder in a coquettish manner, hair bouncing and floating on the sea breeze and said, “Follow me. This is a little place they call an oasis.”

Indeed, the signs along the perilously straight, sandy path from the circular drop of indicated we were nearing a bath, oasis, and marina. “You brought me to the beach.”

She smiled flirtatiously and nodded, her summer dress billowing as she took my hand and skipped down the path with me in tow. In the bright sun reflected off the sands, her white dress became marginally sheer, revealing glimpses of her milky skin beneath and the yellow two-piece bathing suit she’d chosen to wear.

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit,” I said.

“Well, none of these beaches are naturalist beaches. You’ll have to wear something.”

“Oh!”

“I know,” she said, feigning melancholy. “It’s a shame.”

We passed from the straight and narrow path onto the wide beach to the alluring hum of tranquil surf and children playing. Megan pulled me to the left to a large eating area under a beach-worthy pavilion. She guided me to a table and said, with a feminine growl, “I’m starving!”

With that, she pushed me into my seat and made her way toward the windowed partitions where bright, neon-chalked signs listed the foods available. I watched her walk, enjoying the unaffected, subtle turn of her hips as she moved, pleased that she was unaware of my staring. Except for it’s location in Italy, the booth looked like any food truck or county fair, community cookery I’d ever seen. Megan leaned on the counter and spoke with an sweaty, middle-aged male worker who immediately grinned and set his fingers on her arm. She recoiled but not so quickly as to put him out. She paid with Euros and returned with two bottles of beer and said, “Food will be right out.”

The outdoor dining area allowed the gentle sea breeze to cool us and protected us from the afternoon sun by the stretched fabric of the pavilion roof. A few couples and families shared the pavilion with us while most of the beach goers inhabited one or several of over sixty smaller gazebos set in rows along a raised walkway from the restaurant to the beach. Some set their own colorful umbrellas nearer the water where children splashed in waves that were little more than swells and recessions that filled and emptied the beach like a sleeping, breathing thing. Not too much of a crowd, no traffic noise, and none of the usual urban din. After having been in Rome and Florence and even Pisa, something like serenity overwhelmed me. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“So, what do you think, Mister—Sir Familiar?”

“As opposed to Stranger?”

She smiled and nodded.

“It’s lovely. Thank you for thinking of me.”

At that moment, a feminine voice with a thick, Italian accent said, “Megan!”

We turned in unison to see a woman about Megan’s age approach our table. She wore white, linen pants, simple flip-flops, and a loose, sleeveless, white-linen shirt. The wide-brim of her woven straw hat bounced with each step.

“Antonia!” Megan erupted from her chair and took the taller woman in a vigorous embrace.

I stood on reflex as Megan pulled back and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here!”

“I did not know you were coming until I heard from Piero that you were staying in the city.” The woman’s eyes latched onto me.

Megan made introductions though the woman seemed a wary of me.

“Buongiorno,” I said.

“Ciao.”

Megan said, “Reid and I met just a couple of days ago. On the Ponte Vecchio.”

Antonia’s eyes widened and seemed to ignite with recognition. She looked back to Megan and said, “Is this the one from your blog?”

Megan’s instant, crimson cheeks and subtle backward step were all the answer necessary. Antonia grasped the embarrassment she’d just caused and they then had a terse and stilted back-and-forth in Italian. All I could do was smile with feigned amusement. What Megan had written was actually flattering and sweet, but meeting someone who knew all of what was written about me as well as their obvious, respected friend’s opinions made my stomach seize.

When Megan gave me a sheepish look I politely said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll let you two catch up.”

I made my way to the restroom and locked myself in. I didn’t really need to relieve myself, I just needed to regroup without feeling like I was a mule being appraised at auction. Two people bantered about my good and bad qualities in a language I couldn’t speak. I splashed some water on my face, dried, and returned,

Antonia was all smiles when I returned, took me by the shoulders, and kissed each cheek. “Just the right kind of man.”

“Antonia!”

She turned to Megan. “Piero only told me that you would be in Pisa for a night. I assumed you would come here, and so you have.”

Megan frowned in a grateful way and said, “That’s sweet of you.”

“When he told me that you asked for a room at such short notice, I assumed that there was a man involved.” She switched to Italian, “Non pensavo che sarebbe stato l’uomo del blog.”

Megan’s eyes flitted from me to Antonia and back. I could tell she was extremely uncomfortable. Antonia finally realized and said, “I do not want to interrupt.”

