For the concierge at the Hotel Danieli, observing the comers and goers was a daily habit he normally paid no mind to. However, throughout his five years at this desk, he couldn’t remember a moment quite like this one. A woman, late sixties, seated on the velvet couch with a white porcelain urn on the mahogany coffee table opposite her. A small one—travel-sized, he presumed. For a moment, he thought he caught her lips moving, as if she were in conversation with it.

“My name is Heather Cabaro. I’m in room 408. I know it’s late, but I’m wondering if you can recommend a restaurant that would still be seating?”

“Of course, signora.” He slid a printed map between them and marked a location with a blue X. “If you go down the street and walk until you get to Via Salizada San Provolo, there will be a restaurant—Ristorante Speranza. Very good. It should be open for another hour.”

“Grazie.” Heather turned and walked through the lobby, still cradling the urn in her left arm.

___

Heather found the ruby awning just before closing. A few customers still finishing their meals. She placed the urn on the table against the wall—the “best seat in the house,” adjacent to autographed photos of George Clooney and Robert De Niro, and one other man she didn’t recognize.

The other couple eventually left, and she became the only remaining patron. A woman, older than Heather, walked through the kitchen door.

“Ah, I did not know we had one more guest.”

“Oh my. I’m sorry. I’m just finishing up now.”

“Nonsense. You enjoy. Is it just you?”

“Sì.”

“Well, would you like some company? Marco, altri due bicchieri di rossa.”

Heather anxiously moved to take the urn off the table.

“No, no, mi amica. Please, don’t move it on my behalf.” The woman paused. “Who is it?”

“My late husband. He passed a few months ago. We loved to travel, and Venice was one of our favorite spots, so I brought him here to spread his ashes.”

“Ah, mi dispiace. Losing a soulmate is one of the hardest things we can go through. And you, still so young.”

Heather giggled. “Not so young. I’m nearly seventy.”

The woman waved her off. “Psh. Seventy, and you still have so much life left to live.”

Marco returned with wine. The woman sat down opposite her.

“Rita. Rita Ricci. I am the owner here.”

“Pleasure to meet you. This is a lovely spot.”

“What was his name?” Rita gestured toward the urn.

“Harold.”

“And this is your first trip since he passed?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any children?”

“No. We never could conceive. We began to focus on traveling, enjoying each other’s company as much as we could. Until Harold got diagnosed.”

“Cancer?”

“Yes. Lung cancer. It took him so quickly.”

“Oh, bless you. We shall enjoy this wine and this night for Harold.”

Rita raised her glass. Heather looked up from the table, her eyes holding back tears, and tilted her glass into Rita’s.

___

Heather started the next day late. For quite a while, she lay across the bed, sobbing intermittently, whispering to Harold—the urn rested on the pillow next to her.

Eventually she summoned the courage to dress. She’d brought Harold’s favorite outfit: a white, flowy sundress, lemon-printed headscarf, capped off with the Audrey Hepburn cat-eye sunglasses from Roman Holiday.

“I don’t know if I’ll make it through breakfast before getting you back in this bed looking like that,” he would always say.

She turned to the urn. “This is probably the only time we’ll actually make it to breakfast.” Her smile was followed by gentle tears.

She took the water taxi out to Lido di Venezia. They had ventured out there by mistake during their first trip—boarded the wrong water taxi and realized their error as Venice shrank behind them. Still, it was one of their favorite days. Harold bribed the beach club attendant fifty euros to get in without a membership. They swam and drank and cuddled under an umbrella all day. They looked into each other’s eyes that night and knew the person looking back loved them more than anything else this world could create.

Heather walked that beach as far as she could, the urn hugged to her chest. When she’d walked as far south as she could go, then back north, she stopped in front of where the old beach club once stood. With her sandals watching from the shore, she walked into the water, dress and all, and said goodbye.

___

“Ah, mi amica, Heather!”

A raspy yet jovial voice echoed off the water taxi terminal walls. Before Heather could turn, Rita sat beside her, wearing an olive dress with worn leather flats, graying hair tied back.

“Heather! Buongiorno!”

“Oh, Rita. Buongiorno,” Heather mumbled, almost trance-like.

“My dear, what is wrong?” Rita noticed the urn was gone. “Oh, you let Harold go today?”

Heather slowly nodded. Rita could see tears forming.

Rita embraced her. Mi dispiace, mi dispiace, she said over and over.

“Grazie, Rita,” Heather squeezed out.

Rita eventually released her. “What are you doing in Lido di Venezia?” Heather asked.

