As we walked, we talked about the future. We were pragmatic. We were too old for pipe dreams, too experienced to imagine that a ramshackle old building on a remote headland could ever play out as a romantic fantasy. We’d need help if we were to make something of our villa, but Joe had his Sicilian friends and they knew people, good people. We’d need a plan, but between us we could come up with something workable: Joe could design the gardens and I could work on the house. We’d need money. If we had the Madonna del Mare that wouldn’t be a problem, but without her we’d need to work as quickly as we could and start generating income as soon as possible to fund the future work.

Most of all, we’d need faith in one another. This was always going to be our biggest hurdle. I’d let Joe down before. I’d walked away from him when he needed me most and it had taken me all this time to understand what I’d done to him. I still didn’t know how – or if – I could convince him that I wouldn’t let him down again.

There was some cold, leftover pasta, in the bowl on the kitchen table, but Joe said he was tired of pasta. Instead, he peeled potatoes while a big pot of salted water boiled on the stove. I made a salad and drank some wine. For the first time since our reunion, we moved about one another as we used to move in the tiny kitchen of our London flat. We moved like dancers, each knowing where the other was, predicting one another’s gestures and requirements, passing knives and colanders between us. It was comfortable to be back in the company of someone who knew me so well. It was so straightforward and so nice. I wished we hadn’t stayed apart so long; I wished I’d had the sense to reach out to Joe before; wished I’d tried to build bridges. Now it was so easy, I struggled to remember why it had seemed so difficult before.

There had been opportunities for Joe and I to meet in the past decade. Anna wrote letters that I tore into pieces and threw away unopened and unread. Many times, I had been invited, via Martha, to DeLuca family events, but I’d always found reasons not to go. The Christmas and birthday cards Anna sent to me were dropped straight into the recycling bin. Every chance I’d had to make things better, I’d rejected. And now it felt as if each of those rejections had been a way of hurting myself when, instead, I should have been looking for ways to heal.