Deep down, she had the sense that Jace had never been as attentive as Finn, never as interested in her, never as understanding of the things that ignited her passion. But he’d given his life to save her, and nothing would trump that. Now she looked at it a different way. If she didn’t finally move on with her life, what had he sacrificed himself for?

Camille poured herself a glass of wine, taking her camera and Lisette’s out to the front porch. She sat on the top step and looked out at the quiet evening settling over the neighborhood. Julie was at an end-of-summer clambake with a group of friends—and those friends included Vanessa and Jana, surprisingly enough. Bringing home her great-grandfather’s Purple Heart had been the grace note to a wonderful summer.

Camille loaded fresh film into the Leica. Holding it up and looking through the viewfinder was like meeting an old friend again.

You look like a pro, Finn had said to her.

It’s kind of sexy.

Stop it, she thought. But the memory of that day hung on—the drive to Gordes. She still felt the wonder of walking into the house where Willy Ronis had lived, where he’d found his best moments as an artist in the ordinary, everyday life of his family. How well Finn seemed to realize that.

He understood what Jace never had. Photography wasn’t a hobby. Not for Lisette. And not for Camille.

She drank the wine, not fighting the tears. “Ah, Jace. I love you with every inch of my heart,” she said, speaking aloud into the evening air. “I always will. And I’ll never, ever forget you.”

She thought about what Hank Watkins had said. Lisette was my first true love. But life is long, and loving again didn’t take away from the memories.

“I’m still here, Jace, and you’re . . . not,” she went on. “We will never grow old together. We’ll never worry about Julie together. We won’t have any more kids. We both wanted our future so much, but we’ll never get to have one, and I can’t spend my life regretting it. And so I have to say good-bye. For my sake and for Julie’s, I have to. My happily-ever-after is never going to happen with you. But that doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen.”

She finished her wine, then went and picked up the garden stone by the gate, the one with Jace’s initials and the phrase “Always in my heart.” She moved it to the fringe of woods at the end of the backyard, where no one ever went. Then she replaced it with the one from Sauveterre, the one chiseled by Hank in 1944: H+L, Journey Without End. Once again, her thoughts returned to Finn. She mentally relived the first time they’d met—right here on her front porch. He had met her on one of her worst days, and she’d dashed his hopes of finding the last pictures his father had shot.