Page 46 of The Roman Holiday Rule

My last day in Rome, your dad wanted to ask me to date upon our return to the States. He thought he might have a better chance getting a yes if he used a Keats quote, poor deluded soul. So he brought me to the Spanish Steps and said, “‘I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.’” Which I actually found kind of cheesy, until he said, “But we aren’t butterflies, and I do hopefully have years to fill. Maybe with you.”

That’s how he was—a straight talker. He told me later he rolled his eyes with every recitation trying to memorize those lines from Keats. I was flattered he thought me worth the torture, but it was his humorous honesty that hit the mark, not someone else’s poetry.

Visit the Keats-Shelley House while you’re at the Spanish Steps. “Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.”—Keats.

I frown and read it again. This is about the Spanish Steps and her time here, but it’s not. There’s nothing in the letter to use for the speech at the festival or even a hint about the temple painting she kept from the public. I love the picture she paints of Dad here, and I see a bit of myself in him. A straight talker. Not a fan of poetry. The fact they didn’t have everything in common.

Most of that I already knew. After he died in an accident when I was four, Mom did everything she could to keep his memory alivefor me. Pictures, stories of him flying me around the living room or fumbling with the straps on the car seat. That he rolled his eyes but did something hard anyway. TheStar Warsrewatch he’d coerce her into every summer. His refusal to eat raspberries and his atrocious puns. (Mom’s words, not mine.)

The only new part is about him memorizing Keats in a clumsy attempt to woo my mother. Still, I don’t understand why Mom thought it essential for me to stand in this exact spot in Italy to read this piece of their love story.

I fold the letter and head down the steps to the lively piazza below. My brain is too literal for me to be a fan of poetry, so the Keats house wasn’t on my itinerary. I hesitate outside the orange and cream multistoried house overlooking the Steps. What could touring this possibly show me about Italy?

I’m set on following Mom’s instructions, but at this point it feels like a wild-goose chase. It’s looking less and less likely that her letters are going to lead me to the temple location from her painting.

At least tickets are cheap and I don’t need to wait for a specific time. I enter, ascend the stairs, and move through the dark, wood-paneled rooms with heavy drapes on the windows.

A tour guide’s voice leads me down the hall to a small group of people. He points out the flower motif on the ceiling that Keats stared at on his deathbed, then the group troops back down the stairs.

Okay, Mom, it’s a bit morbid and weird in here. This is a far cry from the lively, sunny atmosphere of Trevi Fountain.

The last room has been set up as a workspace for a restorer, lit with floodlights. Several busts sit on a table littered with bottles and scraps of fabric and tiny brushes. A woman with an apron is bent over her workstation and calls over her shoulder to someone else in the room I can’t see from the hallway. “Just let me know when you find out.”

Wait. I know her. I met her at the reception. She’s the one who knows Mark and “introduced” us. “Ms. Accardi?”

She swivels and her face breaks into a smile. “Lexi Walker. How lovely to see you again.”

When I get a good look at her, I choke on my greeting. Her work apron is splattered with plaster, but the pattern is yellow dots with cherry blossoms.

Same as the apron hanging upside down from the laundry line on the envelope.

I freeze, heart pounding.

Impossible. Again.

“Lexi?” Ms. Accardi steps forward, concern etched on her face.

I can’t take my eyes from her apron. She takes a step closer and the dots and blossoms fill my vision, everything else in my periphery dimming to shadows.

Ms. Accardi murmurs to whoever is in the room with her, and just as I feel myself stumble and fall back against the wall, there’s a blur of movement and someone grabs my arms, steadying me. “I’ve got you.”

That low voice is a rumble I feel all the way to my toes. It’s Mark, wearing a blue button-down that does him too many favors.

I groan, tipping my head back against the wall and closing my eyes.

His grip tightens. “Are you about to faint?”

There has to be an explanation for all of this. The envelopes in real life, Mark in my face every two minutes. (Just because it’s a nice face doesn’t mean I want to keep seeing it. Really.) “I’m just a little stunned.”

“Stunned at what?” He’s frowning at me, and I don’t blame him. I’m acting weird.

I almost tell him everything. But if I show him the envelope that matches Ms. Accardi’s work apron, he’ll demand explanations, which I don’t have. He also might recognize it as a Reena Brooke watercolor, and I’m not ready to dive into who my mom is, her cancer, and the envelopes with someone who will see too much and understand what I’m not saying.

“Stunned at how this city isn’t big enough for the two of us.”

Ms. Accardi peers around Mark, wiping her hands on a scrap of stained towel. “Are you okay, Lexi?”

Physically, yes. The other stuff? Sign me up for therapy. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”