At seventy-one years of age, Robert wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to climb to the top of the tower. His inhaler sat on the dresser of his hotel room about a mile and a half away, and he was already out of breath from the walk to the tower. But it was his first time back in Florence since he and his wife Alice visited fifty years ago for their honeymoon. After thinking it over for a few minutes, he decided to slowly make his way up the old stairs. The view from the tower of San Niccolo would be worth the leg-busting climb it took to get to the top. Rob’s lungs were frail, and his right knee cursed him for forcing it to cling to its ligaments for so long without a break. To help take his mind off his aching body, he thought about the golden sunset he'd encounter once he reached the top. He thought about the rays that would pierce his skin and inject their warmth into his veins. He thought about how beautiful Alice looked atop this very tower so many years ago. And he kept walking.
***
The tower of San Niccolo was something they had stumbled upon during their first night in the city in the summer of 1971. After checking into their hotel and changing their clothes, they ventured out for a walk without any clear destination in mind. As the sun began to set, they discovered the tower. The guard at the door told them it provided the best place in the city to take in a sunset and that it was a must-see for anyone who had yet to take in its views. Alice accepted the young man’s offer without consulting Robert. The young man spoke in a way that made her feel as if she and her husband were the only two people he had ever shared such an intimate secret with. They made the climb with ease. Young legs and strong lungs are two overlooked cornerstones of youth. The couple reached the top, gazed out at the city and took in the skyline they had seen in travel magazines for the last year. Leaning against the tower’s stone edge wrapped in each other’s arms, they admired colors that seemed to have escaped from Botticelli’s palette and watched them dance in the sky, as if they were celebrating their newly found freedom. Yellow, pink, and orange. Some red and purple. They all collided with each other in a symphony of liberated emancipation.
“Oh my,” gasped Alice, as she rested the back of her head against Robert’s chest. He draped his thick arms around her body and tucked his chin into her shoulder, so that the side of his face touched hers.
“That little sucker wasn’t lyin’, was he?” responded Robert.
“I don’t think I’ve ever even seen that shade of yellow,” observed Alice as she squinted her eyes against the liveliness of the sun.
***
Robert stretched out his right arm and grabbed a hold of the edge of the tower. Pulsations ran down the entire length of both legs. His feet yelled muffled obscenities from inside his sneakers. The muscles in his right thigh cramped up into knots, and his heartbeat pounded in his throat harder than it had when he’d suffered his heart attack six years ago. But he made it. He inhaled deeply and slowly before exhaling through staggered wheezes. After wiping his brow with a tissue he had been using to blow his nose, he gazed out at the city with strained eyes. He had planned to stand in the same spot he held Alice fifty years ago, but it was occupied by another young couple who smelled of sweat and the inside of a small pizzeria. They held each other in an embrace that made his body shiver with the yearning of Alice’s touch. He smiled at them as he passed by and planted himself a few feet away, closer to the corner of the tower. He rested his elbows on the stone that had already begun to cool as the sun’s rays dipped below the city’s skyline.
Looking around, he noticed that the tower hadn’t changed too much since he last saw it fifty years prior. The green that once grew in between the bricks of the walkway that ran around the top of the building had been cleared away, but everything else looked exactly as it had that night with Alice half a century ago. The skyline of the city hadn’t changed at all either, except for the few construction cranes that mingled with the aged red slate rooftops.
Rob continued to breathe heavily but felt his heart rate finally begin to regulate. He wiped his brow again with his forearm and spit down between his feet. The young couple glanced over at him, looked back at each other, and then moved a little farther away from him.
***
A bluish hue replaced the rambunctious collection of colors in the sky and brought a cooler air with it to replace the sticky heat of the August sun. Alice grabbed her husband’s arm, turned on her heel to face him, and got up on her toes to grace his lips with hers. The artificial lights of the city shone down onto the Arno River and bounced up into the sky that sat above them, showering the couple in a warm yellow gleam. Once their lips parted from each other, the guard popped his head up over the last stair that led to the top of the tower, as if he had seen what was happening and decided to wait until they finished. They turned around at the feeling of another’s presence and decided to leave their sanctuary in the sky upon seeing him.
“I think he’s ready to lock it up,” Alice whispered.
“Let him,” laughed Robert. “Let’s spend the night up here.”
She grabbed his hand tightly and led him to the top stair. After walking through the exit of the tower and thanking the guard, they lingered along the Arno, stopping to grab gelato for the first time since arriving in Florence. Pistachio for Alice and chocolate for Robert.
“Of all the flavors, you pick pistachio?” teased Robert.
“What’s wrong with pistachio?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, but don’t you want a real dessert?”
“One of us has to stay healthy for the kids,” she quipped.
“The kids, huh?”
