“Did you know about Margot, about my mother?”

He exhaled with relief, as if he had been holding his breath, afraid of what she was going to say.

“Not at first, and I wish I could tell you she was mine, that you are mine.”

Emily swallowed away her disappointment, gave a small smile as she realized it didn’t hurt half as much as she had expected it to, because on some level she had always known her grandfather wasn’t the treasure to be found. And it felt as though she had found something wonderful and unexpected in this man, in Antoine too. They were pieces of her grandmother that were still here for her to discover.

“So why did she come back, if you weren’t the father?”

“I think we were always drawn to one another, in some way. But we both also understood that I wasn’t right for her, no matter how hard I tried.”

“She loved you.”

“And I loved her. More than anyone before or since.”

“What happened?”

“I asked her to stay, to marry me, again. For us to become a family.”

Emily stared at him. He was seated in the same spot where her mother once played. She could imagine time unwinding, going back to that summer. She could picture the three of them on the shores of this very lake, with her mother, Margot, having her toes dipped into the wet and giggling with delight as those pudgy legs kicked out.

Emily listened to the rush of waves over the shore, heard how the water here was more gentle, less aggressive, than at home, as if each stretch of ocean or lake had its own personal melody. Just like a person has their own unique scent, or tone of voice, or the exact beat of their heart.

“She said no.” Emily sighed. It made her sad to think of her grandmother here, with him, being asked to love someone and telling them it wasn’t possible.

“Three times.”

“Three?”

He laughed, a rich note of sound that filled his lungs before escaping, making Emily smile in return.

“The first was after a drunken argument, about Antoine no less. In Sirmione, when we barely knew one another but couldn’t deny the attraction, the pull of both our hearts.”

“He’s still mad at you.”

“I know, and I probably deserve it.” Noah lit a cigarette, drew on it in a gesture so reminiscent of Tyler that it hurt her to watch, to see the similarities between the two men who had never met. It pained her to realize how much she cared for them both, in completely different and surprising ways.

“She left him to come here, when she still had faith in me. It lasted for a couple of months, but then…”

“Then?”

“I was young, and arrogant.” There was no need for him to fill in the gaps.

“You’re an idiot.”

“You sound like Antoine, but you’re right. I was, and it is something I regret every single time I think about her, about what could have been.”