One Reckless Decision

Naturally this would be where Nikos Katrakis kept an extraordinarily sumptuous flat he could not possibly use very often. It was an architectural feat—high, graceful ceilings and a loft’s sense of space inside a historical building dating back to the Middle Ages. Of course he simply kept such a place as his Florentine pied-à-terre.

Tristanne had grown up with wealth; had been surrounded by it for all but the last few years of her life. And still, the cold calculation necessary to make and maintain such wealth remained breathtaking to her, even shocking—the reduction of everything, anything, anyone to little more than currency, items to be bought, hoarded, sold, or bartered. Tristanne’s father had been that kind of man. Cold. Assessing. Moved by money alone, and sentiment? Emotion? Never.

Nikos had not even glanced at the stunning view that would no doubt transport the sea of tourists who swarmed the city daily into raptures. The Duomo was one of the foremost sights in Italy, in the world. It was internationally, historically significant. And yet he had given a few curt orders to his staff, informed Tristanne he had meetings he expected to return from no later than six in the evening, and had then left. Had he bought this flat because he loved this view and wished to gaze at it whenever he happened to be in Florence? Or had he acquired it simply because it made good business sense as an investment property—because it had one of the most desirable and thus most expensive views in the whole city?

“You are leaving?” she had asked, surprised, when he’d turned to go. “And what am I to do for all of these hours?”

He had looked almost affronted by the question. “What mistresses always do, I would imagine,” he had replied in that silken tone. He’d crooked his brow. “Wait. Prettily.”

Wait. Prettily. Like a seldom-used property. Had that not been what Tristanne’s mother had done her entire life?

She moved closer to the windows now, something like sadness seeming to suffuse her, to swallow her whole, though she could not have said why. She did not know how long she remained in that same position, staring unseeing at the glorious marble and distinctive red tiles before her. She felt a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness stab at her. She wanted to be back in her cheerful little apartment in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver, free again. She wanted none of the past few days to have happened. Or, for that matter, the previous month. Outside, the light changed; dark gray clouds rolled in, and slowly, quietly, it began to rain.

Tristanne pulled out her mobile and called her mother, who was, after all, the reason she was standing in Florence in the first place instead of in her own living room, which she’d set up as a makeshift artist’s studio and from where she had a view of nothing more remarkable than the backyard she shared with her neighbor. She loved that yard, Tristanne reminded herself as the phone rang. She liked to sit out in it with a glass of wine when the evenings were fine. She did not know why she felt as if she needed to defend it to herself now, much less the rest of her life—as if it was all slipping out of her reach with every breath.

“Oh, darling!” Vivienne cried into the phone when she answered. No sign in her voice of her illness, her persistent cough or her unexplained fevers. Tristanne wondered what it cost her—though she knew her mother would never complain. “Are you having a lovely holiday?”

Which was, Tristanne thought when she ended the call a few moments later, really the most she could expect from her mother. Her flighty, fragile, unendingly sweet mother, who had spent her life being looked after by one man or another. Her father, her husband, her stepson. She was anachronistic, Tristanne often thought, with varying degrees of frustration—a throwback to another time, a different world. And yet she had always been the single bright light in Tristanne’s life—the only thing that had made her childhood bearable. Vivienne had been a flash of bright colors and boundless enthusiasm in the midst of so much grim, cold darkness. And now she was unwell, and needed her daughter. Tristanne would do anything for her. Anything at all.

Even this.

“You must take pictures,” Vivienne had said, nearly bubbling over with her excitement—which was at least an improvement over her grief, or her weakness. “You must record your adventures for posterity!” Because a lady did not discuss the reasons for a trip like Tristanne’s, just as a lady did not discuss her debts, or her failing health.

“I’m not sure this is the sort of trip I’ll want to remember,” Tristanne had said dryly, but her mother had only laughed gaily and changed the subject.

What pictures should she take to capture the moment? Tristanne wondered now, her mind reeling. She pressed a hand against her temple. What would best express the Nikos Katrakis experience? What single image would conjure up the dizzy madness of the last two days?