Avery woke with a jolt, an hour into the flight. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was and he held still as it slowly came back. It was a night flight; most passengers were either asleep or reading under yellow cones of light from the overhead panel. He raised the putty-colored window shade an inch or two—indigo swamp of clouds and wetness—and lowered it again. His shoulder ached (he was at least a foot taller than whoever they designed these crappy seats for), and his mouth was dry.

“Excuse me,” he called to a passing flight attendant, but she didn’t hear him and moved briskly up the aisle.

“You need to get out?” The man next to him asked. His wife was on the aisle, asleep with her head lolling forward, chin to chest.

“No,” Avery said. “Just some water.”

“You want a Coke? I brought it on for her, but she won’t need it. It’s taking up room here, anyway.”

“But if she wakes up?”

The man smiled, his face thickly creased. He was short and thick, and had one wandering eye. “No, she’s good. She takes one of these little white pills and zzvip—she’s out.”

“Well—okay, thanks.”

Avery drank the warm soda. It was sticky and sweet, but it cleared some of the fuzziness from his head. He tried to ignore his pounding heart; he told himself it was just air travel—no little white pills for him—but the truth was that he had never been scared of flying. So, why wasn’t he happier? What was with these nerves? Where was the exultation in leaving New York, where was the soaring music meant to accompany this transition: the close of one part of his life, the beginning of another? This planeload of snoring seniors wasn’t exactly the setting in which Avery had pictured himself making his big move, going through with a decision—the first true one, it felt like—that he’d made all on his own.

He pulled the books he’d brought out of the seat pocket and weighed them. Both were paperbacks, picked up at one of those sidewalk tables set up just outside NYU’s hulking terra-cotta library. The books were slim, with torn covers and big print: Jim Kjelgaard novels, ones he had read and loved as a kid—Big Red and Snow Dog. Wooden stories about boys and dogs, and boys rescuing dogs, and dogs rescuing boys. Tests of courage and friendship. Avery flipped through and read a few pages, here and there. Yep. The writing was as bad as he’d guessed it would be, but he didn’t care. The sight of the books themselves—at the NYU table, here on the plane—brought him back to childhood, when a new Jim Kjelgaard title was a reason for real happiness. And now he suddenly remembered a Halloween from years and years ago, when he had dressed as Danny, hero of Big Red (in overalls and black watch cap, carrying a stuffed dog that looked nothing like an Irish setter). No one at any of the trick-or-treat houses had known who he was supposed to be, which pissed him off, but Avery remembered something his mother said. She rarely got home from work in time for this most important night of the year, and once she had even forgotten to buy candy to hand out. Nor had she been any great shakes as a costume maker; she had to be badgered into finding the black cap, for example, and she had pinned a dorky sign on his front that read danny. But that night—a year or two after his father had left—she had said emphatically, “So what?” to interrupt Avery, who was whining that nobody knew the story of Big Red, anyway, and they should have found a rifle for him to carry.

“You know who you are, and that’s the point.”

Avery snorted, on the plane. That was probably the last time Annette had said anything worthy on its surface of motherly wisdom, and it figured that the remark came unintended, as a random aside on Halloween. Still, it came to mind.

He unrolled the magazine he’d brought too—Winnie had insisted he take a copy, since she had a whole box, so he’d just stuck it in his pack. Flipping past a lot of dry-looking articles, at first he even overlooked Bob’s.

Avery stopped. He rolled up the magazine again and wedged it in the seat pocket. It wasn’t that he didn’t find Bob’s story interesting, sort of—though for a busted-head essay, there sure was a lot of random musing about Life—it was just…

Well, he was done with all that. With those people, all of them. It’s not like they were family, or anything. Without really noticing, Avery was bouncing his right leg up and down, fast.

“You from New York?” The man next to him said, eyeing Avery’s leg in a way that suggested he wasn’t entirely annoyed by the jittery motion, not yet.

“Hartfield.” It just came out.

“Yeah? Is that upstate a ways? We’re from Roslyn. On the Island.”

“It’s—yeah. On the New Haven line. You know Metro-North? Right. Anyway, that’s the one you take.” Avery hoped this would be sufficient. He had no idea where exactly Hartfield was, relative to the city, and he really didn’t feel like getting into a whole backing-down discussion about it.

