“We were on the Promenade des Anglais at sunset — the sky streaked orange and pink, the sea reflecting the colours back like a mirror that flatters, and the light was the kind of light that makes everything look the way you want to remember it. He was saying something about the ocean at night, how the bioluminescence in the Gulf of Naples makes the water glow green, and I was watching his mouth move and not hearing the words because the words had stopped mattering.”