“He’s eighty-nine,” she said. “If Giacomo can dance, so can you.”

“Ci provo.” I’ll try.

Ross danced four times, twice with each of the young women, as they were now trying to outdo each other. After the dances he sat back down to catch his breath as the accordion music started up again and the older couples retook the dance floor. Suddenly Eliana was standing next to his table. “Is everyone having a good time?”

Everyone at the table responded enthusiastically. One man raised a glass of wine to her.

She looked at Ross. “Are you having fun, Mr. Story?”

“Sì. Molto.” Much.

She leaned into Ross and whispered to him, “Meet me at the bottom of the vineyard road behind the cantina in ten minutes. I want to show you something.”

She walked back to her table. Ross watched her, and then, after a few minutes, Eliana said something to Manuela and casually walked toward the ladies’ room. After a short while Ross excused himself from the table and walked toward the opposite door. Across the room Luca watched him leave.

Ross walked down the stairs to the outside, then followed the back gravel road to a small dirt patch the workers used to park their cars, surrounded by a cluster of olive trees and bouquets of yellow broom. Eliana was there, leaning against the vertical post of a log fence, watching him descend toward her. A twilight breeze caused a few errant strands of her hair to dance around her face. When he was within a few feet of her, she motioned to him. “This way.”

They walked together to where the dirt road split, one side rising, the other side gently sloping down to a small ravine near the irrigation lake and the vineyard. Eliana, wearing high heels, took careful steps over the rocks and dirt. Ross took her hand and she interlaced her fingers with his. He remembered how wonderful her hand had felt the first time he had held it, in Arezzo.

They walked a moment in silence over the spongy earth, she slightly ahead of him, pulling him toward something.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Twilight was falling fast. The music from the feast grew faint in the distance, replaced by the sound of their breathing and their feet over the rich black soil.

“It’s true what you said about the earth. The soil does smell different.”

“When I was pregnant with Alessio, my skin took on so many changes. It felt different. It even smelled different. I think it’s the same when the earth gives birth.”

Ross nodded again and agreed silently. They walked a little farther. She stopped where a low stone wall blocked their path. She brushed the wall a little with her hand, then put her back to it and pushed herself up onto it. Ross joined her. Their feet hanging a few inches above the ground, they both sat there looking out over the valley they had just traversed.