Page 132 of Casanova LLC

Or maybe he could be a painter, like me. Could I teach him how?

Yes. I could teach him how.

His mother took the phone back and said there were about to be three kids under six and two adults in a New York City apartment and the last thing she needed was twelve canvases in the middle of her living room. I tried to tell her I’d take care of it, I’d call Cyril, have him take them off her hands for now…

But I couldn’t get any words out. I’d never been so choked up I couldn’t speak.

Liv went quiet. When I was able to cough out a few words, I told her I was sorry. She told me she loved me. She told me to take my time, the paintings were safe there. And then Luna screamed and Lucca started crying and she said she had to go. But she was here if I needed her.

I sat down on the bow, knees up, elbows on top of them, looking at the horizon line, at the clear sky.

I felt Jacopo behind me.

I had to get up. I had to finish helping him with the boat. I had to go to Rialto, get food for dinner, get it prepped. I had to work out, shower, get my head right. My next guest’s flight was landing in six hours.

But I couldn’t do any of it.

I dug my phone out of my pocket.

“Who you calling?”

“I’m canceling the next guest.”

“She is, uh…how you say…already canceled.”

Slowly, I turned to look at him.

“Strep throat. That is what I wrote to her, from your phone last night. It is going around. Did you not know? Highly contagious. You must isolate yourself. You will reschedule.”

I couldn’t tell if I felt annoyed or grateful. A bit of both, but it didn’t matter. They were eclipsed, all my feelings had been eclipsed, by the delivery Liv had received and the note that came with it.

It had untangled me.

I looked up at Jacopo. “She got my paintings back. Sent them to Livie’s. How did she—I don’t understand. She didn’t have a cent to her name.”

He plopped down next to me. “Well, she left Venice with a cashier’s check for sixty-eight-thousand euro.”

“What? How?”

“She asked that I sell her wedding ring. I said but why? She said to buy your paintings. So?—”

“You knew about this?”

“Of course. I told her to send them to Liv so she save the international shipping. The tariffs, they are pazzo. Besides, you have?—”

“What is happening?”

He looked weirdly proud. “Is good, no?”

I didn’t have an immediate response. It was enough just to take it all in. I sat there for another few minutes, watching the wall turn that particular shade of dusty rose she loved.

The question wasn’t what I wanted, any longer, but how I was going to go about getting it back.

I stood up and went down into the cabin.

Jacopo called out behind me. “Where you go now? I am getting tired to chase you.”

I didn’t bother answering. I just came back up a few minutes later to a surprised look on my uncle’s face. “What you doing?”

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