“True.”
“Whoa!” Arie heard Ciana say. “You knew before we left that you had relapsed?”
“Not now,” Arie said in an anguished voice.
Dr. Rozelli addressed both Arie and Ciana: “We will move you to a ward for more comfort, but it will be best for you to make arrangements to take Signorina Winslow home as soon as she can travel. She is very ill.”
Hot tears burned behind Arie’s eyes, and in more years than she could remember, she longed for her mother.
“Why didn’t you say something before we left?” Ciana asked Arie later when she was sitting up in the bed on the ward and feeling stronger after a unit of blood had been pumped into her.
“Because we would never have come to Italy. It was the trip of a lifetime for me.”
“Worth risking your life for?”
Arie stared into Ciana’s cinnamon-colored eyes. “Yes.”
“Well, not to me!” Ciana snapped.
“Or me,” Eden chimed in.
Arie leaned her head into the pillow. “I would have been sick whether I stayed at home or if I came. Coming was better.”
“And so you didn’t tell anyone?”
Arie cut her eyes to Eden, thinking she must have some special psychic gift for ferreting out truth. Why deny it? “Jon knew.”
An electric current shot through Ciana. “And he said nothing to us?”
Arie said, “Don’t blame him. I made him swear to keep my secret.”
“How could you tell him and not us?”
Eden touched Ciana’s arm, flashed her a look that said, Back off.
“He found out by accident. On the day I got the news, I went to see my horse and it was raining and I fell apart in the pasture and Jon found me crying my eyes out. He figured out the truth. He begged me to tell you both. But I didn’t.”
Ciana shook her head. “Bad choice on his part.”
“Don’t.” Arie’s voice strengthened. “Not. His. Fault.”
Ciana wasn’t convinced. “Well, we can’t stay here.”
Arie knew Ciana was right. Their final month would have to be canceled. “Don’t think it doesn’t break my heart,” Arie said, closing her eyes.
“I should call your family,” Ciana said.
“No, I’ll call. It’s my mess.”
“Not until we have some plan,” Eden cautioned.
“I think I need to sleep now,” Arie said, weariness slamming her. In truth, she wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. Returning home, facing weeping family members, going back into treatment, was going to be hell.
Ciana stretched across two chairs in the hospital waiting room, desperate to grab some sleep. Two days had passed, and Arie was stronger, but they were no closer to getting home.
“Coffee?” Eden stood over her, offering yet another paper cup of machine coffee that tasted like dirty water.
“Thanks. I think.” She sat up, took the cup.
“Any news?”
“Enzo’s fighting with the airlines to get us rebooked into Nashville instead of Atlanta. Everything’s booked solid this time of year.” Arie had talked to her family and they were frantic. They’d told the girls to fly first-class because it would be more comfortable. So had Alice Faye.
“So we won’t be returning to Cortona?”
“Don’t see how we can.”
“What about our stuff?”
“Enzo’s sent the couple who work for him to go pack everything up. They’re bringing some necessary personal items just to get us home and will ship the rest.”
Eden sipped her coffee. “That’s good. A big help.”
Ciana stroked Eden’s mass of tangled dark hair. “Of course you were already packed. I wish you and Garret—”
Eden shook her head, interrupting with, “I wish it too. But he’s gone by now.”
Just then Enzo came into the waiting area, a triumphant expression on his face. “Avere successo!” he said. “I have your reservations. First-class.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Ciana put her arms around Enzo. The weather had turned much cooler in Rome overnight, and his scent was of very fine cologne and his cashmere coat. “Thank you.”
He held her close. “Ah, mia bella,” he said, his lips against her hair. “How is it that you have stolen into my heart so completely?” He lifted her chin. “Next time, I will not give up so easily to take you to Portofino.” He smiled, kissed her forehead, stepped away. “I will find her doctor and let him know.”
When he was gone, Eden asked, “Portofino? Forget to mention something to me?”
