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Samantha carefully packed all her things into her old red backpack. She'd worn this backpack because it had made her remember the joy and excitement of going to art school, but now all she could remember was how it had felt to pack up her supplies when she'd dropped out of school to take care of her grandmother. She felt that same ache of giving up dreams now—the same heavy understanding that making the right choice didn't always mean feeling good about it.
She stood and walked all around the tower apartment, running her hand along the thick stone walls, the wooden railings of the stairs, counting the bricks between the wooden beams in the arched ceiling.
This would fade, eventually. The memory and the pain.
She went up to the top of the castle tower and walked all the way around once, touching every crenellation as though it were a ritual. She closed her eyes and listened to the bird calls as she'd done her first morning here. “Oh, Grandma,” she breathed, “you would've loved it. You would've loved him.”
It was hours earlier than she needed to leave, hours before the time she'd originally arranged with Antonio to take her to the airport. But she couldn't stay any longer. Clutching the straps of her backpack, Samantha went and climbed onto the bus into Florence for the last time.
#
EDO WAITED ON THE STEPS until ten a.m., but Samantha didn't emerge. When the door did open, he knew what his mother had to say by the look on her face. “She's already gone,” he said flatly.”
His mother nodded.
Edo swore and started for the parking lot, then stopped and ran back to his mother. “What time was her flight?”
His mother took his hand. “She'll already have gone through security.”
Edo swore again and turned away from his mother. She wrapped her arms around his waist anyway, and hugged him tightly.