He nodded. “Very good. When would you like me to meet you?”

“At three, outside the reservations entrance.”

“Three it is.” At this Francesca stood and Ross likewise stood and shook her hand. “I will be there. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Piacere mio.” My pleasure.

Francesca walked out of the room and the young woman smiled at him.

“Thank you for your help,” Ross said. “I don’t know your name.”

“My name is Patrizia.”

“Piacere, Patrizia.” It’s a pleasure.

She smiled. “Welcome to the Uffizi. If you would like, I have a little time right now. I could show you around. Then we could take a coffee at the bar.”

“Thank you. I’d like that.”

“You may leave your bag in here. It will be safe.”

Patrizia led Ross out of her office, past the ticket counter and up four flights of stone stairs to the second-floor gallery. As he walked down the wide, high-ceilinged corridor, a sense of awe fell over him. This place, these works of art, had saved his life. Not in a figurative sense, but in reality. Perhaps life did come full circle, he thought. Perhaps this was recompense for the injustices of his life. Maybe. If so, the first installment had been paid.

CHAPTER 3

“L’amore è cieco, ma il matrimonio gli ridà la vista.” Love is blind. Marriage restores one’s vision.

—Italian Proverb

Alessio straddled the back of the living room’s leather couch as he gazed out the window. He had been bouncing a rubber ball against the window as well, but he had dropped it and it had rolled out of reach beneath the couch and so now he just looked. Eliana walked down the stairs, her arms full with a laundry basket.

“Don’t sit on the back of the couch, honey.”

He continued to gaze outside, as if he hadn’t heard his mother.

“Alessio.”

He moaned and slid one leg down.

“What are you looking at, sport?”

“Nothing.”

“Get down. And what nothing are you looking at?”

He reluctantly slid off the back of the couch, slumping back in the sofa’s thick cushions, his heels on the edge, his knees higher than his head. “Is it three o’clock yet?”

“Feet off the couch. You know better than that. And it’s way past three.”

He dropped his feet, which barely reached the floor. “Oh,” he said, sighing loudly.

“Since when do you care what time it is?”

“Dad said on the phone yesterday he’d be home at three.”

Eliana groaned. Her countenance softened; then she set her basket down and walked to Alessio’s side, sitting on the couch next to him. She put her arms around him and pulled him close. “He must have gotten caught in some traffic.”

She felt stupid offering the same worn excuses for her husband. She should be good at covering for Maurizio by now, but she wasn’t. It just seemed to get harder.

Alessio’s face was still bent in dejection. “I don’t like traffic,” he said sadly. “It’s always catching Dad.”