“A little.” In truth, she didn’t really know what she was. Food seemed somehow irrelevant, disconnected from this man, this place. She wanted something, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

“Do you want to see the castle?” He pointed to the stone walls behind them.

“I’ve been up it already.”

“Did you know that it is built on stilts? Just like in Venice.”

She liked the way his words were curling around one another, as if he was struggling to piece them together. It may have only been because he was more used to speaking Italian than English, but it made her feel more at ease, less aware of her own impediments.

“I tell you what. Let me take you out on the boat. To a place I know a little farther up the lake. Somewhere I took your grandmother, a long time ago.”

He was waiting for her to reply. To give her consent. To get on a boat with a man she knew only by proxy but who could, for all she knew, be an ax murderer.

“Do you have time?”

Three more days, Emily calculated. Three more days until the timer ran out of sand and everything she thought she had would be given away.

“If we go now,”—he held out his hand, invited her on board his boat—“we can be there to watch the sun set, with a glass of prosecco and some fantastic linguine.”

The boat thrummed to life and Emily sat up front, next to Noah at the helm. She closed her eyes to feel the salty spray on her face as they cleared the small marina, and he opened up the throttle, sending them hurtling across the water.

Did you swim here? she wondered, knowing how much her grandmother loved the sea, even on the coldest of mornings, even when she was tired and frail.

Eyes wide open, she saw houses with terra-cotta and lemon walls, children playing on pebble beaches and snow-topped mountains looming in the background. It was spectacularly beautiful, like a film set, or something stolen from the depths of her imagination.

A heron was perched on one of the rocky outposts they sped past, all skinny legs and long beak. Motionless, the bird waited, staring into the water for its prey.

The Greeks believed herons to be messengers from the gods, including Aphrodite. Emily stole a glance at Noah. Was her grandmother trying to send her a message, or was she simply looking for clues, for signs, that this was where she was supposed to be?

Watching the casual way he navigated the lake, with only the slightest movement of his hand on the wheel, Emily imagined what it would have been like to have loved someone as deeply as her grandmother loved this man. For someone to love you that way in return.

It was clear he was at home here, speaking with reverence and delight as he pointed out various landmarks along the way. He was at peace, and she couldn’t help but wonder once again why her grandmother hadn’t wanted to be here, with him.