But by 1986, Lillian couldn’t escape the old familiar longings. She had always wanted to be a mother, but she had pushed that dream away after her miscarriage. Perhaps now the deep cut in her heart had finally healed enough to allow her the courage to try again.

She brought it up with Freddie on their fourth wedding anniversary, when they sat on a blanket on a beach in Tallahassee, watching the waves roll in. “So what do you think?” she asked.

Freddie thought about it for a moment before responding. “I don’t know, Lil. It’s a pretty big step. A huge responsibility.”

“Kids usually are,” she replied.

“But don’t you think . . . I don’t know. I feel like I should finish my book first. We don’t even own a house.”

Her heart squeezed with disappointment. “A house would be nice—I’d love that—but we can’t afford it on my salary right now, and if we wait for everything to be perfect, we might end up waiting forever, and it’ll be too late. I’m thirty now, and you know how much I’ve always wanted a baby.”

“Of course I know.” Freddie looked down. “And I want to have a family with you. I just want to be responsible about it. I want us to be ready for it financially.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Lillian argued, feeling grim and not caring if she was being irresponsible. She wanted a baby more than anything, and she’d wasted so much time being afraid. “We’ll figure it out somehow. We could get by.”

“I don’t want to just get by,” Freddie replied. “I want to be able to support you and give us a good life, but how am I supposed to write if we have a baby to look after? You’d have to quit your job, and if I have to go to work, I’ll never finish the book.” He shook his head. “We’ve come so far. I’m almost there. If you could just be patient a little while longer, I’ll get published, and then everything will fall into place. You’ll be able to quit your job and be a stay-at-home mom, and we can live off the advance and royalties while I write another book.”

Lillian watched the colors change in the sky over the Gulf. Freddie’s dream was a lovely one, but how could she be sure it would ever come true? What if no one wanted to buy his book? Ever?

“I’m just afraid,” she carefully said, “that it might take a while for you to find a publisher. You know I believe in you, but you’ve been working on your book for almost three years. You’re only halfway done. Maybe we could just start trying and see what happens, and if I get pregnant, you could work super hard and finish before the baby comes. Maybe you just need a deadline. It might even help.”

He was quiet for a moment, and she worried that she had just stomped all over his lifelong dream.

“I wish I could write faster,” he said. “I wish that more than anything, but you know how it is. I spend so much time researching, and I can’t skip that—otherwise, when I sit down at the typewriter, the words just won’t come. The setting has to come alive for me.” He shook his head in defeat. “Maybe I should just give up. I don’t know anything about Italy. I’m starting to feel like a fraud.”

Lillian inched closer to him on the blanket and linked her arm through his. “You’re not a fraud. You’re brilliant.”

“You don’t know that,” he replied. “Maybe I’m just a no-talent hack.”

She worked hard to lift his spirits and bolster his confidence. “Not a chance. And I’d be able to tell you for sure if only you’d let me read it. Just a few pages?”

He often talked to her about the plot, and she helped him brainstorm whenever he got stuck, but he had never let her see the words on the pages.

Freddie shook his head. “No. It’s not ready for anyone to look at. It’s a first draft, and it’s rough, but I need to finish it completely before I can start polishing.”

Lillian hugged her knees to her chest and tried to think of a way to help him finish faster.

“What if we went there?” she suggested, on a whim. “To the actual places where your scenes are set.”

He looked at her with surprise. “To Italy?”

“Why not? I could ask my boss for a leave of absence, and we could spend the summer in Tuscany. I could get a seasonal job there. Imagine how amazing that would be.” She thought about it for a moment and began to feel a sudden rush of excitement because she had never been to Europe before. She began to imagine castles and cobblestones . . . red wine with bread and pasta. And wasn’t this the perfect time to travel? Before they settled down with children? “If my boss says no, it wouldn’t matter. I could quit and find something else when we got back. There are lots of hotels around here.”

“I don’t know, Lil . . .”

She squeezed his shoulder and shook him. “Come on! Let’s be adventurous! Wouldn’t it help you to breathe in the atmosphere and walk the streets where your book is set? Imagine how confident you’d be when you sat down to write. You could finish it so much faster. Then we could start the life we’ve always wanted, with kids and a house and a real writing career for you.”

He looked at her with disbelief. “Are you nuts? How would we pay for the flights?”

“My credit card,” she replied. “I’ve kept up with the payments, and they keep increasing my limit. And we’ll be getting the deposit back on our apartment when we finish the lease in May. It’s almost as if the stars are aligning for us—as if this is meant to happen.”

He regarded her with amazement. “You’d actually do that for me? Give up your job and max out your credit card?”

“Of course I would, because I believe in you, and I want you to finish the damn book so we can get pregnant.” She nudged him playfully.

They sat and watched the sun dip below the horizon.

“This is crazy,” Freddie said.

“Maybe it is,” Lillian replied. “But something about this feels right, don’t you think? Can’t you feel it?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“It’s the setting for your book, which means everything to you,” she reminded him. “You need to go there, Freddie.”

“Maybe.” He exhaled. “I’m just worried about how much it’ll cost and how much work it’ll take to organize a trip like that.”

“Don’t worry about any of that,” she said. “I work in the hotel industry. I know a bunch of travel agents who can help us. I’ll take care of all the details.” She gazed out at the water and watched the whitecaps in the distance. “I don’t know why, but I have a really good feeling about this. I think it’s going to speed things up for you.”

She couldn’t deny that she had her own ulterior motive—to help him feel more ready to start a family. To beat down the excuses.

Freddie leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll make a promise to you right now. If we go to Tuscany and I finish my book, you can go off the pill the minute I type ‘The End.’”

Lillian laughed. “I’m going to need that in writing.”

She tackled him on the blanket and straddled him for a kiss.