She took Megan in a hug, kissed her cheeks, then backed away and pointed to one of the smaller, gazebo-esque spots along the walkway. “That is my date for today. If you are leaving when we are, we can take you back into the city. He is a horrible driver,” she grinned mischievously, “lucky for you, I am driving.”

When she was out of earshot, Megan said, “She is a horrible driver.”

After an uncomfortable pause, she finally, tentatively looked at me. I took a deep, chest-heaving breath and smiled warmly. I said, “I have something to tell you.”

Her pained expression turned at once into perplexed. “…okay…?”

I gestured for her to retake her seat after which, I took my own. I folded my hands on the table before me, intertwining my fingers as I calculated what to say. The mule at auction needed time to form the words. “I really like you, Megan. A lot. I didn’t think I could enjoy someone’s company so much let alone feel attracted to them this way. You are…well, you’re incredible.”

“Reid, I need to tell you—”

I raised a palm to stop her, closing my eyes until I was sure she wouldn’t speak. “Megan, it’s okay. I know about your blog. I—” I struggled to look her in the eye but managed before I said, “I read it two days ago. Just before we met in the Uffizi…actually. As we were meeting at the Uffizi.”

“Reid, I—” her breathing told me she was gathering her thoughts. “I don’t know what to say.”

“In a coffee shop near Santa Maria Novella—that’s where I found it. I was actually trying to find you. After a day of hoping fate would put us back in each others path only to have fate fail. It took some sleuthing and I must say, I think I was pretty clever to find it.” I wasn’t angry at all, despite the interaction with Antonia or, maybe, as a result of it. The way her friend’s face brightened and she seemed excited to see the guy from the blog with her friend.

Megan must have sensed the amusement in my tone. “How did you find me?”

I leaned forward on the table, resting on my elbows with my arms crossed. “Without a last name it was pretty tough. But when I searched with your catchphrase, looking for art in everyday life, that got me there.”

She dropped her head as if a bit ashamed or, perhaps, just embarrassed.

“I was certain my first attempts with super hot American girl in Florence would bring you up as the top result. But, without a phone,” I raised my hands in a resigned pose, “no selfies. And,” I looked her up and down, affecting my own bemused grin, “that is a shame.”

Her shoulders shook with a sudden giggle before, in a relieved tone, she confessed: “When I started writing, I didn’t know how I felt about you. It was a process that took me all day. I knew you were cute and charming but, for awhile—let’s just say it took a day of solitude, thinking and writing and revising. It’s nice to meet a guy that sees the world though a ‘five-star’ lens.”

“I don’t know, Megan,” I said, feeling suddenly heavy. “Am I deceiving myself?”

“As long as you’re honest with me, I don’t know if I care.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a warm smile. “Have you written any more?”

“Haven’t you looked?”

“No. I’m enjoying the moments with you now, not the ones that are past. And that’s no small step for me. You deserve to feel how you feel about me—we—us!”

She smiled and shook her head. “I haven’t written about anything else.” She tilted her head and seemed to scrutinize me before her expression melted to one of adoration. “I just want to enjoy this time together, too.”

She leaned around the corner of the table that separated us and set her hand on my cheek, coaxing me close enough for soft, intense kiss. The suppleness of her lips, gently pulling at mine drew me in, intoxicating me in an instant. I wanted to take her away, lead her to a place where we could explore each other slowly, deliberately, fully. Then, she released me so slowly as to make the experience inevitable despite it’s intentional, prolonged sluggishness. She stood, pulled her shirt off over her head, revealing the yellow, two-piece bathing suit. “Let’s cool off.”

It didn’t matter that I had no swimming shorts. I could barely consider it as I watched her shapely legs and buttocks while she trotted down the pathway toward the sand. A server brought the food to our table as I stood, a confused expression on his face. “She’s going to cool off. And I’m going with her.”

I removed everything down to my boxer shorts and trotted after her, reaching a full sprint by the end of the elevated path that ran into the beach. She was already knee deep in the surf and bent over, a massive grin on her face and her hair dangling down around her neck as she scooped the salty water in her hands and threw it in my face. When I recoiled, she charged at me, and I was captivated by her graceful, feminine movement such that I didn’t prepare to be tackled into the gentle swell of surf. On my back, water flowing over every part of my body but my chest and head, she landed on top of me, barely letting me regain the capacity for breathing before, with sultry intent, she brought her mouth toward mine. When our lips were a whisper from touching, she said held them there while I held my breath. In an instant she pushed my shoulders down hard into the surf as a wave crashed over my face.