Ciana rubbed her temples, nodded, and told Eden about Enzo’s offer. “It was nice to be asked. And as it’s turned out, I couldn’t have gone anyway.”
Eden took Ciana’s hand. “Let’s go tell Arie we’re going home.”
They were on a jumbo jet high over the Atlantic. The aisles were spacious and the seats folded flat to become a real bed with fresh linen. Arie could recline and rest all the way home. Her condition was stable, and once they landed in Nashville, an ambulance and a customs agent would meet the plane on the tarmac and whisk her to the hospital, where her parents would be waiting for her. Ciana and Eden would have to go through customs in the normal way before going to the hospital.
Eden stared out the plane’s window, at the banks of clouds below. An hour before, she had watched Italy slip away. And she brooded.
From across the aisle, in a small soft voice, Arie said, “I messed up your plans to go with Garret, didn’t I?”
Eden startled, looking over at Arie’s pale face. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. I hope you got a message to him before we left.”
Eden didn’t want Arie to fret. She reached across the aisle and squeezed Arie’s hand. “I’d probably have been a terrible camper. And staying in a cheap hotel? Can you imagine?”
Arie didn’t smile. She clung to Eden’s hand, but once she drifted off to sleep, Eden slowly let go, returning to her vigil at the window. Images of Garret slid through her mind’s eye—his smile, his crazy hair, her arms around him riding on the scooter. She imagined him, too, standing in front of the fountain in Cortona, waiting for her. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She brushed them away, her heart aching, and wondered how long he’d waited before he’d given up, before he’d left the plaza, before he’d realized that she wouldn’t be coming at all.
Arie’s homecoming and entering the local hospital was everything she had dreaded. Relatives, chastisement for having taken her trip in lieu of getting treatment, and lots of weeping. She didn’t need it, and sure as anything, she didn’t want it. Everyone was shocked. Everyone was sorry and sad. And everyone was asking, “Now what?”
Ciana and Eden were lost in the shuffle of foot traffic and a waiting room full of people, and they had to explain why nothing had been said before the treasured trip to Italy. It fell to Dr. Austin to clear Arie’s room of any except her parents, Eric, and Abbie.
Arie explained her reasons as simply as she could, imploring Eric to look after her friends, to get them home safely, and to make sure they weren’t the targets of rumors and accusations.
Patricia’s face was drawn and her eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion. Arie felt guilty and responsible for bringing pain to her mother. “Oh, Arie, why didn’t you tell us before you left for Italy?”
“Because I wanted to go to Italy. Because it’s my life. Simple as that.”
Swede shook his head. Eric scowled at her. Only Abbie offered the sympathetic look Arie needed. “Thank you,” Arie mouthed to her soon-to-be sister-in-law.
Dr. Austin intervened before any grueling interrogation could proceed. “Right now, I’m throwing all of you out. My patient needs rest.”
She called to Eric, “See to Eden and Ciana.”
She saw a film of moisture in his eyes that twisted her heart. “And don’t say one nasty word to either of them. They didn’t know either.”
When the room
was cleared, Dr. Austin dragged a chair to her bedside. “Is it your turn to smack me around?” Arie asked. “Because if it is …”
He shook his head. “Not at all. Can’t unring a bell.”
“So you want to tell me how you’re planning on torturing me? On what my next treatments are going to be?”
“Not yet.” He steepled his fingers. “First I want you to tell me about Italy.”
His request surprised her but opened the floodgates. As Arie talked, as she told him about the sights, the old cities, the art, the culture, her enthusiasm built. Merely talking about Italy and the places she’d been, the things she’d seen, buoyed her spirit. Dr. Austin let her talk uninterrupted until her voice was hoarse and her eyelids were heavy. Finally he stood, checked her vitals, gave her some water, and told her to rest.
Arie’s verbal revisit had brought on an emotional purging of her guilt over messing up the last few weeks of the trip for her friends and the scoldings of family. As she watched Dr. Austin cross to the door, she said, “I’m not sorry I went, and if I could turn back time, I’d do the same thing again.”
