Eric begins walking toward me. I see him backlit by the sun.
“I’m sorry,” my father continues.
“For what?”
“That you never got to take this trip together. I think the reason she wanted to go back there with you is she wanted to tell you herself. I think she wanted to show you this place that was so transformative for her.” He pauses. When he returns, his voice wobbles. “I’m sorry you never got to experience that together.”
I think about Carol at the docks, Carol at lunch, Carol at La Tagliata in the hills, Carol in the kitchen at the apartment with the bright blue door.
“I get it, though,” I say. “I got it here.”
We hang up as Eric reaches me. “My dad,” I say. I hold the phone up like evidence.
Eric takes it out of my hand. He sets it down on the outdoor table. He’s still wearing only the towel. His body looks good—different, somehow, fuller. Or maybe it’s just been this long since I’ve really looked at him.
He puts both his hands on my arms and runs them down so his fingers interlace with mine. I feel heat spark through me, like an engine starting, sputtering to life.
He moves his hands to my lower back. The familiarity of him—of his smell, his warmth, his touch—makes me want to fold into him.
“Katy,” he says. “I—”
“Eric, listen.”
“Tell me. If it’s too soon, if you don’t want to—I understand. I just want you to know that I’m here for you, whenever you are. Italy or home or—”
“I love you,” I say, and I watch Eric’s face dissolve into a smile so wide it changes his entire profile. I realize I haven’t seen him smile like that in a long time—too long. “It’s been a really hard year, but it’s true, I love you. And I want to make the choice to be with you.”
“You do?”
I nod. “Yes,” I answer. “You know me.”
And then we’re kissing. His towel falls. I feel the cool shower droplets on my skin. They evaporate in a moment. We kiss each other inside, and once we are, I lift my dress up and over my head.
Any remaining clothing, off. There is an urgency to this I don’t remember ever experiencing with Eric before. But of course I’m wrong about that, too. There were hungry nights—afternoons spent in a dorm-room bed. Crashing into apartments after dinner, subway makeouts. They were lost to the soft beating of time, too, but now here they are, with us. Everything that was old, born new again.
I sit back on the bed. We lock eyes. I feel this pull, this electricity between us. The air is charged. I feel my body. This return to myself. The same one that was barren and starved with her passing, now brought back to life. Adam, the stairs, the food and wine. It has all made the blood pump faster and my skin feel softer, weightier. The blessing of this life, this one, brilliant, beautiful life. All the loss and anguish. All the joy that makes it possible. The tender connections, the fragility, the impossible odds of being here, now, together. The choice of continuing to make it so.
He hovers over me. And then we’re kissing again. I feel his warm hands on my sides, my back; they drift over my stomach. I feel his legs, intertwined with mine. I feel his chest—labored, heavy.
I thread my arms around his neck, stretch my body underneath his, and breathe with him—this man, this moment, this return.
I never felt like I belonged to Eric. I used to think it was because I belonged to her, but I know, now, that that wasn’t the whole truth. I did not belong to Eric because I do not belong to anyone. Not in that way, not any longer.
I am my own, just as she was hers.
* * *
Afterward we get ready to go into town. Eric changes into a new T-shirt and then puts on floral board shorts my mom had bought him. I eye him.
“What?” he says. “They fit. I like them.”
He grabs my arm and swings me into him. I feel the warmth of his body, the low hum of his heart.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me. “Really, honestly stunning. I think about it every time I look at you.”
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Of course.”
“Did you know when you met me? Did you think, I don’t know, I was the one?”
Eric considers this. He’s thoughtful when he speaks. He never takes his arms away from me.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “We were so young, I’m not sure I was thinking like that back then.”
“So when did you know?”