It wasn’t until her grandmother had slipped a few sheets of paper under her door, pages filled with the beginnings of a new story, that Emily had found a way to rid herself of the darkness. Only then had she been able to open the window wide, let in the light and begin again.

This is different, Emily thought as she stared down at the book’s cover. She understood the message her grandmother was trying to send; knew what it was she was expected to do. But knowing and succeeding were two very different things.

“I don’t know how to start again.”

“Then you have to try.” Giancarlo opened the book, pointed to the dedication on the first page.

For Noah—I should have said yes.

“Do you know where he is?”

“There is one more thing.” Giancarlo rose from his chair, reaching around the side to take hold of a wooden cane with a silver parrot on its end. He held out one arm and Emily took it, escorting him back inside the restaurant and to a small windowless room which served as an office. The walls were filled with black-and-white photographs, all hung in haphazard fashion, all of people she did not know.

Apart from one.

Emily’s eye fell on a photograph of Catriona and Gigi, both in bikinis, with hair soaked through with water from the sea. They were having a tug of war with a towel, Gigi bent double with laughter and Catriona leaning back, as if she were about to fall.

“I was angry for such a long time.” Giancarlo gazed at the photograph as he went around the desk. “Angry at God, at myself, for wondering whether knowing Gigi for only a moment was better or worse than never knowing her at all.” He opened a drawer and took out another book, slid it across to Emily with a tear in his eye.

It was a copy of Ulysses. The same book her grandmother had seen a stranger read on a train headed for London and, years later, asked Emily to hide in the story Giancarlo had just given her.

“She said you would understand.”

“I don’t.” She flicked through the pages but found nothing out of the ordinary. The book was a puzzle within a puzzle. A parody, a story set over the course of one day. Where was the link she was being asked to find?

“You will.” Giancarlo put the book back in his desk drawer. “But don’t be alone when you try to figure it out.”

“Why not?” Emily swallowed away the lump that had reappeared in her throat as she remembered the way he had looked at the envelope tucked inside her grandmother’s book.

“You have someone with you?” He was staring at her again, and she could see a certain sadness behind the lenses of his spectacles. It made her understand that every time he thought of Catriona, he remembered too the wife he had lost.

“I do,” she replied, thinking of Tyler and Phoebe, not certain they were with her in the way Giancarlo, or her grandmother, hoped.