Eliana waited on the step until the porter blew his whistle and Eliana was forced to step back inside while the doors shut. Suddenly Anna came running by frantically looking for them. Eliana pounded on the door’s glass and Anna stopped. She walked up to the side of the train, outside the closed door holding the ice cream cone. Tears rolled down Anna’s cheeks. She blew them a kiss. Eliana kissed her fingers and waved back to her. Then the train lurched forward, and for a ways Anna walked along with it, waving and blowing kisses. Then the platform ended and the train left, taking them away from each other, filling Eliana with sadness. “You always said you’d never say goodbye, Anna. Arrivederci, my sister.”

A moment later Alessio took her hand. “Can we sit down?”

With her free hand Eliana wiped the tears from her eyes. “Yes, sweetheart.”

They found their seats, and Eliana took a picture book out of her carry-on for Alessio. When he was content, she sat back and closed her eyes. As the train rumbled away from Florence, her mind reeled through two thousand days in Italy, weaving between languages and cultures, firsts and lasts, images of Maurizio and Anna and then Villa Rendola—her maternal hills spotted with trellises. She saw Alessio growing and changing. And she knew that she too had changed, and she wondered if she could ever totally fit back into American life. She wondered if this was how a soldier felt coming back from a crusade filled with stories and thoughts no one but his comrades could ever know or understand. But through her mind’s wanderings her thoughts always came back to Ross, as if he had been the punctuation of her story, and it made her want to cry. And his words haunted her. Remember, Eliana, love doesn’t give second chances.

AFTERWORD

AFTERWORD

“Il temp è un gran medico.” Time is a great healer.

—Italian Proverb

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there, baking beneath the Tuscan sun, engrossed in Eliana’s tale. At least an hour. When she finished talking, it was lunchtime and there were a few vacant lounges around us, though I didn’t remember seeing anyone leave.

In the telling of her story Eliana had changed to me. Now, somehow, she had become larger than life, reminding me that the best stories aren’t always in books.

“Do you believe that?” I asked. “That love doesn’t give second chances.”

“I did for a while.”

“So what happened next?”

“I went back to Utah to get on with my life. A fresh start. But it was hard. I had changed so much.” She laughed. “Everyone called me Ellen, and I would look around to see who they were talking to. They say you can’t go home again. They’re right. But it’s not home that changes.”

“And Alessio, how did he cope with the move?”