“Well, sure. We’re gonna have lots. What’d we agree on, five?”
“Hah. Three. At the most,” Robert answered while trying to conceal a grin.
“Three? You’re a slacker, Robert. We’re young and healthy and beautiful. And I’m smart. Our DNA mixed together? We’d be doing the earth a disservice if we didn’t produce at least five little Gilmores.” She began to laugh as she licked her gelato.
“Five sounds like a handful,” Robert mumbled through a mouthful of ice cream.
“Just eat your chocolate and I’ll stay healthy for our babies.”
Alice swung her hips from side to side, bumped them into her husband’s, and erupted into a gelato-filled fit of laughter.
***
The young couple that stood a few feet from Robert atop the tower left as the cool night air breezed across the river below. Robert watched the gentleman extend a hand to his lady and guide her down the first few stairs before he followed her, leaving Robert by himself. He slid over to the spot he came up to visit, ran his cold fingers along the stone, and looked out toward the sky. The colors weren’t as bright as they had been fifty years ago. Was it the sky that had turned dull? Or was it his own eyes that the color and vibrance had vacated, being replaced by a lazy gray? Maybe standing here with his new bride is what made the sky explode with color atop this tower fifty years ago. Now the heavens above resembled the color of Rob’s skin that drooped below his eyes; a tired, pale ash. He let out a long sigh, which brought on a coughing attack. As he pulled the damp tissue from his pocket to blot his eyes dry, a hand reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Robert, don’t use that tissue to dry your eyes! You’ve been blowing your nose with it for three days.”
“Alice, it’s my nose I’m blowing with it, not a stranger’s,” answered Robert as if his wife had been there with him all along.
She snickered at him and pulled a fresh tissue from her purse. As Robert brought it up to his eyes, the aroma of lavender curled its way into his nostrils.
“I missed that smell. Where do you get these? I always ask Angela to pick some up when she gets my prescriptions, but she says they don’t make them anymore.”
“Robert, they stopped making these fifteen years ago. Don’t you remember me complaining about it?”
Robert dropped his head in defeat, embarrassed by his lapse in memory.
“Yeah, no, I remember, darling. I just forgot.”
“Robert, what are you doing up here?” asked Alice with a worrisome look in her eye.
“I was thinking about you.”
“You know you shouldn’t be walking by yourself. You aren’t even supposed to do this back home in Massachusetts.”
Rob responded with a laugh, “I know. I just missed you.”
Alice tried holding back a smile but failed. “Always the rule-breaker, aren’t you?”
Robert tapped the stone edge of the tower as he looked over to the skyline. “You remember that night, though, don’t you? The colors in the sky. You remember the colors that night?” he asked with a rush of delight.
“Oh, yes,” responded Alice. “Do you remember the yellow? I never saw that shade of yellow again.”
“Never again,” he responded immediately. “I know I’m slipping, that I’m forgetting things now, but that night never grew dull in my mind. The city down below us across the Arno, there. The sky and its colors. Being with my new wife,” he emphasized. “First time out of the country, I don’t know. Magic.”
“I cherish it even to this day,” Alice said in agreement.
“You remember things you did down here, where you are now?” asked Robert innocently.
“Oh, yes, honey. I can remember any single moment I choose to. Like picking a song from a jukebox.”
“Tell me more,” Robert pleaded as he embraced his wife and laid his head against her chest.
“Where I am now, there are colors you never even knew existed. Music you can’t describe with words. Your legs never get tired, and your lungs are full no matter how many stairs you climb,” she whispered into his ear as she ran her fingers through his thinning white hair.
He smiled, knowing why she said what she did. “What about the food?”
“Oh, Robert. Overflowing mounds of food. Ice cream never melts. The milk never goes sour. And allergies don’t exist.”
“So, I can eat seafood where you are?”
“All the shrimp you can find,” she said as she caressed his head.
“It sounds too good to be true,” said Robert with a soft laugh.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes which glowed with a hazy luster. “How come you haven’t visited? Since you left, I mean?”
The sides of her mouth curled as she prepared to answer. Her eyes twinkled with a renewed youth, though wrinkles still lay upon the sides of her face.
“Well, you see,” she began tepidly. “We aren’t… by we, I mean… you know. The deceased.” Robert nodded. “We’re told that it’s best if we stay away for a while. To let you grieve and recover. Let’s face it, Robert. You and I both know you wouldn’t have been able to handle me visiting right away. You needed time.”
Robert shook his head in understanding.
“So, why here? Why today?”
“Curiosity got the best of me, I suppose. I wanted to know what you were doing here. And who the hell let you go off on your own,” she said as she put her hands on her hips.
“I told Ben I was going across the square to get a gelato,” he said with a wheezy laugh.
