Sloane Chen reached a breaking point at her kitchen sink on a Tuesday morning: twenty-two years of a logistics marriage, three children, and a feeling of total nothing where a life used to be. Tess Reilly has spent ten years performing widowhood as independence, armoring grief with jokes sharp enough to keep anyone from asking how she actually is. The Protocol sends them both to Lisbon.
In the Alfama, Sloane meets Tomás, a Portuguese restoration architect who asks what she wants and means it. Tess meets Declan, an Irish ex-pat bar owner who sees through her deflection from the first hello. Across five weeks of cobblestone hills, fado, river light, and one careful uncovering of what they have each been hiding from themselves, both women stop performing. One of them stays. One of them goes home long enough to end a marriage and come back for good.
A dual-POV midlife novel about saudade, the Portuguese word for a longing so old it has a shape, and what it takes to finally put it down.
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