Chapter xv
xv
THE SMELL OF ESPRESSO GREETED ME AS I GOT OFF the plane in the Rome international airport. I spotted Caffè Lavazza and instantly felt the adrenaline rush of being somewhere different. Signs I couldn’t understand. The buzz of so many languages being spoken at once, lilting Italian making its way over the din.
Instead of going straight to the taxi stand, I stopped at the Caffè Lavazza and had my first Italian coffee of the trip. It was rich and smooth with undertones of something dark and chocolatey. The last time I’d landed in Italy with Darren for what we’d called our second honeymoon, we’d stopped for coffee in the airport, too, and he’d laughed at my description of the flavors. He said I sounded like a coffee sommelier. Maybe it’s true. I like wine, but I appreciate a good cup of coffee more.
As I finished my coffee, I felt shaken out of the loop of sameness I’d been in at home. The predictability, the cycle of work and kids and work and kids. I felt invigorated.
After my taxi ride from the airport, I got out at my hotel in Rome’s city center, and I heard the tolling of the church bells. I stood still on the sidewalk, listening.
I’d forgotten how beautiful the church bells in Rome were. More than beauty, the bells gave the city an air of holiness, of spiritual continuity.
“Benvenuta a Roma, signora,” the doorman said as he took my duffel bag.
“Grazie,” I said, remembering the handful of words I’d picked up on my last trip. But my American accent must have betrayed me, because he switched to English.
“Will you be staying with us long, ma’am?” he said.
“Not long,” I told him. But I hoped long enough.
As I checked in, I kept thinking about the church bells. The first night Darren and I were in Rome, we went to the bar on the roof of our hotel. It was enclosed with hip-high glass, the whole city unfolding before us in a panorama. And while the sun was starting to set, the church bells rang at vespers and Darren put his arm around me. The whole world seemed to pause. My senses were heightened, and the moment seared itself into my mind.
Sometimes I have those memories of Darren—the wonderful ones, the loving ones—and I think about the different paths I might have traveled. Do you remember when we saw each other at Faces & Names on my twenty-third birthday and you quoted Robert Frost to me? Two roads diverged , you said. Now I think of it more like three roads, or maybe four, or five, or six. At every choice there are different directions to take. We always have to choose—even not making a choice ends up being a choice. We were wrong that night, Gabe. We never get to travel the same road twice, because we are not the same people from day to day, year to year.
I was in Rome again, but I was a different version of myself. And it made me think that if you and I hadn’t slept together, if we hadn’t made Samuel, I would be living a different version of my life—maybe you would be living a different version of yours. Maybe you would be living.
“THANK YOU,” I SAID TO THE RECEPTIONIST WHO handed me my key, and I took the elevator up to my room alone, wishing for the first time in a long time that I wasn’t, that I had someone to share this adventure with. I crushed the feeling as soon as it appeared—I’d been telling myself for years that I didn’t deserve love, that I was horrible at relationships, that I’d failed at the two defining romantic relationships of my life. I never gave the first dates I went on a chance. I didn’t want a third strike against me, a third opportunity to ruin my life— and someone else’s. But even though I squashed it down, that little spark of desire was there.