“So, you and Ben took an excursion to Italy? I didn’t know I could still feel jealousy until now. How is he doing?”
“Oh, you should see him, hon. Twenty-one and quick as a devil,” he said with wide eyes. Alice couldn’t help but smile.
“Our oldest grandbaby – twenty-one years old. My,” she said as she shook her head and sauntered over to the edge of the tower.
“Why don’t you come back with me? To see him! He’d love that, hon. We’ve talked about you nonstop since we got here. He doesn’t know about this spot, but I showed him everywhere I could remember. I brought him by that cafe where you pushed that cop the second night. Told him how you were a nasty drunk,” he said with a wild smirk. “He got a kick out of that one.” Robert wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He had begun to cry and hadn’t noticed.
Alice turned back to her husband once more, a melancholy look strewn upon her face. “I can’t, Robert. I came to visit you, seeing you were alone. I can’t just wander around the world, willy-nilly. That’s not how it works.”
Robert frowned at this, not expecting her to object to his idea.
“Not how it works? You’re a gh--… I mean, an… an angel. You’re an angel, right? Can’t you go wherever you want?”
Alice laughed sweetly, and once more approached her husband to embrace him.
“I missed your little tantrums the most, believe it or not,” she whispered into his ear.
“I mean it, Alice. Come and see Ben. Don’t you want to see how he’s grown?”
Sensing sincere sadness in her husband’s voice, she pulled away to look him in the eye.
“Honey, I see all of you. I’ve had my eye on all of you since the day I left. Well, almost since the day I left. I had orientation for about… come to think of it, I seem to have lost all sense of time since I’ve left. Odd how I haven’t noticed that till now,” she said, almost to herself.
Robert looked at her not knowing what to say.
“I’ve watched you, painfully at times. I’m with you at your doctor’s visits. And I must insist, please listen to Dr. Malone. You give the man too much attitude when all he’s trying to do is help.”
“I…I don’t think—,”
“And stop eating so much pepperoni! We had that discussion ten years ago, Robert. Just because our daughter isn’t as watchful as she should be doesn’t mean you have to go and take advantage of it.”
Robert began to laugh, much to the annoyance of Alice.
“And what is so funny about that?”
“I’m just so happy to see you is all. And to know you’re not, ya know… gone. I can’t believe you’re here, talking to me. I gave up on this possibility a few years ago,” he said with confusion in his voice. “I read that once we die, and we’re… where you are, we kinda forget about our lives down here. ‘Cause we’re in paradise, and what’s better than that? We’re with God, eternal glory. I remember talking to a priest about it, and he described it all so matter-of-factly that I had no choice but to accept it as fact.”
“Well, until that priest passes on himself, his facts are only assumptions. Or regurgitations of what he’s been told. We miss our families, our friends. We miss the places that stuck in our memories, like this tower here. It’s why I chose to come back now. I can visit you in Massachusetts any old time. But we both know this is your last time in Florence, Robert. You’re seventy-one. Not old, but not young,” she said with a laugh so genuine, Robert had forgotten she had died a decade ago. “I saw you up here alone, and said, yes. Now is the time to see him.”
Robert felt the breeze pick up atop the tower, heard the cars speed along the narrow road below. He looked to the right of his wife and saw the Duomo, dominating the Florentine skyline.
“It’s been wonderful seeing you, my darling. But we both know you have to go. The young guard’s been kind enough to let you stay ten minutes past closing time. And Ben has probably filed a missing person’s report by now,” she said with a tinge of worry in her voice.
“Can you visit me again? Now that you have, you can’t just stop.”
“I’ll come and see you again, Robert. I don’t know when, and I can’t promise it’ll be often. But I’ll come see you.” She glided to him once more and they held each other tightly. His wispy hair clung to her face as tears began to fall down his own.
“I miss you, hon. I really do. I think about you every day,” he said through huffy breaths.
“I know, Robert. I miss you, too. But we’ll be reunited soon. We’ll be together once again. I can’t wait to show you the colors up there,” she said in a lullaby-like tone.
Robert felt the warmth that had engulfed him since she arrived vanish, leaving behind a distasteful chill. He reached for the crumpled tissue in his pocket, but instead felt the freshness of a new, full pack. He grabbed one, brought it to his nose, and inhaled the most intense wave of lavender he had ever experienced. The intake of it seemed to brush the chill away just as Alice’s presence had, and he felt a calmness begin to swim through his veins.
He thanked the guard at the bottom of the tower and began his trek back to the hotel. Walking along a sidewalk that ran parallel to the Arno, he craned his rickety neck upwards, past the city skyline and through the clouds. He wondered where she was, where she lived. And just as suddenly as his wonderings began, they stopped. He realized it didn’t matter where she was. He trusted that she could see him, that she watched him, as she said.
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