“Mia figlia,” the woman said.

Keira looked down at the picture, of a young woman sitting on the hood of a car. She was wearing shorts, of a distinctively 1970s style. Her smile was wide and infectious, and long blond hair flowed down her back. Keira could see in the openness and warmth in her face that she was most definitely a relation to the elderly woman sitting beside her.

“Who is this?” Keira asked.

“Mia figlia,” the woman repeated.

Keira was so intrigued by who the girl was in the picture, she took her cell phone out and logged onto her translation app. She typed the words as she heard them—mia fia. The app took a moment to work out from her phonetic translation what she might be getting at, then a word appeared on the screen. Daughter.

“This is your daughter?” Keira asked, a lilt of joy in her voice. “She’s beautiful. Bellissimo.”

The woman smiled and nodded. She handed Keira another photo. This time the woman was sitting inside a car—the same one, Keira noted—and there was a bag on the back seat. Keira saw then, on the passenger seat, a notebook and pen. It gave Keira an uncanny feeling. She herself was never without her notebook. If not tucked under her arm, it was always in her purse, almost as though it were an extension of herself. She wondered whether the innkeeper’s daughter might also have been a writer.

She pointed at the notebook and asked the innkeeper, “She wrote?”

“Scrittore,” the innkeeper said.

Keira typed scrit-or-ray into her app. Again, it took a moment to work out what she was trying to say and give her the option of the correct spelling—scrittore—then gave her the translation. Writer.

“Giornalista,” the innkeeper added.

Keira didn’t need her app to translate that. Its pronunciation—journalista—sounded very similar to the English word.

Keira sat back, shocked by the coincidence of the innkeeper’s daughter sharing a similar profession to her own. Had the innkeeper recognized the writer in Keira instinctively? It was an almost eerie sensation.

The innkeeper handed the heavy, leather-bound book to Keira then. She ran her fingers over the gilded gold letters on the front. Italia: la terra degli amanti. The author was listed as Nicoletta Affini.

Keira opened the book up. Inside, the blank first page had been signed. The ink was a faded blue.

Per mia madre, Nicoletta.

Keira was sure she recognized the word madre, but to be certain, she typed it into her app. It revealed her suspicion was true. Madre meant mother.

“Your daughter wrote this book?” Keira asked. “Figlia?” She mimed writing.

The innkeeper nodded, her smile widening even more. She was clearly very proud of her daughter’s accomplishment and Keira could certainly see why. She could just imagine the beautiful young Nicoletta driving around the gorgeous Italian countryside in her car, her trusty notebook by her side, stopping to write wherever the inspiration took her; mountains, piazzas, canal sides, watching the gorgeous sunsets, living life to the fullest.