“How was that?” She said, holding her head back from mine and smiling bright and contented.

I sputtered and blinked as the water drained. “Now I know I’m in over my head!”

She pushed up off my chest, her hands pressed on my pectorals which she gently squeezed. “Don’t think of this as dessert.” She adjusted her top seductively and brushed wet hair from her face and shoulders. “It’s merely an appetizer.”

My body seemed to go limp and I lay in the warm sea water simply staring up at her from where she sat astride me. The pulsing waves moved her hips atop mine and, with the stunning view of her bikini-clad body, my blood pressure rose. I’m sure she noticed for she relaxed her legs and let the effect of gravity increase the pressure while her buoyancy lifted her just enough to create an erotic rhythm. She bit seductively at one side of her lower lip and stared at me with such tantalizing intensity, I could barley keep from myself from advancing another base. If we’d been somewhere private, I would have been utterly lost to her.

As it was, she gave me an impish smile and got to her feet. I rolled and chased her up the beach and into a soccer game being played by a group of adolescents. When I happened to cross paths with the ball, I took it and, with limited skill but excessive exuberance, I weaved through their defense toward two t-shirts tossed atop the sand to serve as goal posts. Someone larger than an adolescent ran into me, pushing me away from the ball. Megan giggled and passed it to one of the defenders who took the ball the other direction. Just like that, we conscripted ourselves onto opposing teams and spent the next half-hour playing football. Some of the older boys, adequately distracted by Megan’s mature and trim body, could manage only half-hearted play. This affected both sides but, since we didn’t really keep track of goals, simply ended with us making our way back to the water to rinse the sand away in the warm sea.

“You’re pretty good,” I said, honestly.

“I was a trust fund kid. Tennis and golf, mostly. Cross-country.”

I nodded up to the kids dispersing from the game as I scrubbed the sand clinging to my calves. “That was fun.”

We made our way, hand-in-hand, back to our table in the pavilion. Megan scanned the smaller beach gazebos and shrugged. She said casually, “I guess Antonia left.”

Any food that was heated was now cool. The server had politely covered it with napkins to keep the flies off and we set about devouring the bruschetta, cotto fontina, and beer. It didn’t take long for us to air dry after we finished eating. We ordered more drinks and stared out at the ocean.

Though Katie and I hadn’t done this on our vacation, we had considered something like it. Too little time to do everything. Perhaps too little motivation to do something like this. Just the thoughts of Katie creeping in and I could feel my sense of Eros and vitality waning.

“Are you okay, Reid?”

She must have seen some expression on my face—some sag in my shoulders, perhaps. I was going to lift my head and force a smile and say sure, everything’s great! But that wasn’t me and it wasn’t honest. Even if I challenged the wonderful time we were having, I wasn’t going to pretend. Hadn’t I been doing that this whole trip before I met Megan? Pretending I was on a trip with someone else? Even pretending I was in a different time?

She reached for my hand and set her fingers on the back reassuringly. “Reid?”

All she wanted was honesty. It was what she deserved. “Almost since the honeymoon, when we barely knew each other, I used to tell myself that there was nothing wrong with simply being used to each other. We came into the marriage as virgins before the wedding night. Expectations based on really negligent information from our parents, our clergy, and even our peers. Ignorant of what we could offer one another and, maybe worse, what we actually wanted for ourselves.

“The first night was a painful failure that I still found immensely satisfying for the passion of it. But we struggled thereafter. The disparity we’d never known to talk about before saying I do made for a lot of frustration. But, as you may see, I’m a romantic. I loved the idea growing old together, being old friends, and having a lifetime of shared experience. I started to tell myself that being used to each other was the nature of that kind of mature, enduring love. For people who’ve been together for ten or fifteen or fifty years or whatever. There is something profound there, in being accustomed to each other. Knowing each others tendencies and sensing their mood and being okay with proximity without affection. Affection is really just for honeymoons…isn’t it?

“I was wrong. Being used to each other shouldn’t replace desiring each other. While passion will wax and wane like the phases of the moon, it should still be there, raising the tide of your intimacy from time to time even if it’s not reflecting the light of passion all the time. An intimate relationship needs both. Even an old one.”

I went silent and tipped my bottle back for a long swig.

“Is it okay,” Megan said tenderly, “for me to ask what happened? I won’t write about it if you don’t want me to.”

