Chapter 4

Tiffany sued.

Of course she did. She claimed emotional distress. Breach of contract. She claimed I'd promised to pay for the wedding and then backed out. She wanted two hundred thousand dollars.

Richard handled it. He was brilliant. He presented the contracts. The cancellation clauses. The messages between Tiffany and her mother. The video of the slap. The witnesses — dozens of them, willing to testify.

The case was dismissed in thirty minutes. The judge looked at Tiffany and said, "You struck a woman paying for your wedding. You are lucky she isn't charging you with assault. Get out of my courtroom."

Tiffany and her family left, humiliated. They moved away. I never heard from them again.

William and I — we rebuilt. Slowly. He came over for dinner every Sunday. He helped me around the house. He listened. He talked. He apologized. Again and again.

I didn't forgive him quickly. But I let him try. And slowly, the wall between us came down.

I had money left. Not much — I'd spent most of it. But I had the remaining land. The house. And the cancellation fees from the wedding — I'd gotten some back. Enough, Richard said, for one more thing.

I looked at the brochure. Italy. The trip Harold and I had planned. The one I'd canceled to pay for Tiffany's orchids.

"Go," Richard said. "You deserve it. Harold would want you to."

So I went.

Alone. Sixty-two years old. A widow. Carrying a suitcase and a broken heart.

Italy was beautiful. The hills. The food. The wine. The art. I walked the streets Harold and I had dreamed about. I cried in Florence. I laughed in Siena. I drank wine in Tuscany. And one evening, in a small restaurant in a hill town, a man asked if he could share my table.

His name was Arthur. He was seventy. A widower. A retired architect. He was kind. Funny. He had Harold's eyes.

We talked for three hours. We exchanged numbers. We met again the next day. And the next. By the end of my two weeks, I didn't want to leave.

"Come back," Arthur said. "Or I'll come to you. Whatever you want. I just — I don't want this to end."

I looked at this man. Kind. Steady. Not asking for anything. Not wanting my money. Just — me.

"I'd like that," I said.

I came home. But I wasn't the same woman who'd left. I was lighter. Happier. I'd found something I thought I'd lost forever — the feeling that someone might want me, just for me.

Arthur came to visit. He met William. He met my friends. He walked the land Harold had left me. He said it was beautiful. He said I should preserve it.

And I did. I created the Harold Bennett Nature Reserve. Two hundred acres. Protected. Forever. No development. No more selling. It would be there for my grandchildren. For everyone.

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William cried when I told him. "Dad would have loved that," he said.

"I know," I said.