I understood, and still understand, little of Lorenzo’s work, but Patrick’s got the biochemistry background to process it. He reads every notation, every scribbled comment, his lips moving as he goes from page to page. When he reaches the bottom of the fourth sheet, he turns it, laying the paper flat on the others, facedown.

I’m not quick enough.

Patrick’s head moves a hair to the left, away from page five of Lorenzo’s notes, and his eyes settle on the back of the previous page.

We work differently, Patrick and I. My desks have always been cluttered with non-necessities: a framed photograph, a pack of gum, hand cream, more pens and pencils than I need. As a consequence, I move through loose paperwork by taking the top sheet and putting it at the back of the stack. Patrick, with a desk as sterile as a hospital floor, lays the stack down and makes two piles, one read, one unread, turning each finished page over and placing it to his left.

Which is why I’ve never seen what Lorenzo wrote on the back of page four.

It looks like a poem, but not a very structured one. The verse is chopped here and there, one word on a line, then a break, then a phrase. The upside-down text is impossible to read from where I sit opposite Patrick, but I make out the title clearly enough.

A Gianna.

To Gianna.

“Oh,” Patrick says. His Italian is on a par with his Swahili, so I know he won’t understand a thing. But there are certain words that will give it all away: amore, vita, my name. He takes off his reading glasses and looks across the desk at me. The light from the desk lamp shows every crease on his face. “He’s very much in love with you.”

“Yes.”

“Is it mutual?”

I hesitate, and I suppose that’s what gives me away, there in the dark, even though my own face must be nothing more than a vague outline.

“All right,” he says. “All right.”

As if it were.

“How about you put some coffee on, babe?” he says.

“Sure.” I know he needs a minute, maybe several of them. In the kitchen, I measure out five scoops of high-test, fill the reservoir with water, and watch the coffee maker as it drips black tears into the empty carafe. When it’s ready—when I’m ready—I load a tray with mugs and sugar and milk from a carton that is almost full, an awful reminder that Steven is gone. And I go back into the office.

Whether Patrick cried or not, I can’t tell. He’s all business now, making notes and looking up forgotten stoichiometric symbols in a chemistry text he’s opened on the desk.

“Well?” I say.