Rita reached into her canvas bag. “Il mio cugino—my cousin—best mussel farmer in Venezia. We have a special Sunday dinner tonight at my apartment. I’m making spaghetti con le cozze in white wine sauce.” She tapped Heather’s leg. “You come tonight!”

“That would be lovely,” Heather replied.

___

Heather returned to the hotel exhausted and slept until after six. Still too early for dinner by European standards. She showered and stood before her closet, second-guessing each choice—tossing aside blouses, eschewing evening dresses, dismissing elegant heels. Each time she examined herself in the mirror, an uneasy feeling overtook her. A fear she wasn’t yet accustomed to. Like she hardly knew who she was.

She settled on a black cotton shirt and slacks, a white handkerchief tied around her neck. Around eight, she asked the concierge for directions and walked toward Rita’s apartment.

She found herself feeling empty during her walk. Her safety net—Harold, or recently, just Harold’s urn—had always provided comfort. She felt she’d lost a limb. How would she eat now that her right arm was gone? But she knew her arm was only a metaphor for something much greater. Her husband. Her confidant. Her best friend. How would she interact with this world without him?

A young man answered Rita’s door and escorted her upstairs. From there he disappeared into the sea of people crowding the small apartment. Heather found herself alone in the doorway, suddenly aware of her foreign presence. This was a rare yet overpowering feeling of isolation. Harold had always been by her side, providing comfort she’d taken for granted.

She spotted wine bottles on an oak secretary desk and hurried over. She picked up a glass and began to pour, but someone bumped her elbow and she spilled wine across the desk. Panicked, she removed her white handkerchief and began blotting, but couldn’t find the energy to lift her hand. Her fear consumed her. Standing pressed against the desk, gazing at her Merlot-stained cloth, she began to softly cry.

“Heather, so wonderful you could make it.”

Rita’s voice cut through the chatter.

“Are you okay?” She rested a hand on Heather’s shoulder and saw the red pool. “Ah, a little wine spill. No trouble. Vincenzo, un asciugamano! Don’t worry, my dear. This desk has been in my family for nearly a century and has suffered much worse.”

Heather smiled softly, her tension subsiding.

“Come. Let’s sit in the kitchen and get you a proper drink.” Rita led her through the apartment until they reached a small galley kitchen with a two-seater table. Rita grabbed an unlabeled glass bottle.

“Now, we shall have some of my homemade limoncello. Wine is for dinner. Limoncello is for fun.” She poured two small glasses. “What should we drink to?”

“To your husband,” Rita replied, raising her glass. They clinked and threw back the sweet-sour drink. Rita read the uneasiness still on Heather’s face.

“It must be tough. Married so long, only to find yourself alone all at once again.”

Heather nodded, her gaze on the patterned tablecloth. Rita rose and grabbed a picture frame from the refrigerator.

“This was my Enzo,” she said, showing a younger version of herself wrapped in the arms of a classically handsome Italian man.

“He was very handsome.”

“This picture hardly does him justice, but this day is one of my favorite memories.”

“Where is he now?” Heather winced at her perceived stupidity.

“He died about four years ago. Heart attack. He was closing the restaurant one evening and never came home. Eventually I walked over—the lights were still on, the door unlocked. He had his head down on one of the tables. A glass of wine was tipped over, the liquid pouring onto the floor.”

“I’m so sorry,” Heather replied, reaching for Rita’s hand. She looked back at the photo and realized that had been the other picture between De Niro and Clooney in Ristorante Speranza.

“When I saw you in the restaurant the other day,” Rita began, “I just sensed some kind of kinship. And then you told me about your husband, and why you were here.”

Heather’s eyes found Rita’s. In that moment, she felt her unease wash away. For the first time since her husband had passed, a peacefulness washed over her. She enjoyed the rest of the party, making new friends, eating wonderful homemade Italian food, before returning to her hotel.

___

Heather’s water taxi arrived before nine. The streets were surprisingly quiet this Monday morning. She walked to the dock and paused, gazing across the canal as morning sunlight reflected off the marble and brick. Once again, she felt peacefulness embrace her.

“Heather!”

A voice echoed off the buildings. Rita, modestly dressed, as if she’d rushed from bed.

“Heather, wait! I’m so glad I caught you.”

“Rita, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to give you this.” She handed over a piece of paper—a telephone number and email address. “In case you want to write when you get home. And the next time you come to Venice, you stay with me.”

Heather’s face lit up and she embraced Rita.

“Thank you. Of course I will.”

The water taxi horn blared.

“I must catch my flight.”

“I know.”

Heather walked across the worn boards onto the water taxi. She turned to wave at Rita. At her new friend. And she was suddenly aware that her loneliness, her fear of the life ahead, was quiet.

“Arrivaderci,” she whispered.