A large hat blocks out what little sun there is, and dark glasses block out her bloodshot eyes.
She shivers, frail in her old age, a shawl drawn up around her shoulders to block the morning chill that permeates the fog floating above the water.
The gondolier draws the boat along slowly, but with purpose; skin wrinkles across bones, a deep brown made leathery by years of sun and salt water.
To the left and right, the lights shining behind people's windows beams out at them, seemingly floating in the air just behind the fog.
She imagines what she must look like right now. A boat gently rocking along inside of a snow globe.
She looks at her right hand. Tattooed there, on the webbing between her thumb and fore finger, is a half heart. Drawn in such a way that it was completed when her hand was wrapped around his chest, resting naturally over the other half heart tattooed over his own heart. A heart made complete every night when he fell asleep in her arms.
Clutched in her trembling hands, a small ceramic vase. Intricately detailed on it the picture of lilies floating in water, etched in red ink on flawless white.
Her promise to him, although too late, had been kept.
She shivers again, now at the prospect of falling asleep in a strange bed in a strange country. With only half a heart.
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