That's Amore

Chapter 42

The morning light in Rome did not wrap itself around Isabella like it had in Tuscany.

Here, it fell cold against stone buildings, bouncing off marble statues and flickering across tourists’ faces like an afterthought. The air smelled of espresso and exhaust fumes, but none of it reached her.

She moved through the city like a shadow stitched in silk—silent, floating, almost untouchable. Her train ticket back to Boston was folded neatly in her purse, untouched since she printed it at the hotel reception. But it was there. Like a weight. Like a wound.

The day she left the vineyard, the sky had blushed a soft rose at dawn.

Birdsong had floated above the vines, and the earth still carried the scent of late-summer rain. She remembered pausing at the garden gate, suitcase in hand, staring up at the olive tree where Giuliano once kissed her under the stars.

That kiss had tasted like crushed basil and wine and forever.

Now, all she tasted was the bitterness of absence.

She didn’t cry when she left—not out loud. But her silence had trembled with the ache of all the things she hadn’t said. Every step to the train station had felt like walking backwards through a dream, one that unraveled thread by thread behind her.

In Rome, she tried to distract herself. Walked the cobblestone alleys. Ordered gelato she didn’t finish. Bought a postcard of the Tuscan countryside and tucked it into her journal without writing a word.

It was Giuliano’s voice she heard in the market stalls.

It was Biscotto’s paw-steps she imagined behind her.

Every scent of rosemary. Every flash of vineyard green. They were ghosts.

She stopped in front of a street violinist near Piazza Navona. He played Vivaldi, and it bled into the late afternoon air like longing. She stood there, rooted, as tears finally carved slow, salty paths down her cheeks.

The violinist nodded at her. As if he understood.

That night, she sat on the hotel balcony, looking out over terracotta rooftops.

The stars in Rome did not burn as brightly as they had in Tuscany. They flickered, yes. But they did not breathe like they had in the vineyard skies, where the night hummed like a lullaby and smelled faintly of soil, fig leaves, and crushed grapes.

She missed the hum of crickets. The way Giuliano would whisper in Italian when he thought she was asleep.

She missed her paints. Her brushes. Her hands stained with lavender and ochre.

But most of all, she missed him.

The way he looked at her like she was made of stardust and certainty. The way he never rushed her silence. The way he held space for her when she didn’t know how to belong to anything at all.

Back at the villa, she imagined her absence like an empty chair at the kitchen table.

She pictured Francesca glancing at it while stirring soup. Chiara swearing at the stove while pretending she wasn’t checking her phone. Biscotto sniffing around her empty room, confused.

And Giuliano…

She didn’t know.

Maybe he read the note and said nothing.

Maybe he burned it.

Maybe he drank wine on the terrace and let the silence wrap around him like a second skin.

She didn’t know.

And that, more than anything, shattered her.

At midnight, her plane ticket lay beside the untouched wine glass on her bedside table.

She picked it up.

Ran her fingers across the print.

And then, without warning, she opened the balcony doors wide and let the night air rush over her skin. Rome breathed. And for the first time, she whispered—

“I think I made a mistake.”

The stars above didn’t answer.

But somewhere deep inside her chest, something stirred.

Something brave.

Something still in love.