Once she was alone, her memories turned to her birthday and to her time with Jon Mercer. She fell asleep remembering his hands and lips on her skin with moonlight coming through a window in his room, knowing that that first night was the real treasure of her heart.
Eric drove Ciana and Eden home to Windemere in his truck. Abbie peppered them with questions about Italy as he dropped off first Eden, then Ciana, before returning to Nashville and the hospital. Once Eric drove away, Eden stood on her front lawn surveying the home she’d fled months before. The yard was brown with winter dead grass, and the potted plants were dried and wilted. The carport held only her old car from Tony. She wondered if the battery was dead. And she wondered why he’d spared it.
She had no idea whether her mother was home or still on one of her escapes. It didn’t matter. Eden needed a place to regroup, somewhere free until she found a job and made a plan for the months ahead. She sighed, picked up her bags, and dragged them through the carport door and into the kitchen. Stepping inside, she could hardly believe her eyes. New flooring, cabinets, countertops, kitchen hardware, and appliances made the space shine. Eden left her bags and went to the living room, also redecorated with new carpeting and freshly painted walls and shelves. The sofa and chairs looked gently used, much nicer than the former pieces. Jon had said Arie’s family had spruced up the place, but she’d had no idea how perfectly they’d done their job.
Eden heard the kitchen door open and Gwen came inside. “Well, well, look who’s home.”
“I might say the same thing,” Eden said, turning toward her mother.
“Since October. Got my old job back at Piggly Wiggly.” Gwen set down her purse, lunch bag, and athletic shoes. “You look good.”
“You too.” It was more of a courtesy than the truth. Gwen’s hair needed coloring and her lined face sagged. She was calm and controlled, though, so Eden assumed she was taking her meds once more.
“You staying for a while?”
“I thought I would. That okay with you?”
“This is your home, Eden. You’re always welcome.”
Eden glanced around. “Place looks nice.”
“Arie’s folks. Tony really did a number on it, but Arie’s dad and brother and more helpers than I could count showed up and worked for five days fixing the place up. All family, they said.”
“I thought you left town the same night we did.”
“I did. But the shoot-out made the news all the way to Florida. Must have been some firefight,” she mused. “Anyway, I figured I’d need to make sure the house was still standing for you when came home.”
“For me?”
“And for me too. And Aunt Myrtle. Place looked pretty bad. Ugly things written on walls in red paint, not a piece of furniture that wasn’t broken or cushion that wasn’t slashed. Got the new stuff at the Goodwill store. Couldn’t have done it without all the help.”
Eden plopped onto the sofa and rubbed her eyes, stinging from lack of sleep.
Gwen asked, “Aren’t you home sooner than you said you’d be?”
“Arie got sick. We had to come back.”
“What kind of sick?”
“Cancer. She’s in the hospital in Nashville.”
Gwen eased into a lounge chair. “That’s too bad about Arie. Hers are good people. Shame she has to suffer.”
“Jon said you faced Tony down and gave us a head start.”
Gwen fished a cigarette from the pocket of her jacket. “That’s why he wrecked the place. To get even. Dirtbag.”
Eden peered at her mother, at the woman she’d lived with all her life but didn’t feel she really knew at all. “Did he … did Tony hurt you?”
Gwen sucked on the cigarette and blew out the smoke without meeting Eden’s eyes. “He got physical, but all he got in return was lies that sent him off in the wrong direction.” Her eyes glittered like hard marbles when she spoke. “I can take a few jabs.”
Eden went cold all over, hating Tony and wondering all the more about her mother’s murky past, which was also her own past. Without the anchor of family history or stories, Eden had been adrift all her life. “I’m sorry about all the trouble Tony caused. You were right about him all along.”
Gwen said nothing and Eden appreciated her mother not giving her an “I told you so” lecture. Gwen turned on a lamp, as the house was growing dark in the gathering gloom of the shorter daylight hours. “You want some dinner?”
