They had the reception in the garden of their house, though it was a crush with all of Jinny’s Florentine friends. She had built houses for half of them, it seemed. They were going to honeymoon on the Adriatic coast.
“This will probably be the last time the whole family will be together,” Bee said, hoarsely, when she made her toast. Pat remembered how wonderful Bee’s singing voice had been. “It’s not the whole family, of course, without Michael, but he’s buried here so that’s as close as we can come. I’d like to propose a toast to our family, while we still can.”
Pat had never forgotten that Bee was dying. She wished she could forget it. Instead she woke in the night remembering it, overcome by a sense of dread.
Jinny and Francesco departed for their honeymoon. The rest of them stayed on in the Florentine house for a few weeks.
Pat walked around Florence with Sammy and Cenk, telling them stories and showing them things. She fed them gelatos and granitas. She took them to the Uffizi, which had finally installed a lift. Bee could see the Botticellis again. “You’re the one who cares about them,” Bee muttered, but she did not turn down the opportunity to go up and see them.
She told Sammy and Cenk about Cellini as they looked at his statue of Ganymede in the Bargello. She told them that the torso was Roman and he had made the rest of it, the head and arms and legs and the eagle, and how it was a microcosm of the Renaissance, taking the Roman core and building on the rest in their own imagination. “How can she remember all this when she can’t remember where to meet us for lunch?” Flora asked Bee.
“She’s known all this forever,” Bee rasped.
Sammy and Cenk took to Florence as the children always had. Before long they were begging Flora to let them stay longer and for just one more gelato. “They can stay for the summer with us, if you like,” Pat offered.
“If there’s room for me to stay as well,” Flora said. Mohammed went home, and Ragnar went off to his engagement in Finland, but the rest of them stayed. Jinny and Francesco came home, and Flora took the children back to England for the new school term. Philip and Sanchia left, and eventually one evening as they sat on the patio alone after Jinny had gone to bed Bee told Pat that it was time for them to be going.
“I want to die at home. I’ve only been lingering because I just can’t bear the thought that it’s the last time you’ll ever see Florence. I tried to get Flora and Philip to promise to bring you but they wouldn’t. You can forget that if you like. In fact it’s better if you do. If you think you’ll be back next year like always.”
“I could come back,” Pat said. “Unless I forgot about changing trains somewhere.”
“Somebody would need to go with you,” Bee said. Her voice was very hoarse now. “Look, I know you’ll probably forget, but I do want you to know this even if you can’t hold on to it. I’ve arranged for what’s going to happen to you after I die. You’re going to go into a home in Lancaster, near Flora. I tried to get something here but you won’t believe the prices in Italy. And you’ve forgotten Italian and the nurses wouldn’t speak English, so England is probably better.”
“Near Flora,” Pat said. “Not so far from Philip too. It won’t be so bad.”
“Jinny has promised to come over and help you move,” Bee said. She scrubbed away a tear. “I could keep on looking after you at home and bringing you here every summer forever if it wasn’t for this stupid stupid cancer. It’s the worst thing about dying. I’ve had a good life, with you and the children and my work. It would have been better if I’d kept my legs, but I’ve managed without. I made the serum for the elm trees. I made plants that are being used in space.”
“You’ve done a lot, accomplished really important things,” Pat said. “And we’ve been so happy.” She reached across and took Bee’s hand, Bee gripped it firmly.
“We have been happy,” Bee said.
“And I know you’d have kept on looking after me,” Pat said. “Couldn’t we just … drive the car off a cliff somewhere on the way home? Wouldn’t it make more sense? For both of us?”
“I wish we could,” Bee said. “But we flew, remember? And Cambridge is rather lacking in cliffs.”
“But I could linger on for years,” said Pat, appalled.
“I know. I’m sorry. Look, tomorrow is our last day. You should do all your special Florence things. We both should. For the last time.”
“Yes, we must, all our special things,” Pat said. Then she was quiet for a while, though she kept her grip on Bee’s hand. “Bee? I hope I forget.”
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