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in the bottom of that canal, and I just might be widowed before my wedding.”
    â€œThere’s always your ex-husband,” I say. “He obviously still loves you.”
    I shift myself, just slightly. The tiles crumble beneath me. I begin to slide.
    Grace screams.
    â€œIt’s okay!” I bark.
    I’ve stopped sliding. For now.
    Then, “Grace, I need your help. I’m going to try and shift my body onto my stomach so that I’m perpendicular with the edge of the roof. After that I’m going to lower my left arm and my left leg. If I can place my left foot onto the terrace railing, I can give you my left hand to hold tight. Make sense?”
    â€œYes, love,” she says, her voice trembling.
    Gently, slowly, I extend my right arm out and lower my body onto my right side. Then I extend my right leg out so that it too rests on the clay tiles. Many of the tiles break underneath my body, sending shards of sharp clay up into my skin. It stings like dozens of needle shots. But I try and ignore the pain.
    Now that I’m lying prone on the edge of the roof, I try and lower my left leg. I start by sliding it off the edge and then gently down towards the terrace’s stone railing.
    â€œHow’m I doing, Gracie?”
    â€œAlmost there, love.” Her voice is high-pitched, full of stress. My every movement bears its weight on her beating heart.
    Then I feel it. The solid firmness of the banister.
    â€œOkay, now for my arm,” I say. “When you can reach it, take hold of my hand.”
    â€œYes, love. I’m here. I’m. Here.”
    This time, in order for me to extend my hand down over the roof edge, I have to stretch. I must bring my body so close to the edge that I find myself on the brink of dropping. It’s as if I’m floating in midair. Makes me wonder how I managed to climb up here onto this steeply angled roof in the first place. But take it from an Afghan vet: The climb is always the easy part. Especially when you’re doing it under the fearless guise of sleepwalking. It’s getting back down that’s treacherous.
    â€œCan you reach it, baby?”
    â€œI’m trying!” she cries.
    In my head, I see her struggling to make herself taller so that she can reach my fingers and then my hand. I stretch all the more, until I feel our fingertips touching, and then our hands, and then her tight grip.
    â€œGotcha!”
    â€œDon’t let go,” I insist.
    I pray I don’t suddenly drop and pull her over with me. How will the headline look? Blind solider/writer and artist fiancée fall to their tragic death in romantic Venice. The news will be an international sensation. Death in Venice…Tragedy in Midst of Rekindled Love…Fiancé Falls for Fiancée…
    I press my weight onto my left foot.
    â€œGrace!” I shout. “When I tell you, I want you to pull me in towards the door. You got that?”
    She’s already pulling on me.
    â€œGot it!”
    â€œOn three,” I insist.
    â€œI’m ready.”
    â€œOne. Two. Three—”
    She pulls me in towards the apartment and I slide off the roof, drop onto the banister and onto the slate-covered terrace floor, my left hand still gripped in Grace’s.
    A wave of pain shoots up and down my butt cheeks since they cushioned the fall. But at least I didn’t drop to my death onto the stone cobbles or into a filthy, shallow lagoon.
    Grace drops to her knees and hugs me.
    â€œYou stupid jerk,” she says through a haze of tears. “What could have prompted you to do something so stupid? So selfish?”
    I try and stand. I peer into Grace’s swelled, tear-filled eyes. I want to see them before I lose my sight again.
    â€œI was sleepwalking,” I explain. But the truth sounds ridiculous.
    â€œWe’ll learn to lock the doors,” she says. “I’ll hold you all night long.”
    I pull her into me and as I do, I see the