All the Way to Heaven

Chapter 41

We took more pictures together in front of the tree before we left, and I insisted on taking a few of just him. I braved using the crutches once more, and this time, I got comfortable enough with them to make my way down to the water's edge, Paulo's hovering still a distraction, but a very pleasant one this time. We snapped a photo of us sharing a chaste kiss, the river behind us, the shrine of the Madonna in the frame over our shoulders. We had to try that one several times to make sure we got all three elements just right, especially the kissing part.

"I will send these to you, too," he said, poised to enter my phone number.

"You're smooth, Paulo. Real smooth. Why don't you just tell me you want my phone number?"

"I want your phone number, Ani. And your lips on mine. And your arms around me. And your—"

"Got it," I cut him off, laughing, and gave it to him, reminding him I wouldn't have a phone until I got home again. The thought of leaving now hurt twice as much as it had earlier, and I turned away, not wanting to spoil the mood.

I made my way back up the bank and settled into the wheelchair, balancing the crutches across the armrests in front of me. I wasn't sure how much I would use them today; I kind of liked having Paulo wheeling me around, bending close to murmur in my ear. "How's your toe?" I asked as he steered me over to the truck.

"My toe?"

"Yes, silly. Your toe. Are you in much pain?"

"I feel no pain at all, Ani."

Something had clicked when he found that heart, those names carved into a tree that had witnessed the shared kisses of another Paulo Durante and his lady. Whatever reservations he'd had about his feelings for me after our first kiss had all but evaporated. He seemed to revel in making me blush, not with crass statements, but with a touch of the hand, a gaze held too long, a whispered compliment about something no one had ever noticed about me before, like the one perfect corkscrew ringlet that curled from behind my right ear that he couldn't keep from toying with once he'd discovered it.

"So tell me about this date your parents had." I was cradled up against him, the basket no longer between us. "I'd just assumed it was one of those dinner and a movie or dancing dates. But driving mountain roads from Pisa to Florence? What happened along the way that made them, you know... know they were...."

"In love? Meant to be together forever?" Paulo chuckled. "I do not know for certain, although perhaps, as they say, there is something in the water. Perhaps in the Lima." The obvious allusion to what was happening between us made my toes curl. "To be honest, Ani, those details are not something a son really wants to hear from his parents, but I will tell you what I do know. My mother worked nights so my father took her out for the day. He picked her up at her parents' house where they lived outside Pisa in Vecchiano and had breakfast with them, making a point to win my grandparents over, too. They followed the Fiume Serchio from there, and then the Torrentio Lima, stopping at will along the way." He paused a moment, then added, "The same way we are."

And it's working, I thought, the same way it did for them.

"My mother says she would recognize every place they stopped, no matter how much has changed, so I am certain she will know this place when she sees our pictures. The land, she says, holds our memories for us if we will keep our eyes open for them."

I nodded, liking the idea of some sixth sense leading us to a spot that was special to his parents.

He tightened his arm around me briefly. "And perhaps it is true. Sometimes when I am driving this road, I see things I think are familiar, but they are not my memories. I wonder if they are her memories, that in sharing them with me so many times, I can see them as if they were my own." He paused a moment, then continued, almost shyly. "Do not think I am crazy, okay? But because this way was special to my parents, sometimes I imagine my father is sitting in the car with me, helping me work through whatever is bothering me." He glanced down at me to see my reaction to his admission.