Summary

Elena reminds the reader that this story is being told from forty years in the future, and that she is gathering much of her information from Lila's notebooks. Lila wrote pages and pages about the night with Nino; not about sex, but about love. Lila writes that the marriage to Stefano had all but killed her; had certainly deadened her inside. But from the moment that Nino asked her to dance at the party, she felt awakened. Lila tells Elena none of this in the moments after their night together; her gain was Elena's loss. To Lila, Nino wasn't a summer fling, but a growing feeling inside of her. However, Elena feels that old feeling from their early youth, that whatever Lila gains, she loses.

In Chapter 74, they return to the house, and Lila is feverish with excitement for Nino. She wants to...