I waved dismissively. “That will be your choice, Megan. I trust you.”

She smiled sadly.

“We went through a lot of phases with intimacy. But, mostly, it was all dependent on her. I know my poor and even angry handling of the lack of it contributed to her lack of desire. We had some frequency until our daughter was born. Then we went for a year-and-a-half without. During our fifteen years together, we had a spell of three years, and several over a year, and dozen of over six months. Rejection was painful. Painful in a way I could never have imagined. I thought love was supposed to be stronger than fear or resentment or rejection. I blamed myself over and over for the lack and for my inability to not dwell on it. It was hard to stomach the reality that she could only share herself with me—that she only desired me in that way—once every three months at most.

“It wasn’t just that. Eventually I began keep it all to myself. I didn’t want to hear any more ‘why can’t you just be happy’ accusations. She undermined me as we raised our daughter, minimizing my secular advice for her inspired, rose-colored glass euphemisms. Olivia was hidden from reality by Katie and, weakly, I just let it happen. When Katie stuck up for herself, I supported her. I tried to accommodate. When I stuck up for myself, I was given distance. I began to think I was the problem. I tried to change to meet her expectations. I guess, when she—well…let’s just say I didn’t want to give in to what she expected.”

I rolled and pursed and stretched my lips as I thought about how to continue. “You know, I—I’ve never told anyone this last part. Not even my best friend. So, please, be kind.”

Oddly, it wasn’t my eyes that were filled with tears at that moment. I took it as a great show of empathy and it gave me courage.

“The trip we took to Italy was one of the best moments of our lives together. Our daughter was self-sufficient, driving, one of my best friends. Katie and I planned our trip, the only time I could take away from my business in the wake of a pandemic that forced us to close for so long. But we made it happen. I thought we fell in love with each other again. There was desire and fun and laughter. I thought we’d turned a corner.”

I fished the glass dove from the pocket of my shorts hanging on the chair behind me. “I got her this necklace in Venice. A dove. We were at peace…I carry it with me now. I don’t need a reminder of her. I don’t know why I have to carry it. I just do.”

I put it back in the pocket and took a deep breath. “As soon as we came home, the very next day we were back to sleeping in different beds and feeling as though she didn’t think I did enough to support her. She cuddled when it felt convenient to her, and blamed me when we didn’t cuddle enough. There was no chance for intimacy beyond it. It felt like Italy was a dream. Like I’d made it up in my mind—hallucinating the bliss. Maybe the way I try to make it up in my head now, as if she’s here sharing it with me.

“Five months after our trip, just after Christmas, I went to see a divorce lawyer. I felt like, if she didn’t want me, she at least deserved to be with someone she did want. I finally reached a point where I thought I deserved to be with someone who desired me, too. Papers drawn up. I had them in my backpack when I arrived home. There was Katie, sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands, tears falling. Not any kind of hysterical tears. At first I thought of Olivia—our daughter. Understand, I loved and do love Katie. In many ways she was too good for me. We just weren’t right for each other and we took fifteen years to prove it.

“Katie had been to her doctor several days earlier because of some lingering pains and malaise. Things that bothered her in Italy, too. The test results had come back. It explained her pain and weakness. It explained her brain fog. It explained her despairing, resigned tears. It was ALS. And it was aggressive. We knew…well, everyone knows, it’s terminal.”

“Oh, Reid, I’m so sorry.”

I wanted to acknowledge Megan’s empathy but I knew if I stopped, I’d never tell anyone. “I wanted then—I always wanted—the best for Katie. For better or worse, that’s why I stuck it out for fifteen years. I’m sure, if she told her side, she’d say it was an endurance race being with me, too. We were both at fault is what I’m saying. I realized that it wouldn’t be the best thing for her or Olivia to go through a divorce. It wouldn’t be the best for me. I already collect and carry guilt like a hobby. So, I forgot about the paperwork. I dove into caring for her as much as I could. Olivia was amazing. When the school year ended, between her sophomore and junior years, she took care of her mother as she deteriorated. Already, by March, Katie had trouble walking without two canes. By May, she was in a wheelchair most of the day. I can say, that the illness did a lot to bring us together. There was a sweetness in caring for her and her gratitude was immense. Sometimes, thought, I felt guilty knowing what I’d seen the lawyer for.