Eden shook her head. “I’m still on Italy time, so all I want right now is to go to bed.” She stood and started for the stairs.
Just as she made the first step, Gwen said, “I’m glad you’re home, baby.”
Eden couldn’t recall the last time her mother had called her “baby.” The endearment caused a lump in her throat. In these last few minutes, Gwen had sounded and acted like a sane, well-grounded person, the mother Eden had always coveted. But she knew better than to count on Gwen’s lucidity. Eden had hoped too many times before that Gwen would finally be well and remain on her meds and in therapy. But after so many years of watching the good tranquil times collapse, She knew better. “Happy to be here,” she said.
“I’d like to hear all about Italy and your trip.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
In her room, she saw that the walls had been repainted and the furniture repaired or replaced, and that all her bed linen was different. Her book collection was gone, her stuffed animals from childhood missing. She shook with anger, realizing that Tony had paid special attention to the destruction of her personal belongings. Eden undressed quickly, peeled back the covers, and crawled between the clean sheets. Once there, she quietly cried—for Arie, for her mother, for herself, for all the past that was now destroyed and gone. And she cried for Garret, wondering where under the skies of Europe he was sleeping this night, and if he was longing for her the way she was longing for him.
Eric’s truck pulled away and Ciana sucked in the scent of home, of ground and trees and horses, of pastureland and old house. This was Bellmeade, and all that she loved. Tuscany was beautiful, but this was home. She was glad to be here.
Instead of going into the house, she heaped her suitcases onto the wraparound veranda of the house and walked to the barn, excited about seeing her horses. She entered the barn and stopped cold. The place was immaculate. Ciana hadn’t known what to expect after leaving her mother in charge for over two months, but cleanliness and order hadn’t been on her radar.
She heard Firecracker neigh as the horse caught her scent. Ciana hurried over to the stall and stroked the bay’s soft nose. “Hey, girl. Miss me?” Firecracker shook her head up and down just as if she’d understood the words. Ciana laughed and hugged the horse’s neck over the stall door. The stall was stacked with fresh straw and looked as cushy as a bed. Sonata stuck her head out of the next stall and whinnied, so Ciana gave her nose a rub too. “Wow
, look at you.” Both horses had been brushed until their shaggy winter coats shone.
From the next stall down, another horse snorted. “Who are you?” Ciana asked. This one was a buckskin. “Caramel?” Ciana asked, recognizing Arie’s horse. “How’d you get here?” How could Alice Faye have managed such a pleasant homecoming for Ciana? Especially when her mother didn’t yet know she was home.
“Welcome home, Ciana,” a man said from behind her.
She whipped around and saw Jon Mercer standing in the tack room doorway, holding bridles in one hand. Shocked, she blurted, “What are you doing here?”
“Working,” he said. “Your mother hired me weeks ago.”
Fresh hurt and anger stormed Ciana’s heart. She didn’t want to see Jon, not after what had happened in Italy. “Why?”
“To keep this place running while you were away.”
“No one told me.”
His eyes held a wary look. “Now you know.”
“Well, I’m home. We have no further need of your services.” She glared at him and heard the horses stir behind her, seeming to sense the tension in the air between their caretakers.
“Your mother hired me. She’ll have to fire me.”
Ciana realized she was too tired, too off-balance from his physical presence to face this dogfight right now. “We’ll talk about it later.” She stalked toward the outside door, but he intercepted her.
“Let’s talk now,” he said. “Let’s start with why you’ve come home three weeks early.”
She thought about how to best hurl the truth at him for maximum impact but couldn’t do it at Arie’s expense. “Arie’s sick,” she simply said.
Jon frowned. “Tell me.”
She did, ending with, “She’s in the hospital. If you’re not too busy, maybe you could check in on her.” The last came out more hatefully than Ciana intended. “She’s pretty sick,” she added, less angrily. “She told us you knew she had relapsed before we even left for Italy.”
Jon tossed the bridles toward the tack room. “True.”
The Year of Luminous Love Page 22