12 days of heather, day 10

i wrote this series remembering my best friend who was making pastries at windows on the world when she was senselessly killed by strangers with hate in their hearts. it’s been 18 years since i’ve seen her face, put my arms around her, eaten a meal she’s made. i wrote this to feel connected to her. i share it so that you might too.

day ten
this is a photo from the last time i saw heather. we had rented a hillside villa in tuscany with a swimming pool. the ceilings were 16-feet high and the walls were frescoed. it was exquisite. i was four months pregnant and i had these visions of us lounging by the pool, her sipping prosecco, me rubbing my burgeoning belly, us talking and talking.

silly me. mostly i remember seeing heather's back as we blazed through every shop and museum in firenze and lucca, and taking death-defying car rides (heather at the wheel in america was bad enough; but heather at the wheel in italy was terrifying!) in the italian countryside so we could (figuratively) plough into every trattoria and ristorante between forte dei marmi and firenze.

the car rides were worth it though, because the meal times were the only times we ever truly stopped. this photo was taken after a 3-hour, 6-course lunch at da delfina in artimino. between us stands the chef-owner who was so excited to find out hedge was also a cook that he took us down to the cellars and into the kitchen, shared with us syrupy drops of their house-aged balsamic vinegar, and introduced us to hunky italian men over steaming pots of pasta. heather was happy as a kitten in a yarn factory.

after the tour, we went back to the table for espresso. the remnants of our meal still littering the table, my four-month belly looking more like seven, heather turns to me and says, "so where should we go for dinner?"