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J ulia couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning all night.

She’d called the hospital to check on Gianluca, but his condition was still critical, which worried her sick.

She could only pray he survived and that the authorities arrested whoever had tried to kill him.

She wondered if they were watching her right now, through the cameras in the ceiling, which the police had decided to leave in for the time being.

She’d been processing everything that happened, and the fact that the conspiracy and Mike’s killer would be brought to justice gave her a grim satisfaction.

It wouldn’t bring Mike back, and she knew she’d mourn and miss him forever.

She would settle for putting Hoodie and the rest of them behind bars.

Julia tried to quiet her mind, but the thoughts kept coming.

She still couldn’t believe she’d found her birth mother, and Fiamma turned out to be a lovely person.

Julia took comfort in knowing why Fiamma had relinquished her, a truly unselfish act that enabled her to find her wonderful adoptive mother.

She felt gratified that Fiamma knew the whole, if complex, truth and hoped that eased her pain.

She and Fiamma both wanted to continue getting to know one another, and Julia couldn’t have been happier.

The bedroom began to lighten, and she realized it was almost dawn.

On impulse, she threw off the coverlet and left the room, padding downstairs in her Eagles T-shirt.

She went through the kitchen to the back door, unlocked it, and stepped outside, taking a deep breath.

The air smelled fresh and sweet, and she felt drawn to see first light over the vineyard.

Julia walked through the wet grass in her bare feet and headed down.

It was a cool, foggy morning, and a bluish gray mist enrobed the vineyard and obscured the cypress trees and hills on its horizon.

The fog shrouded the details of the vines, weed, and underbrush.

Birds burst from the thicket, calling and flapping their wings.

Bees and insects buzzed around. A flurry of gnats swirled on a windy whirlpool.

Julia found a flat rock and sat down, breathing in.

The sky was a massive expanse aglow with a transparent cerulean hue, growing infinitesimally brighter and warmer as the sun rose behind the hills, burning away the fog and washing heaven in gold, as if a painting were coming to life before her eyes.

Julia spotted patches of clarity here and there as the fog evaporated over the cypress trees, then the hilltops, and in time vivid colors began to announce themselves in the tangled vineyard, the yellows and whites of the wildflowers, the bright green of the younger vines, the darker browns of the tree limbs, and the rich black of the bark.

Suddenly the trees at the horizon became more and more clear against the brightening sky, and in the next moment the sun rose like a white orb emanating light and warmth everywhere.

Julia felt tears come to her eyes for a reason she couldn’t understand, or maybe so many reasons she couldn’t parse them all. It was the start of a new day, but felt like the dawning of the next part of her life, her own rebirth.

The sun began to rise slowly, slightly, incrementally but inevitably, shedding more and more light, and in the next moment, the light intensified, burning white and cleansing the sky with the most pristine purity.

Julia gasped, not understanding, then from the light emerged a form, the figure of a man whom she knew in her heart, the one she had married, and in the next moment, the lightness revealed the details of Mike’s face, his freckles coming into the faintest focus, and he was smiling at her, then reaching out an ethereal hand.

Julia found herself on her feet, reaching out to him, and she heard him say:

I love you forever, babe.

I love you forever, too , Julia told him, tears brimming in her eyes.

Mike squeezed her hand to say goodbye, then he faded away bit by bit, rematerializing as if in a dream into Gianluca, sleeping in his hospital bed, his bandaged head resting on the pillow.

Julia watched spellbound, and in the next moment, Gianluca’s dark eyes opened, his irises the rich brown of the earth against the sheer whiteness of heaven’s light.

Gianluca smiled at her.

Alive.