“Katie had been a stay-at-home mom. She was worried about being forgotten. After all, we both had mothers we sometimes tried to forget. I assured her that I wouldn’t forget and, barely able to breathe let alone speak in those final days, it brought some relief. She asked to talk to Olivia alone that night. Olivia and I have been extremely close and got closer after that conversation. Even if she’s disappointed in me sometimes, she’s always in my corner. Before I went to bed that night, I kissed her cheek and promised her I would never forget her. She waited, thinking I was asleep, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay there as she mustered the strength to sit up and, despite the difficulty of it, she swallowed some bitter liquid with drugs to prevent nausea and vomiting and then, about an hour later, all while I pretended to sleep, she poured a crushed powder under her tongue. A few minutes later, she fell asleep…for the last time. Having trouble breathing, fearing she would suffocate to death, she chose to die on her terms.”

Now, I felt the tears flowing. I sobbed quietly before mustering the composure to say, “The next morning, after seeing to her body being taken by the funeral home, I looked in my desk drawer, prepared to throw away the divorce papers that I can’t believe I hadn’t just burned to ash. I don’t know when the note was written because I hadn’t looked in the drawer in a week, but on top of the clipped papers was a note, written in handwriting that was obviously very difficult for her to manage. All it said was—” My voice caught and I sobbed, a feeble, almost grotesque groan. “It said: I love you, Reid. I’m so happy you stayed with me. I never wanted anyone else but you. I only wish we could have grown old together, too.”

Megan tipped her head to the side and squeezed my hand.

“She loved me, in the only way she could, I suppose. She found out about my betrayal, and she loved me anyway. So much that the last thing she did was to…” I sniffed, wiped my nose with my free hand. “A lot of people know that story but only you know about the divorce papers.”

She leaned forward and, with genuine intensity, said, “Thank you for sharing that with me, Reid.”

I nodded, chuckled anachronistically, and took another swallow of my beer.

She sat with her hand in mine as we listened to the surf and the laughter of children. Minutes passed, the shadows grew longer, and the world turned around us but I felt arrested in that moment. She never let go and I didn’t want her to. Finally, I sniffled and said, “I wouldn’t mind if you spoke right now.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded.

She took several breathes before slowly, carefully saying: “I didn’t tell you that I minored in philosophy, too, did I?”

I shook my head.

“I want to share a thought I had with you that I thought of yesterday, before I knew all of that. Somehow, it feels even more appropriate. But, this may not be the right time.”

I smiled, weak but sincere. “I think I’ve been waiting four years to hear philosophy from an art history blogger.”

Chapter 17

We didn’t speak as we rode in a cab back to town. Megan had told me what was on her mind and, now, simply snuggled next to me on the back seat, head resting on my shoulder. From time-to-time she would lightly stroke my arm with her finger tips. From time-to-time I would rest my head on the top of hers. But I couldn’t get Katie out of my head. I should have told that to someone long ago. Megan wasn’t a therapist and didn’t deserve to be mine.

Goddammit! I punched the door’s armrest weakly. Megan didn’t react.

I knew what a therapist would say, didn’t I? I did need love and acceptance, but I’d spent the last four to twenty years struggling to accept myself and to take responsibility for myself. The divorce papers that seemed like my only option at the time, became the instrument of my agony. I was stuck in some horrible time-loop, doomed to relieve my past, over and over again. How would Olivia and I be if I’d left Katie years earlier? She’d have gotten ALS anyway. She’d have died anyway. I’d never have gone to Italy in the first place. Would I even be here now? Meeting Megan?

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I was going to ignore it but it buzzed again.

Hey, Dad.

How’s Italy?

I think Megan must have caught a glimpse of my screen but didn’t react. I typed: It’s been amazing. I met someone. We spent the day on the beach.

Her reply came quickly:

🤩

I was in the middle of my own reply when another came through from Olivia: Dad, I really think Mom would be happy to know that.

It was my fault she felt the need to say it. I erased what I was typing and said, instead: Thanks. I love you, sweetie. I’ll text you tomorrow.

Speaking, as if to no one in particular, “That was my daughter.”

“Oh?”

“Just checking in on me.”

The taxi dropped us near our hotel. Neither of us wanted to walk far covered in sand that infiltrated our shoes. Well, my shoes. I hadn’t brought anything but walking shoes. In the hotel room, Megan offered me the shower first and I took her up on it.

With the warm water cascading down my head and body, I managed to transition from thinking entirely of Katie to what Megan had said to me on the beach.

