“I can’t answer that,” he said, twisting his hands in his lap.

I shook my head, unwilling to let this go unanswered for another minute of our lives, especially since our life was essentially over and I might never get another chance. “You have to answer, Daniel, if you ever felt anything for me, I need to know.”

“I don’t . . . Christ, Avery, I don’t know if . . .” He looked at me with the strangest eyes. “You seemed so different after.”

“I was different after, Daniel. When Hannah died, I felt lost, too, and I know you did. You can say it, Daniel. I think this is part of the problem. We never talked about her.”

When I looked up at him, he was pale, ashen. He’d gone through hell, too. “But how do you talk about something like that? I couldn’t, I mean, how could I talk about . . . she was my daughter.”

I reeled backward, struck by the strength of these memories, memories that were so tied up and tucked away like so much of my young life had been. Fresh tears sprung to my eyes as I felt them all rushing back.

“Neither one of us dealt with it, Daniel. Not the way we should have. Not together. We have to face the fact that once Hannah was gone, there wasn’t much holding us together as a couple. And whatever we did have just kind of . . . dissolved.”

Taking his hand, I sandwiched it between mine. His ring was still on, the gold glinting in the lamplight. I spun it around his finger once and then covered it with my hand. “We should have focused on the memories that you and I made together before her instead of losing her. If we’d leaned on each other maybe things would have been different.”

He nodded, wiping his eyes on his jacket sleeve. “I wish I could go back. Fix things.”

I shook my head to clear it, to find Daniel, still sitting in front of me, still not able to answer my question. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, would he have married me?

I answered it for him. “I don’t think we would have gotten married. I think if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, everything would be so different. It changed us so much afterward that we should have realized then that this wouldn’t work forever,” I said, wiping a tear away. “That part of us, those incredible months we had with her, with our family, that’s the most precious time of my life, but ever since then? Oh, Daniel . . . we were just a mess. A pretty, polished, looks-great-on-the-surface mess, but a mess.”

I was having a Moment, and I was also Having a Moment inside of a Moment—and while that should have been really confusing, it was actually affording me perfect clarity. A moment like when I missed a chair in Rome and fell at the feet of the one who got away. I was being given a second chance.

“We deserve to be happy, Daniel,” I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, gaining strength once more. “You just have to admit that it isn’t with each other.”

He gave a great sigh that sounded like it should have come from someone much older. “You really won’t come home with me?”

Bless his heart. “No, Daniel. I really won’t.” I shook my head sadly at him.

He nodded, all the fight seeming to have drained out of him. “So there’s no point in trying to get you to—”

“That’s just it. There’s no point in trying to get me.” And with that, he got it. He finally got it. “I think at this point, it’s best to let the lawyers handle it, don’t you?” The tiniest sob of sadness tugged at the back of my throat, making my voice catch a bit.

He nodded once more, agreeing with me. His face looked as resigned as I felt, and he turned for the door.

As he shrugged into his jacket, I placed my hand on the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades. There was a birthmark there about the size of a dime. In the right light, it looked vaguely like a heart.

He turned back to face me with sad eyes. “You really have changed haven’t you?”

“I have.” I should have a long time ago.

“It’s good,” he said, and I believed him.

“Good-bye, Daniel,” I said, my voice cracking. This part of my life was ending. Sure, there’d be paperwork and phone calls, emails and maybe even another face-to-face meeting when it came time to divide everything up. It might get ugly; it might get heated. But in the end, I hoped that one day I’d see him on the Boston Common, walking with his new wife, perhaps with his children. And we’d both smile.

He turned back to me and hugged me close. “Bye, Avery.”

And then he left.

And I cried. Because this was one of the big decisions, the ones about responsibility and tough choices and living with them.

Part of me would always look fondly on my time with Daniel. Maybe even wonder a bit about what could have been had things not gone south. The years with him made me who I was, and you could only learn from that and hope not to make the same mistakes again. After all, that lesson had brought me here.

Marcello called a few hours later. He missed me. He wanted me. Could he come over?

No, not tonight. I needed to be alone, to really and truly grieve what had finally ended, and actually let myself feel it.

When I went to bed, the sliver of the moon was high, bright white, and smiling through my open window. The warm summer breeze floated in, dancing over the thin sheet like a kiss. I turned, listening to the quiet chirps from the crickets below.

I didn’t know what else Italy had in store for me, but I knew this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

REALLY GREAT WORK, AVERY,” Maria commented, checking off items on her list. “The organic microemulsion solution you used was brilliant.”