“Let me take a picture of this for Emily,” she said, and lifted her phone. When she finished, she looked down at the screen and gave a tiny, satisfied smile that made Will shift on his feet with longing for her. When she turned, he watched her skirt sway, watched it gently catch at the edges of the ferns that draped lazily over the path. He stayed a few steps behind her, enjoying it—the shape of Nora, surrounded by all this living, breathing green.

When he came even with her again, she was looking up at giant, swaying fronds above her.

“This is so good,” she said quietly. “I’m going to do more things like this.”

He felt a strange pang at that I’m, this imagined future of Nora alone, out exploring places that made her feel good. He thought idly, aimlessly, recklessly of a routine: meeting Nora here every month, one night after work. A different dress every time. His hands out of his pockets. His mouth ready and waiting.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes up, but he could see something pass over her face, something strained and sad that he knew meant she was thinking of someone specific.

He waited.

“At first when I came back, I was so focused on”—her eyes closed, too long for a simple blink, before opening again—“Nonna, and making sure I took care of things the way she had. The way I knew she would want me to. And then it was winter, and I was pretty sad, and then right when things started to . . .” She trailed off, lowering her head, her cheeks flushing.

“Donny,” he said. “Me.”

She looked over at him, her expression embarrassed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay,” he said, because it actually was. In her apartment, with the rental two floors below, maybe it wouldn’t have been; maybe it would’ve felt strained or maybe it would’ve fallen silent. But right now, to Will, the past felt safer, more comfortable than the future.

So he stuck with it.

“Did you always know you’d come back here?” he asked. “To live, I mean. For good.”

When she stayed quiet at first, he worried he might have misstepped—that what felt safer to him in this moment didn’t feel the same for her. But after a second, she cast her eyes upward again, and he could tell she was thinking through her answer.

“When I was younger, I did. I used to talk about it all the time, to my grandmother. And to my parents.” She lowered her head again, and they both continued on the path. A slow stroll, unconscious of closing time. “But I don’t know. I was always going to do college in California, because I could go for free where my parents teach. I still came back here, but not as often, not for the full summer.”