Iris's favourite place is not one you remember. Beyond the last houses, a set of stone steps descends to a broad bend in the river. The water is slow here, and the trees on the opposite bank make a green room around the evening. She brings a sketchbook. You bring sandwiches assembled with such cautious fairness that she asks whether you used a ruler. For a while, she draws and you watch the river. You are used to filling quiet moments with evidence that you are enjoying yourself. Iris seems perfectly willing to believe you without a report. When she turns the book toward you, the drawing is not of the view. It is your hand resting on the paper wrapper beside your lunch. She has caught the little bend in your smallest finger, the one you have disliked since breaking it as a teenager. You look very much like yourself when you forget to arrange it, she says. You ask to see the other pages. There are damaged frescoes, museum rooms, studies of colour fading into plaster. A place name appears several times: Florence. Iris tells you she has been offered a six-month fellowship there. She would work with a team restoring painted ceilings in a public library. The offer arrived last week. She has until Monday to accept. You say congratulations before you have time to decide how the news makes you feel. She looks relieved, then wary of that relief. I did not want you to hear it as a reason not to begin anything, she says. I wanted you to know that beginning something would have to include this.
A weekend in your grandmother’s bookshop. A box of unsent letters. The person you never quite said goodbye to.
Listen closely. Choose carefully. Carry the consequences.
Every path leaves a different story.