“This your first time going to Italy? My wife went once, back when she was in school, but I’ve never been. So it’s kind of a birthday present, this trip. I’m turning sixty next year.” The man shook his head slowly.

“No, I’ve never been,” Avery said, pressing a hand down on his knee to stop its bouncing.

“You’re not on the package deal, are you? Apple Travel?” The man pulled a sheaf of folded pages out of his thick paperback Rome: A Traveler’s Guide. Through the yellow glow of their overhead light, Avery could see the shiny red apple logo, and the header, Tour Itinerary.

“No, I’m just…doing my own thing.”

“Yeah.” The man studied the pages. “They’ve got us on a pretty full program for eight days. Hope we don’t miss the forest for the trees, you know?” He held out the jam-packed list of sightseeing trips.

Avery, who was all prepared to pass on browsing through some boring tourist pamphlet, caught sight of the restaurant listed first: La Graviata.

“Wait. They have you going to this place? On your first full night in Rome? Uh, no. Let me take a look at that.” La Graviata was name-checked by nearly every foodie website as the most overpriced, overrated tourist trap in the city. Avery scanned the rest of the itinerary, and then handed it right back. “You don’t want to go to these places. Here, give me your book.”

“This?” The man held up his Rome paperback. He looked at the printed itinerary uncertainly. “I think we’re gonna have to go with the group, since…”

“All right,” Avery said, having found the right section in the tour guide. “You got a pen? Good. I’m going to make some marks here. And no, you don’t always have to go with the group. You’re in Rome, it’s the best restaurant town in the world, and it’s your sixtieth birthday. You call the shots. Right?”

“Right,” the man echoed. “I call the shots.”

“Okay, so if this is a can’t-miss place, I’m going to put a star next to it. Do everything in your power to go. Seriously: beg, borrow, or steal. Forget the Coliseum, if you have to. And I’m not saying these are the expensive joints—most of the time, they’re going to be pretty cheap. Now, if it’s just somewhere really awesome, I’ll put a checkmark, and you should get to those too, whenever possible.” Avery bent his head over the book, whipping through the pages, looking for restaurant names he recognized or remembered, or for any descriptions that included the words oxtail, grandmother or saltimbocca. “Personally, I recommend skipping breakfast. You do that, you can probably fit in two lunches, and then a late dinner. Okay, when I put this—” He showed the man the squiggly blot he’d just marked. “It means stay away at all costs.”

“I thought you said you’d never been,” his seat companion said, but he was following Avery’s notations intently.

“Trust me,” Avery said. And the man just shrugged. Why not?

He bent his head to the travel book and fought the big dumb smile that was spreading across his whole face. Nona had no idea he was coming; no one did. He’d switched the ticket yesterday; nothing could have been easier. All the stupid, necessary phone calls—he wouldn’t think of his mother’s sputtering response when he never showed at O’Hare—would be made from Rome, sometime tomorrow. Or maybe he would just e-mail them, Mom and Rich, and Winnie too? Even better.

Avery had no idea what he was going to say to Nona. He had not an inkling of how she would receive him, or what her face would look like that first time they met. He didn’t know if they would kiss right away, or not for a few hours. He didn’t know if he’d be humiliated in front of all sorts of smirking Italian guys—he hoped not, but he was willing to take the risk. A phrase from Jerry came back to him—always like your chances—and Avery considered this. He did. Sure, he could picture being sent away in disgrace, a big scene, lots of gaping from locals. But he didn’t think so. He liked his chances.

And so he worked his way diligently through the long list of Roman restaurants for this nameless man sitting to his left. They talked together quietly for a long time, there on the sleepy plane, and all the while Avery thought of the first moment he and Nona would sit together in a restaurant; he held it close, savoring something that hadn’t even happened yet—that might not even happen. He didn’t know where they would go or what they would say to each other. But he knew what to order—there would be ciriola and murena fritta; there would be osso buco and semifreddo. It would be laid out in front of them, the first dishes of this incredible meal, the aroma swirling around them, and the colors of the walls and the wine, and he would wait just one moment—he promised himself, there on the plane—before beginning to eat. He would match that sensation with this one, and see if there was something to be learned.

And then, with Nona’s hand in his, Avery would take that first bite.