“Reid, the leaning tower of Pisa is amazing. Beautiful and regal. A near failure on a glorious attempt at architecture. It’s imperfect. It was built to be perfect but, a flaw in its foundation, even with that perfect intent, left it leaning precariously. The tilt increased over time until someone managed to correct it some and stabilize it. This was done five-hundred years after it was built. It will never be straight up and down and we wouldn’t want it to be. In that unconcealed quirk of it is a huge portion of its allure and beauty. We don’t want to see it topple either. Still beautiful and all the more intriguing for all its survived to last this long. It’s what makes girls like me want to come back time and time again to look at it.”

The thought brought a smile to my face just as the door to the bathroom opened. Through the foggy glass I watched Megan’s blurred form as she entered and closed the door. She slipped out of her dress then removed her bathing suit. As if in slow motion, her hand reached for the glass door. It opened. Her milky, white skin came into view as the fogged glass swung out of the way. Without a word, she stepped in and closed the door behind her, then turned and faced me.

I couldn’t help but stare at her form. I was aware of every curve and imagined the peach-flesh feel of her supple skin beneath my finger tips. She stared only into my eyes, her own exuding desire like a sustained vibration in the floor that caused my chest to pulse with it.

“Are you okay?” she asked with such a sweet concern in her tone that I nearly melted into the floor.

I had a reasonably good idea where this shower was likely to end or, at the very least, where Megan intended for it to end. I was surprised to find that I wanted it to end there as well. Struggling against a rising tide of passion that strained against a learned bashfulness I’d cultivated for too long, I simply let the flow of things carry me away. My hand rose toward her, nearly touching the soft flesh of her breast. She closed her eyes in anticipation but, as if directed by some external force, I lifted it past her slow, swelling bosom and brushed the backs of my fingers delicately from her collar bone, upward, exploring the smoothness of her throat and the soft curve to her jawline. When my hand settled on her cheek, with her eyes still closed, she tipped her head into my palm while raising her hand to touch the back of mine.

“Megan…it’s been five years for me.”

Simply appearing to bask in my touch, she asked, “Are you worried.”

“No.”

The realization and giving-voice to what I believed tipped my resolve, and I let my hand glide back down her neck. A subtle moan of pleasure escaped her and, in response, I gently squeezed. With that, her body trembled, and I let a long dormant and unexplored but powerful instinct guide me.

I stared at her until she opened her eyes stared back. My hand fell and she caught it, holding fingertips lightly while we stared at one another and the warm puddles of water splattering off my body collected in drops on her skin to descend her smooth flesh in carefree rivulets. Tiny pools formed in the depression between her neck and clavicle, and I swallowed against a dry throat when the pool brimmed and held then cascaded down her chest, lost in the glistening wetness of her flesh.

Megan reached behind my head, setting her fingers on the base of my neck, all the while staring, her expression flat with intensity. Subtly, she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and formed an effortless smile as she pulled me down to meet her, our lips pressing lightly against one another. We held this pose as she wrapped both arms around my neck. My hands found their way to an embrace over her waist with my lower fingers resting lightly on the small of her back as she stood on tip-toes. I stood to let her relax and pulled gently at her head to press it against my chest and neck where it fit neatly…almost perfectly beneath my chin. This was our embrace as the shower continued to flow, the rhythms of our breath synchronizing and any fear or apprehension that may have remained was rinsed away.

I found myself amazed at how I had covertly—even to myself—longed for the soft warmth of a woman against me. To be held, cherished, and desired by the same. There was no sense of duty or apprehension coming to me from her. I wanted to stay in this moment for as long as the water could run warm. We were little more than strangers but we found a symbiotic salve to our wounds and desires. It was a healing that would take time if I could prevent it from being interrupted.

Megan giggled.

Tipping my head back, I asked, “What is it?”

She glanced downward, and I chuckled. “Well…what did you expect?”

Another giggle. “Nothing less.”

“It’s a shame, really,” I said honestly. “I was rather enjoying this moment and hoping it wouldn’t end.”

She pulled back and met my gaze for a moment. “Nothing has to end. We can just move on. Together.”

Chapter 18

Megan was my muse. She took charge of my pleasure through the afternoon and evening and eagerly received from me. We hardly talked at all but managed to understand one another in vulnerable, intense ways that words often fail to express. As the evening drew on, we remained shut up in the hotel room, a mess of the remains of room service on the floor beside our door. She lay on my shoulder on the bed, a loose covering of bed sheet over our entwined bodies, and the muted sounds of Pisa at night just beyond our window.

