Free Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Master by Ann Hood Page A

knows.”
    â€œPeople do stop loving the love of their lives, by the way,” Maisie said, thinking of her parents. They had been so in love that she and Felix used to ask them to stop holding hands in public. Once, her father told her that when he met her mother, his heart went boom.
    â€œSometimes,” she continued, “your heart goes boom at first, and then it just goes back to regular.”
    â€œNo,” Sandro said, shaking his head sadly. “I will love Simonetta until the day I die.”
    â€œMy parents said that, too,” Maisie said, losing her patience with Sandro’s overly romantic notions. “They promised to love each other in sickness and in health, for better or worse. But instead, they fell out of love and got divorced.”
    â€œThis is terrible, Maisie!” Sandro said, jumping to his feet. His eyes glowed with great passion. “Something is wrong with what you say. Love is endless. Love is . . . eternal!”
    â€œThen how do you explain my parents?” she said, equally passionate.
    â€œThey didn’t love each other in the first place,” Sandro said firmly. “That is the only explanation.”
    â€œThey held hands all the time!” Maisie said, her hands on her hips as if she were preparing for a fight. “They sang together!”
    Sandro pulled her hands from her hips and held them in his calloused ones.
    â€œYou must not do this,” he said, looking her right in the eyes. “You must believe in love, and you must believe that no matter what happened to your parents, love is eternal.”
    Maisie opened her mouth to protest, but stopped. This sounded very much like a lesson, like something she and Felix needed to know. Was the seal of the
giglio
meant for Sandro Botticelli?
    She freed her hands from his and reached into her pocket, pulling out the gold seal.
    â€œSandro,” she said, opening one of his hands and placing the seal in it, “this is for you.”
    Puzzled, he looked down at what she’d placed in his hand.
    â€œWhat is this?” he asked.
    â€œFor letters,” Maisie said. “You know, you drip hot wax on the back and then stamp it with this seal.”
    Sandro held the seal up closer to better examine it.
    â€œWhy would I want this?” he asked finally.
    â€œThat’s the symbol of Florence,” Maisie explained.
    â€œI know what it is,” he said. “I just don’t need it.”
    He handed it back to her.
    Maisie hesitated. If Sandro didn’t want it, then it wasn’t intended for him.
    â€œAre you sure?” she asked.
    â€œAbsolutely,” he said.
    Resigned, Maisie put the seal back in her pocket.
    â€œShall we walk some more?” Sandro suggested.
    â€œWhat about Simonetta?”
    â€œShe won’t appear again, I’m afraid. I’m lucky if I glimpse her once. Twice? Impossible.”
    â€œSeriously,” Maisie said as they continued along the Arno River, “you need to find a different girlfriend. Someone who isn’t married, for example.”
    Sandro shrugged. “A heart doesn’t take advice.”
    Maisie thought about how her mother wouldn’t listen to reason about Bruce Fishbaum, and how her father almost married Agatha the Great, and how neither of them would take her advice to get married again—to each other.
    â€œThat’s true,” Maisie admitted.
    From deep inside her stomach, a hungry growl made its way out and into the night.
    â€œOops,” Maisie said. “I guess I haven’t eaten in a long time.”
    â€œBut why didn’t you say so?” Sandro said. “Right here we can stop and have some meat and cheese.”
    He pointed to a busy shop across the street.
    â€œThe owner is my good friend Pasquale. He will let us taste a little of this, a little of that.”
    â€œI’d like a lot of something,” Maisie said, which made Sandro laugh.
    Inside, the