It’s reality. Welcome to it.

A week later, touring the Colosseum in Rome, I got a call from Iris. She sounded amused. “Theresa, you won’t believe this. Austin hired a bottom-feeder attorney.

He’s filing a lawsuit against you for ‘Emotional Abandonment and Fraudulent Misrepresentation of Estate.’ He’s trying to sue you for the house you’re living in.”

I paused, looking up at the ancient ruins. “Iris — did you tell him?”

“No,” she chuckled. “I thought I’d let him figure it out when the new owners change the locks.”

Chapter 6 — The Test

By the sixth month, the Mediterranean sun had baked away the anxious pallor I’d worn for years. In Florence, I took a cooking class, learning to make pasta from scratch with a fierce Italian grandmother who spoke no English but understood the language of grief and rebirth.