It was a cathartic moment that, even after nearly five years, still felt longer in arriving than it had actually been. I felt desired and adored in a way I’d always craved and found an individual who accepted the same from me even more eagerly than I could have anticipated. I needed both the gift and the recipient and how could I have ever known that? My life was such that I could simply stay here, in Italy, for another five months and three weeks until immigration forced me to leave. Aside from Olivia who was deeply invested in her own life at the moment, I had only a small condo waiting for me in Colorado that I owned outright. I put the utilities on autopay. Why should I leave? Why not see how far this could go?

My heavy sigh only made Megan stir slightly and reposition her head lower toward my chest. The warmth of her naked body against mine, its softness challenging the tension I simply couldn’t seem to subdue or release. I expected her suppleness and warmth and touch and femininity to continue to act like a balm in the wake of our passion, but I found myself fretting over familiar concerns. Even as my fingertips traced random spirographic shapes across the smooth skin on her naked back, I struggled. Growing in me was a fear over what the future from this moment would ask me to sacrifice from my past. I wanted to be ready to move on but this was happening so quickly, if pleasantly. Four years was a long period of self-flagellation.

I shifted a bit, hoping that her hand would move again. It did. She set her palm on the other side of my chest and sighed contentedly. Her eyes fluttered open, she turned, kissed one side of my chest while caressing the other, and tipped her head back. I felt ravenous at her disheveled appearance, hair falling around her face and framing her blissful smile. “I think you spent what you’ve saved up in five years in one afternoon with me.”

I responded with a affirmative if nasally, “Hnnnh.”

“You were sweet and tender and eager!” She rolled over and stared lazily up at the ceiling. “Pretty damn incredible for an old man.”

I turned lazily to look at her profile. “You say the absolute sweetest things.”

Megan rolled out of bed and gathered clothing scattered all over the floor. She stopped beside me, gave me a peck on the cheek, and hurried on tip toe into the bathroom. The muffled patter and occasional splatters of water from the shower echoed dully through the door as the Tower of Pisa filled my thoughts. Had this day been some kind of rescue for me? Was there a rescue that wouldn’t take years after what I’d subjected myself to?

I sat up on the bed aware of a growing angst. I didn’t feel empty. In fact, I felt supremely satisfied and, even fulfilled. Elated but not quite content. My relationship with Megan had done a lot in a very short time, but I’d never given anyone the time or latitude to fill the void I curated with Katie’s memory. The reality was that some of our best times together were after her diagnosis. We shared a tenderness and a sweetness utterly devoid of passion. We couldn’t say that the prevailing element was that we were used to each other. We did enjoy simple moments of closeness, but had the idea of the end nearing granted us some plaintive armistice that allayed individual lobbying to see our own needs met? What I knew in this moment was elation tempered by melancholy. A feeling that I could never find a reason to love and choose someone that was greater than the guilt and shame I felt to my wife finding the divorce papers shortly before she chose to end her suffering.

Before she—

Megan stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in clean, white towel and drying her hair with another. Her expression was one of total contentment and anticipation. It fell when when saw me, sitting on the edge of the bed with tears pouring down my cheeks. If she felt frustrated or annoyed, she didn’t show it. Instead, she approached slowly, like you might a frightened, wounded dog you didn’t want to scare away. She sat beside me and set her hand on my knee.

“Reid, what’s the matter?”

I sniffled and sniffed and took several heaving breaths. Staring down between my knees at the floor, I spoke to her. “Megan…I’ve had a magical day with you, truly. Since our first meeting on the bridge, you’ve enlivened and enlightened me. I can’t—” I made a feeble, moaning sound in my throat to stifle the surge of sadness. I looked at her. “I’m broken.”

She rubbed my back in small circles over my shoulder blade. “We’re all broken, Reid.”

It took me a moment to gather the resolve to say what I admit was both generous and pathetic, in a way. “You deserve to be with someone who can love you fully, give all of themselves to you. I’m haunted by my past in a way I can’t seem to shake off.”

Almost without hesitation, she asked, “What happened to you and your wife was horrible. The timing of things? You couldn’t just let her go. What you did brave and kind.”

I began to sob and shook my head.

Megan gave me a moment to weep, placing her arm around me and sitting silently. I couldn’t believe I’d found someone who wouldn’t walk away at the first sign of my psychosis.

“I didn’t tell you everything, Megan. I didn’t tell you the last thing she I know she did before she ended her life.”

