Chapter 9 - The Trip That Was Finally Mine
I went to Italy.
Not immediately.
And not because a man took me.
That distinction mattered.
Emily left for Florence in June.
I arrived three weeks later and spent my first four days alone.
I walked until my feet hurt.
I drank coffee at outdoor tables without checking anyone else's schedule.
I bought a ridiculous straw hat.
I stood in front of paintings older than my country and wondered how many women in them had spent their lives being told where to stand.
Then Thomas arrived.
He found me outside a café near Piazza Santo Spirito.
“You bought a hat.”
“I did.”
“It's enormous.”
“You can leave.”
“I love the hat.”
“Coward.”
He kissed me.
We had been together almost a year.
Yet he still kissed me like he was asking rather than claiming.
Emily's exhibition was two nights later.
She had designed a community housing concept centered around shared courtyards and multigenerational spaces.
Richard flew in.
So did Patricia.
When Emily told me, I nearly objected.
Then I didn't.
This was her achievement.
She was allowed to decide who witnessed it.
Richard arrived alone.
He looked healthier.
Less polished.
More human.
Patricia complained about the airline, Italian elevators, European plumbing, and the dangerous amount of walking expected from civilized people.
Some things survived personal growth.
After the exhibition, we ate together on a terrace.
No one mentioned the last anniversary dinner.
We didn't need to.
At one point, Patricia raised her wineglass.
“To Emily.”
We toasted.
Then Richard unexpectedly added, “And to Margaret.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“For saving what I almost destroyed.”
I felt uncomfortable.
“I didn't save it alone.”
“No.”
He looked around the table.
“But you were the first person who stopped pretending.”
That was enough.
Later, Thomas and I walked along the Arno.
He was unusually quiet.
“Something wrong?”
“No.”
“That's a suspicious no.”
He laughed.
Then stopped near the river.
“Margaret.”
I turned.
His expression made my heart accelerate.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You have a face.”
“I always have a face.”
“That particular face.”
He reached into his jacket.
I pointed at him.
“Thomas Whitaker, if you produce a silver box—”
He laughed so hard he had to stop.
“No silver box.”
Instead, he held a folded piece of paper.
I stared.
“That is somehow worse.”
“Read it.”
I unfolded it.
One sentence.
Dinner tomorrow?
I looked up.
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
“You looked terrified to ask me to dinner?”
“I learned patience.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
He took my hand.
“Not proposing.”
I exhaled.
He smiled.
“Disappointed?”
“Relieved.”
“Good.”
We walked again.
After several steps, I said, “Maybe slightly disappointed.”
He stopped.
I kept walking.
“Margaret?”
I smiled to myself.
Patience worked both ways.
The following evening, he took me to a hillside restaurant outside Florence.
The view looked disturbingly familiar.
I stared across the valley.
“No.”
Thomas smiled.
“What?”
“This looks like the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“The one in the restaurant where Richard gave me the divorce papers.”
He genuinely hadn't known.
I started laughing.
Of all places.
Of all landscapes.
The image that had watched my marriage end now existed around me in sunlight and summer air.
We ate outside.
No speeches.
No surprises.
After dessert, Thomas asked:
“What do you want the next twenty-five years to look like?”
Nobody had ever asked me that.
Not really.
Richard and I had discussed retirement.
Properties.
Emily.
Money.
But not what I wanted my life to feel like.
“I want to paint.”
“Okay.”
“I want to work, but less.”
“Good.”
“I want to travel.”
“Yes.”
“I want my own home.”
His expression didn't change.
“Absolutely.”
“Even if—”
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“You don't know what I was going to say.”
“You want independence even inside a relationship.”
I stared at him.
“Yes.”
“I know.”
There was no wounded pride.
No argument.
No suggestion that love required merging every boundary.
I reached across the table.
“I want you too.”
His fingers closed around mine.
“That's fortunate.”
“Don't ruin it.”
“I'll try.”
When we returned to Ohio, I bought a house.
Mine.
A modest brick house with enormous windows and a backyard filled with maple trees.
Thomas helped me move but kept his own place.
Emily called us “the slowest romance in the Midwest.”
I considered that a compliment.
Then, one October afternoon, exactly two years after Richard had first begun the Riverside deception, a certified envelope arrived.
For a second, my stomach tightened.
Old reflex.
I opened it.
Inside was confirmation that the final restitution connected to my property had been paid.
The legal chapter was over.
I drove to my studio.
On the easel stood a painting I had worked on for months.
An Italian hillside.
Amber sunlight.
A long table in the foreground.
But no people.
I stared at it.
Then painted over the table.
Thomas arrived later carrying dinner.
He studied the canvas.
“You changed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't want that table anymore.”
“What are you putting there?”
I smiled.
“Nothing.”
He looked confused.
“That's the point.”
Empty space.
Room for something new.
He kissed my forehead.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“It's Richard.”
I blinked.
“Why is Richard calling you?”
“I don't know.”
He answered.
“Hello?”
I watched his expression change.
“What?”
A pause.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Yes. We'll come.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
“Patricia collapsed.”
My heart sank.
“Is she—”
“Alive. They're taking her to the hospital.”
We drove there together.
Richard stood outside the emergency department.
When he saw me, his face crumpled.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for me to remember that beneath everything he had done, he was still someone's frightened son.
I walked toward him.
“What happened?”
“They think it's her heart.”
He looked at me.
“I didn't know who else to call.”
Two years earlier, I would have mistaken those words for an obligation.
Now I understood the difference.
Someone could need me without owning me.
I touched his shoulder.
May you like
“We're here.”
And for the first time, being kind to Richard did not feel like surrender.
