Homeport

end our deal here and now, I won’t blame you.”
    “Wouldn’t you?” He leaned back again, drawing idly on the cigar. He wondered how much the fact that she would think him a coward played into it. And how much the need to protect her weighed on the decision he’d already made. “I finish what I start.”
    Relief spread like a river, but she picked up her wineglass, raised it in a half-salute. “So do I.”

eighteen
    I t was still shy of midnight when Carlo left the trattoria and began to walk home. He’d promised his wife he wouldn’t be out late. The boundaries of their marriage included one evening a week for him to sit and drink and tell lies with his friends. Sofia had her evening as well, a gossipfest at her sister’s, which he supposed amounted to the same thing.
    Habitually he stayed till twelve, or a bit after, drawing the male oasis out, but just lately he’d been cutting it short. He’d been the butt of jokes since the papers had announced his Dark Lady was a hoax.
    He didn’t believe it, not for a minute. He’d held the statue in his hands, he’d felt the whisper of breath on his cheeks. An artist recognized art. But whenever he said so, his friends laughed.
    The authorities had grilled him like a criminal. Dio mio, he’d done nothing but what was right. Perhaps he’d made a small error of judgment by taking the statue out of the villa.
    But he had found her, after all. He had held her in his hands, looked at her face, felt her beauty and her power like wine in his blood. She had transfixed him, he thought now. Bewitched him. And still, in the end he’d done the right thing and given her up.
    Now they tried to say she was nothing. A clever scheme to dupe the art world. He knew, in his heart, in his bones, that was a lie.
    Sofia said she believed him, but he knew she didn’t. She said it because she was loyal and loving, and because it caused less arguing in front of the children. The reporters he’d talked to had taken down all his statements, and had made him sound like a fool.
    He’d tried to talk to the American woman, the one who ran the big laboratory where his lady had been taken. But she wouldn’t listen. He’d lost his temper with her, demanded to speak to the Dr. Miranda Jones who had proven his lady was real.
    The direttrice had called security and had him tossed out. It had been humiliating.
    He should never have listened to Sofia, he thought now as he made his way down the quiet road outside the city toward home, stumbling a bit as the wine brooded in his head. He should have kept the lady for himself as he’d wanted to. He had found her, he had taken her out of the damp, dark cellar and brought her into the light. She belonged to him.
    Now, even though they claimed she was worthless, they wouldn’t give her back to him.
    He wanted her back.
    He’d called the lab in Rome and demanded the return of his property. He had shouted and raved and called them all liars and cheats. He’d even called America and left a desperate and rambling message on Miranda’s office machine. He believed she was his link to his lady. She would help him, somehow.
    He couldn’t rest until he saw the lady again, held her in his hands.
    He would hire a lawyer, he decided, inspired by wine and the humiliation of sly laughter. He would call the American woman again, the one in the place called Maine, and convince her it was all a plot, a conspiracy to steal the lady from him.
    He remembered her picture from the papers. A strong face, an honest one. Yes, she would help.
    Miranda Jones. She would listen to him.
    He didn’t glance behind him when he heard the oncoming car. The road was clear, and he was well onto the shoulder. He was concentrating on the face from the papers, on what he would say to this woman scientist.
    It was Miranda and The Dark Lady who occupied his mind when the car struck him at full speed.
     
    Standing on the terrace in the strong morning light, Miranda gazed out at the city. Perhaps for the first time she fully appreciated the beauty of it. The end of Giovanni’s life had irrevocably changed hers. Somewhere inside her a dark place would remain, formed of guilt and sorrow. And yet, she sensed more light than she had ever known before. There was an urgency to grab hold, to take time, to savor details.
    The quiet kiss of the breeze that fluttered over her cheeks, the flash of sun that shimmered over city and hill, the warm stone under her bare feet.
    She wanted to go