The subtle pressure of her hand on my shoulder diminished but did not disappear. It felt like I was suddenly losing her. I was about to breach the dam of her good nature, frighten her away, or simply exhaust her patience. She should know the whole story.

“When I opened the desk drawer that morning, perhaps an hour after they took her body away, I could still make out her depression in the mattress. She was a lovely woman. We simply weren’t right for each other except in her illness. She knew it too, but she loved me.” I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand. “I used to tell myself, over and over, before I saw the lawyer at all, that line from some television show that everyone deserves to be with someone who wants to be with them. I waited so long to choose my happiness. Now, I feel like I’m incapable. Like I don’t deserve to be with that kind of person. I can’t convince myself that I do.”

I paused, reminiscing in a strange way as if reliving the memory in its entirety, constrained by the actual time it took to live it in the first place. I was bound by the memory in its meaning and its duration.

“I sent a text to Katie’s parents and siblings. A few minutes later, her mother sent me a reply that said, ‘Katie loved you so much!’ It made me feel like a person who’s primary character trait is that of a betrayer. A fraud. Just like Dante’s ninth circle. My doom is to walk forward through time because that’s all any of us can do, but I must continue to look backward for the duration of my life. Stuck in the past. A prisoner to it.”

Megan increased the pressure on my back reassuringly but didn’t utter a sound.

“When I found her note on the divorce papers, I knew she’d only just found them. Probably the day before when I’d gone out. I know this because she used her feeble, failing strength to place little notes for me in nooks, crannies, and drawers all around the house. Little messages for me to find over the next days and weeks. It was the sweetest thing. She did the same for Olivia. When she found the divorce papers—” I threw my hands up in tight fists and screamed as if the universe would supply a satisfactory answer: “WHY DIDN’T I JUST BURN THE DAMNED THINGS!”

Megan jumped, startled at the outburst. I apologized and she mumbled a terse, customary, “It’s okay.”

Gathering my composure, I managed an even tone as I continued: “I decided to burn them then and there, but…When I picked the up, I saw that she’d not only seen them, she’d taken a moment to look through them. She’d dog-eared the last page. I know because I never once thumbed through them. Not once. I turned to it…” I pantomimed, truly reliving the moment as I recounted it, even the same elapsing of time. “She took the time to scrawl her feeble signature on the papers.”

I wept openly now and Megan handed me the towel she’d been drying her hair with. I held it over my face and sobbed, shoulders heaving and pathetic moans escaping me. For her part, she didn’t slide away. She remained.

When I gathered my composure again, I sat up, resolute but weary. “She knew it wouldn’t matter after she was gone. She chose to end it on her terms, but I can’t help but wonder if she did it because she read the papers? She signed them and didn’t want to face me finding them while she was alive—how could I blame her? Did she deprive Olivia of a few more days because she thought I didn’t want her? That hurts me, so, SO deeply.”

I sniffed again and let the silence linger. Megan chose continued silence.

“How does a marriage get to a point where we only needed and even yearned for one another during the hard times, and we managed to find comfort there? Her last year was difficult and, perhaps, despite the divorce papers and what they say about my intent, it was the best year of our marriage. I have to ask myself, regardless of the absurdity considering her illness, what would have happened to us if she’d gotten well?” I sniffed several times and sighed heavily. “We stopped needing or even wanting each other when the times were good. I think we even lost the capacity to envision being with and sharing good times. Italy was the last time we were together where we were both happy and both enjoyed each other.”

Megan pulled the sheet tight about her neck, and I thought I saw her eyes glisten when she set her hand on mine. The muted din of Pisa went on below our window.

After some time beside each other, I said, “Thank you for listening…again.”

She didn’t respond as I craned my neck to stare at the ceiling. “We loved each other but we didn’t really love us. In the end, the best we were, was when she was dying. I…I don’t know how to be present in a relationship when things are going well. I can’t really remember ever being in one. It only worked when I gave up on hope of something better. Something better scares me. Like I don’t deserve it or I’m not built for it.”

“Forgiving ourselves is…”

Michelangelo’s flayed skin in the hands of Saint Bartholomew came to my mind. I muttered, “Impossible?”

When she spoke, I could sense she had raised a protective wall about herself. Whatever we had was not gone, but it was placed out of reach, and I couldn’t blame her. She said with a perilously empathetic tone, “What are you going to do?”

Megan was my muse, but she didn’t deserve to be my therapist.

Click here to read the concluding chapters of “Life Imitating”