Later, after the boy and his friends had gone on their way, Carter walked down past the fountain to take a picture of the piazza with his digital camera. As he turned and looked up, he got his first good view of the spectacular twin-towered church rising just across the street from the top of the steps. It occurred then to Carter that he had forgotten to go to mass that day, and he felt a pang of guilt about it. He considered climbing back up the steps to the church to see if by chance it would have an afternoon mass, but suddenly the jet lag caught up with him. A wave of fatigue swept over him, washing away any notions of making the climb. Instead, he dropped the camera back in his pack and began to make his way back to his hotel to take a nap before dinner.There would be, he was certain, plenty of other churches along the way. If he could keep his eyes open, perhaps he would stop at one of them to say a few prayers and hope that that would be enough.

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 28

“Oh, my God, it’s so beautiful!”

Until she had spoken those words, Carter had not noticed the young woman standing beside him, nor the man who accompanied her. He had been far too enthralled at the moment to pay either of them much heed.

It was late in the afternoon the next day, and the three were at the Vatican, in the Basilica of Saint Peter, gazing at Michelangelo’s Pietà. Even if he had wanted to, Carter could not possibly have found the words to adequately describe the statue of the Virgin Mary holding her dead son, Jesus. He stood there transfixed. The grace and beauty of it filled him with awe, and at the same time evoked in him a profound sadness. Carter, by his own admission, knew nothing whatsoever about art. At the moment he came upon the statue, however, he had understood at once what Giancarlo had meant that day when he said that one only need be human to appreciate some works of art, and that Carter would see things in Italy so beautiful that they would make him want to cry.

This was one.