33

Now seems like a good time to admit that I’ve never really been out of the country. I was in Canada once when I was a kid, but Canada doesn’t really count. It’s Minnesota with Mounties. The only reason I had a passport at all was because my mom was always threatening to take me away on spiritual journeys to lands unknown. Anyway, this is all just to say that I was not really prepared for the city of Palermo when we arrived.

It was midday when we got there, and the traffic was a total cluster: one huge game of chicken between hundreds of Fiats and motos, all carrying an improbable number of humans. In the cab to this intersection called the Quattro Canti, I looked out my window and saw an entire family riding on a single scooter. Seriously: four people. One scooter.

The toddler was first, just kind of perched on his father’s lap. Dad was next, one hand on the throttle, lit cigarette dangling from his lip. Behind him was the mother, holding on to her husband like she was giving him the Heimlich. And behind her, barely on the seat at all was a sullen teenage boy. All of them were tan. None of them wore helmets. And just when I was about to point this sight out to Daniel, the family took off at an inhuman speed, balancing like acrobats.

Daniel was passed out anyway. He didn’t do well on planes, he told me, and I’m pretty sure he downed half a package of Dramamine before we left. While he slept with his mouth open, I tried to soak up the street life on the ride to the hotel. The sun-whitened Baroque churches and smoking shop owners, the flocks of kids my age with plumed haircuts typing frantically on their phones. I only caught glimpses as the taxi pinballed its way through the city.

Finally, we arrived at the Centrale Palace Hotel, which was way too nice for us. We stumbled into the frescoed lobby and stood beneath a dazzling antique chandelier. Daniel had booked the hotel and the place was completely bonkers, a former eighteenth-century aristocratic residence remodeled into a hotel for travelers. In other words: the kind of place I never stayed, and probably would never stay again.

“How the hell can you afford this place?” I asked.

“I paint houses in the summer,” he said.

He looked up at the chandelier.

“This room was like . . . ten houses.”

Daniel walked to the desk and rang the bell.

A clerk strolled across the marble floor dressed in a powder-white linen suit. His neck and face were covered in expertly groomed stubble.

“Benvenuti a Sicilia!” he said. “You are on your honeymoon, yes? You said this in your reservation. But, regazzi, you are so young!”

I was still staring at his suit. Fortunately, Daniel came to life beside me.

“Yes,” he said. “Si. We’re on our honeymoon. We’re young, but we’re super Christian. Bambino Gesú! We love that guy! So that’s why we’re so young and everything. We saved ourselves for the Lord. Sexually.”

I think Daniel was still high on Dramamine. The clerk just smiled, his blue eyes sparkling in the light of the chandelier.

“Bene,” he said. “Bambino Gesú. Bene.”

He winked. Then he took our passports and typed our information into a computer. All the while he kept sneaking glances at us. Either he was stealing our identities or picturing us having sex. I couldn’t decide which I preferred. Then, abruptly, he began walking toward a minuscule elevator, speaking over his shoulder.

“Andiamo,” he said. “I show for you now, the room, ragazzi. Follow me. Follow me.”

We went up a few floors and the room he showed was beautiful, but small, with two toilets. My glance volleyed between the two.

“That one is the bidet,” said Daniel, reading my mind.

I turned it on and it shot out a stream of boiling water.

“How do you know all of this?” I asked.

He shrugged and sat down on the bed.

“My dad used to be in the Air Force. We traveled a lot. I’ve seen my share of toilets.”

“I see,” I said. “A real toilet connoisseur.”

“Something like that.”

I nodded. And then everything got sort of quiet. It took me a moment to realize it was because we were in a hotel room together. Alone. In another country.

Did I mention alone?

Up until now, most of our interactions had been chaperoned in some way. Now there was no one in the room but us. So, I stayed in the bathroom for a minute, switching the bidet on and off, pretending to be fascinated by it. Finally, I walked out and just looked at Daniel on the bed. His face was really tired. His eyes were slits. His dark hair was sticking up in the front.

“What are we really doing here?” I said.

He opened his eyes a little more.

“We’re creating something for Jonah,” he said.

“Is that true?”

I walked over and sat at the foot of the bed. There were fresh flowers in the room and the smell was overpowering.

“I don’t know anything about this place,” I continued. “I don’t know what he would want here. And I don’t know if I’m really here for him.”

I slumped over on my side and watched the gauzy curtains ripple in a breeze.

“So, why are you here then?” said Daniel.

His voice was quiet.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Maybe it’s just to escape. Maybe it’s . . . for other reasons.”

He leaned back against his pillow and closed his eyes.

“Okay,” he said. “Say that’s true. Is it so bad?”

“The whole idea was to plan a funeral for Jonah.”

“So what?” he said.

I looked at him through narrowed eyes.

“What do you mean ‘so what’?”

“I mean there’s no protocol for this, Tess. We’re on our own with our grief. But at least we’re not pretending that nothing happened. At least we’re trying something. Maybe we can forgive ourselves a little bit.”

I stayed where I was.

“If you wanted to get me in a hotel room,” I said, “we didn’t need to fly all the way to Italy. There’s probably dirty motels in New York.”

“That’s not fair,” he said.

He sounded genuinely hurt, but I didn’t turn around to see his face. We were quiet then for a few minutes. Outside, I could still hear the traffic in the street. The staccato honk of the horns. I heard Daniel breathing heavily and I thought maybe he had gone to sleep. But, then he spoke up again.

“You don’t really think he’s watching us, do you?” he said.

He paused a moment.

“I mean, you don’t believe . . .”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s hard, but I don’t think so. I thought he was still alive on the Internet for a while, but it just turned out to be some creep who was stalking me.”

Daniel sighed.

“Why would anyone who’s dead spend their time watching the living?” he said. “That’s what I want to know. If there’s an afterlife, there have to be more interesting things to do.”

“Like what?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Flying. Being out of your corporeal body. Living outside of time. Any of that would beat the TV station of my life. I can tell you that much.”

“Mine too, I guess,” I said. “Except when I’m naked.”

He didn’t say anything to that. I raised my body off the mattress and crawled up to the top of the bed and settled into a spot next to him. We lay still for a minute, only inches apart. I felt like I could feel every ounce of blood pulsing through my body.

“Put your arm around me,” I said.

He put his arm around me.

“No,” I said. “Like this.”

I moved it over my hip and across my waist. He kept it there.

“Look,” I said. “I didn’t really mean what I said before. About the hotel. But I just want you to know, I have to be here for Jonah. It’s the only thing that’s holding things together right now.”

I rested my hand on his chest.

“I understand,” he said.

I blinked. The jet lag was finally kicking in, and I found I could barely keep my eyes open.

“Some honeymoon, huh?” I said.

He let out a long breath.

“I don’t have any others to compare it to,” he said. “Maybe it’s perfect.”

And with that, we both closed our eyes.