“I really hope so. I wish I had gone to more of her races.”

“You went to plenty.”

“Not as many as you guys did—”

“That’s okay. You did other things with her. Think of all the times you took her shopping,” Hannah says.

I smile. “That’s true. That was our thing. She had her own style.”

“What style was that?” Tyson says with a laugh. “She lived in sweats and athletic wear.”

“Not when she went out—”

“She went out?” Tyson laughs.

“Well, rarely. But when she did…Remember her little overalls?” I say.

“You hated those overalls!” Hannah says.

“No, I didn’t,” I say. “I teased her, but I thought they were so cute on her.”

“And her pigtails,” Hannah says.

I smile. “Yes. But the pigtails did not work with the overalls.”

“Or with her flannel shirts,” Tyson says as we all laugh.

“She was such a Midwestern girl,” I say.

“Through and through,” Tyson says, nodding.

“You think she would have settled down there?” Hannah asks us.

“Probably so,” Tyson says. “God, she would have been a hell of a doctor.”

“And such a good mother,” Hannah says. She takes a deep breath, then looks at Tyson. “I’m really glad you picked Capri. It makes me feel closer to her.”

“Me too,” he says, looking out the window. “I really feel her here.”

I follow his gaze, wishing I felt the same way. It must be a huge comfort to believe in some sort of an afterlife. For me, though, death is a blackout. The end of the line. It was the end for Summer; it was the end for my mother; and one day, it will be the end for each of the three of us, too. It’s a grim thought if you dwell on it too much, so I decide not to. Instead, I order one last glass of wine.

Chapter 16

Tyson

I wake up on my rollaway cot, shocked to discover that it’s after nine o’clock. I never sleep this late. For my father, beating the sun is a point of pride—only the weak and lazy sleep in—and his mentality has rubbed off on me. I get up, feeling sheepish, finding Lainey and Hannah out on the balcony, drinking coffee in matching white hotel robes.

“Good morning, Mr. Sleepyhead!” Lainey says as I sit down with them at the small round table.

“Morning, ladies,” I say, getting a hit of dopamine as I stare out at an expanse of bright blue sea and sky.

“Want some coffee?” Hannah asks, gesturing toward an Italian press.

I nod and pour myself a cup as Lainey asks if we should order room service or go downstairs to eat.

“I don’t like room service,” I say.

“How can you not like room service?” Lainey asks.

“It’s the awkward dynamic—a waiter coming into the room where you’re sleeping, often when you’re still in pajamas.” I yawn, waking up.

“You’re so weird,” Lainey says, then points down to the rock formations below. “What are they called again?” she asks me for at least the third time.

“The Fa-rag-li-oni,” I say as slowly as I can. “How are you able to memorize so many lines in your scripts when you seem to have zero retention in real life?”

“Because dialogue is intuitive. It flows. And also—my scripts are in English.”

“Would it help to know that faraglioni is Italian for rock stacks?”

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “Doesn’t help.”

“How about that it comes from the Greek word pharos, which translates to lighthouse? Which they were once used as.”

“Nope. Doesn’t help, either.” Lainey shakes her head.

“How were they used as lighthouses?” Hannah asks, looking intrigued.

I nod. “Back when it was all one giant rock, people climbed up there and built a fire pit at the top so they could signal the land to passing boats.”

“Wait. How did they become three separate rocks?” Lainey says.

“There are actually four. There’s a smaller one you can’t really see from this vantage point…. But to answer your question: erosion. Thousands of years of pounding wind and water. And to further tax your memory,” I say with a smile, “each rock has its own individual name.”

“Uh-oh,” Lainey says.

“That one’s Stella,” I say, pointing to the rock on our left, closest to the shoreline.

“Well, that’s darling,” Lainey says. “And easy to remember!”

I point to the one farthest from land. “That one’s Faraglione di Fuori—”

“Fuori? As in fury?” Lainey asks.

“No. It’s taken from foris, the Latin word for ‘door,’ which can also refer to anything beyond a threshold—like outside,” I say, amazed by how often I use my high school Latin.

“And the middle one?” Lainey asks, pointing to the most distinctive rock of the three, with its small open archway at the bottom.

“Take a guess,” I say.