IRIS SPENT A WEEK and a half in the hospital, because the nice Italian doctor didn’t trust her not to overdo it on her broken ankle, which he’d set with such care and attention. In all that time, she never once looked in the mirror, although she read four novels and sketched portraits for all the nurses.

Nearly every day, right around noon, Sasha Digby arrived with a bouquet of flowers. Each time, it was a new variety—tulips, lilies, orange blossom, roses the most beautiful shade of blush pink. He pulled up a chair and asked how she was feeling, told her the news, shared funny stories about Harry in the embassy—a real clown, your brother, but a good man, smarter than he lets on—and that kind of thing. Day by day their conversation went a little deeper, edged a little closer to the intimate. Exactly one week after the accident, Sasha folded up the Herald-Tribune—he was reading aloud a review of an art exhibition recently opened in Florence—and said, “I’m awfully sorry about your mother. Harry told me what happened.”

“Thank you.”

“You must miss her.”

“It’s not as bad as it used to be. She wasn’t herself after Da—after our father died. My grandparents raised us, really. And then our aunt got married and took over a little.”

“That would be Vivian Schuyler, wouldn’t it?”

Iris was startled enough to look him right in the eyes. “How did you know?”

“Oh, small world. I guess you’ve met my mother, Elsie Adams. She’s a van der Wahl by birth. Practically grew up with your uncle.”

Iris felt a little dizzy. “Then you know everybody back home.”

“Oh, not everybody. We moved around when I was young. My father’s in the oil business. He and my mother divorced when I was ten or eleven, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We all have our sorrows, don’t we? Yours greater than mine, I think.”

“It doesn’t matter how great they are. Sorrow’s sorrow.”

He sat back in his chair.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“You.”

But he caressed the word. Iris looked at the window and then down at her lap. She thought Ruth would handle this so much better. Ruth would know what to say. Ask him about himself, that’s what Ruth would tell her to do, if Ruth could whisper in her ear right now.

“Sasha.” Iris paused. “That’s not your real name, is it?”

“Hold on a moment.”

Sasha set aside the newspaper and walked to the door, which he closed without a sound. He crossed the room to the window, opened it halfway, sat back down, and lit a cigarette. Only when he’d taken a long drag and exhaled again did he contemplate the ceiling and say, “My real name—and you can’t tell a soul—promise me, Iris.”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart.”