Thursday, May 25, 2023Santa Maria Novella Station, Florence6:28 PM
The train from Bergamo came in on time and the platform at Santa Maria Novella was busy with the tail end of commuter traffic, people moving in both directions with bags and phones and the particular purposeful tiredness of a Thursday evening, and Demien stepped off with his overnight bag over one shoulder while the crowd thinned around the exit barriers.
Isabella was on the other side of the barrier in a grey coat with her bag over one arm, and she saw him before he reached her and her face did the thing it always did — relief arriving before everything else, the same expression she'd worn at every airport and station since Bergamo, as though each arrival required a moment of confirmation that he was actually there and actually fine.
He went through the barrier and she put both arms around him and held on for a moment.
"You look tired," she said when she stepped back.
"I'm fine," he said.
