Page 15 of The Sinner's Sanctuary

“No. Rome is like the Manhattan of Italy.”

“Feels like it. Looks totally different, though.”

“We’re not far from the hotel,” he says.

“I wouldn’t mind walking.”

“Restless legs?”

“A little,” I admit.

“Let’s walk then.” He lets the driver know to meet us at the hotel, and soon we’re on the sidewalk. I match his long strides as I try not to stare at—everything.

Rome is almost impossible to believe. Putting aside the crush of cars on the street and the people hurrying past, it’s like walking through a Medieval fairytale. The warm colors of the buildings with vines growing up the sides are a sharp contrast with the gray, steel structures in Manhattan. Cobblestone and archways capture my attention, as well as old-fashioned streetlights and the occasional line of laundry drying above our heads.

“You want to see the Trevi fountain?” Gibson asks.

“Of course.”

He makes a sharp left down a smaller street, and I shuffle around people to catch up. The sound of water rushing announces the fountain’s presence, and then here it is.

It’s huge—both familiar and strange. Some tourists throw coins, and others try to back up far enough to get a good shot of the fountain, but unless they have wide-angle lenses, I don’t see how they can do it. The scale of it surprises me the most. The fountain itself is enormous, but it’s tucked away in a small square packed with tourists like me who seem just as disoriented.

Gibson fishes a few coins from his pocket. Handing me a quarter, he says, “I may not believe in much, but I do believe in this fountain. I’ve come back every time.”

I grin and take the coin. He takes a picture of me tossing it backwards over my head. I laugh, feeling ridiculous, and also weirdly happy. After switching places for him to toss his own coin, we stand at the edge of the fountain, and he points out someof the art engraved in the wall behind it. It’s truly stunning, and I can’t get over how old it is—how well it’s held up.

And then I have the thought I always have when I have an experience like this—Trinity will never see this.

“Anything else cool around here?” I ask, anxious to think about something else, but not sure it’s possible. After all, I’ve done nothing to deserve a trip like this. I didn’t earn the privilege of seeing the Trevi Fountain, or the Piazza Navonna where we go next, which is a whole other kind of incredible and ancient.

“They used to have chariot races here,” Gibson tells me.

It’s obvious, too, in the elliptical shape.

“This is incredible,” I can’t help but say.

“No better time of day to see it.”

“Your hotel ishere?”

He points at what looks like one ancient building among many directly behind a fountain with an obelisk. “Right there.”

“That’s a hotel?”

“It is now. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“I get that you come here a lot, but it’s crazy how casual you are about it.”

That pulls him up short. The look he gives me is almost embarrassed. “Sorry—did you want to look around more?”

“No,” I say quickly, eager to clear up the misunderstanding. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure the people who live here take it for granted, too. It’s just wild.”

Our eyes meet, and he frowns slightly. “I don’t,” he says. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Seriously,” I say, afraid I offended him. “I wasn’t trying to say you should slow down—I’m processing out loud. I do that a lot.”It’s not you, it’s me.

“We should get a drink,” he says.

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