She looked into his face. His eyes were bright in spite of their midnight hue. They’d always had a shine, something alive in their depths as though the zeal with which he looked out could not be dimmed. It hurt to see that he thought what he did now was good and right.
She wanted to lash out, tell him to keep what he knew to himself. Why drag her through it again? But then she noticed what he held. Her eyes fixed on the box, her box from long ago, a stationery set Papa had given her for her fifteenth birthday. It had once held papers and pens and a small lap desk. She had used them to write letters to her cousin Conchessa in Liguria, who sent Lance to Sonoma. All she’d wanted was for him to find Nonno, to give him the burial he deserved.
With the box tucked under his arm, he pulled a chair over for Rese, then one for himself. “Is Sofie here?”
Antonia shook her head.
He laid the box on the table next to his chair, and in spite of her resistance, anticipation soared as he worked the lid open. She’d put nothing in the box that compromised Papa. Maybe there was nothing to fear… .
At the angle he propped the lid, she couldn’t see inside but waited, hardly breathing, as he reached in. He handed her two photos; her mother and Nonno Quillan. She had not looked at Momma in so long. A beautiful woman with the fashionable blond bob of the time. A woman who turned heads, who turned Papa’s head and never stopped turning his heart, but who had not much use for a daughter, as though there was a competition between them from the start.
It was to Nonna Carina she turned when the woes of life put her in need of comfort. It was at Nonna’s knee she learned the things she would come to value, a language different from the one she spoke at school, an appreciation for beauty—not the useless trinkets her mother desired—the beauty of song and words and nature, the beauty of love. She learned to speak for herself, to hold her own in any situation.
It was from Nonna she learned the give and take of love. In her grandparents’ relationship, Antonia saw what had been lacking in Momma and Papa, and she vowed only to bind her heart to one that surrendered likewise to hers. Bald hatred could not be worse than misaligned desires, two lives constantly tugging. Looking at her momma’s picture, she felt no loss, only regret that she hadn’t known her, hadn’t been known.
Then she turned her gaze to Nonno’s photograph, striking with his mane of hair that put Samuel Clemens to shame. Nonno’s was a face both noble and fierce. The picture didn’t capture the warmth in his eyes, the deep capacity for tenderness, or near the end, the unfathomed grief. Without Nonna Carina, he waited only, ready for death, and found it in more grief.
She closed her eyes, remembering. Nonno. His last concern for her. And she had obeyed his wishes. She had not been found, not been destroyed as everything she cherished had. She opened her eyes, and Lance handed her letters she recalled saving in the box.
One letter Nonno had given her from Flavio, accepting his charge as godfather. When they came home from the grave that day, he had handed it to her and said, “Know that every choice you make ripples the lake. My Carina wanted it,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe to appease her conscience or to help Flavio find his way. He never married; how could he after loving Carina? So Vittorio was like a son to him. And he never stopped vying with me for his heart. Is it any wonder Vittorio is split?”
Antonia lifted the next, a letter from Papa on her birthday. A warmth spread over her as she read his words. She had never doubted his love, only his—Antonia stifled a sob. It had risen up from nowhere and caught her by surprise. She didn’t feel the emotions coming sometimes. They attacked from the shadows of her mind. She set that letter down with a trembling hand.
The last was the note from Marco saying he was up to the task of winning her. A new warmth scented with the bloom of love. She drew a shaky breath and looked at the two young people before her. Rese’s presence no longer seemed wrong. She was one with Lance’s heart, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“You might recognize this.” Lance took out a book.
She gasped. “M … y di—”
He handed it to her, and she rubbed her palm over the cover. How had he found it? Where? Questions clogged her mind.
“It was kept safe for you with this.” He laid a paper atop. “It’s a deed to the property that Ralph Martino held in trust for you.”
Antonia stared at the deed as tears flooded her eyes. Martino. Ralph must be related to Joseph, dear Joseph, who buried the trapdoor in dirt to hide Nonno’s resting spot, the foolish demand of a distraught girl who hadn’t seen any other way. He must have found her diary wherever it fell and kept it for her. Had he thought she would return?
“Nonna? Do you know anything about this deed?”
She looked at the paper again and shook her head. Nonno must have given it to Joseph to keep for her. Had he known, after all, that trouble was coming, made provision with a man he trusted more than his son? Why else give Joseph the deed, unless he knew they would flee? But Nonno hadn’t gone with her. He had stopped his heart rather than leave the home he had shared with Carina. She swallowed the pain.
Lance said, “Rese bought the property in good faith. She’s renovated the villa, restored the damage of age and vandals. She intends to run it as a bed-and-breakfast. None of us knew about your deed, and I don’t know which one would stand up in court.”
What was he talking about, court? Antonia looked at Rese, a strong face, competent. She looked at the hands, callused and strong, the defined and developed forearms. She had restored the villa? Maybe, but could she begin to know what that place had meant to the young woman forced to flee? How it had symbolized a life lost?
“Nonna.” Lance covered her hands with his. “Rese and I are partners in the business. With your blessing, I want to go back to that. Make it work.”
Rese startled as though she hadn’t expected to hear it, and her calm fractured enough to show the underlying strain. Ah. So her strength lay in disguise, hiding the fear and insecurity. She was not sure of Lance, not sure at all. And who could blame her when he was so unsure of himself?
They wanted to make her home an inn, her sanctuary a dormitory for strangers. She closed her eyes and pictured the place she and Nonno had treasured. The vines heavy with fruit, the walls steeped in life, love, and laughter. And grief and death. Waves of sorrow washed over her. Was it possible her grandson, the one she loved so well, would reclaim the property lost to her?
If this was all they wanted, maybe they didn’t know. Maybe … She picked up the deed and pressed it into his hands. Rese might have bought the property through some fluke of fate, but Lance would have this deed from her hands. She laid his other hand atop and said, “Y … ours.”
Lance met her eyes. “Thank you, Nonna. But technically it belongs to Rese.”
Why wouldn’t he let that go? He was stubborn, this man. As stubborn as she.
“She paid one point eight million dollars for it. And that was in its ransacked condition. She’s put a lot into it since then.”
Rese turned. “How do you know what I paid?”
“Public record.” He half smiled.
One point eight million dollars? Antonia couldn’t comprehend such a sum. But then, she’d never accorded things a monetary value. It was what it meant to her that mattered. And that villa meant youth and innocence, love and pain. Did she wish that on Lance? She looked from his face to Rese Barrett’s. Whether she wished it or not, they were in it already.
Antonia took Rese’s hand and put it on Lance’s holding the deed. “Yours.” And if they thought she meant the deed, bene. She would give what was no longer hers to give, and they would bless her for it.
Rese said, “Thank you.” And there was a hint of tears in her eyes. Eyes that would not tear easily, that kept the world back. Something had wounded her. But then, that was life.
“There’s more, Nonna.”
Lance’s words pulled her spine stiff. No. The rest should be left in peace. “No m … ore.”
/> “I don’t want to buck you.”
But he would. He thought he knew what was right, and like David he would fight any giant. Including his feeble nonna, who, he knew well, was not feeble in spirit. She gave him the sharp look that transmitted her displeasure. Even as a small boy he had resisted its sting; now as a man he brushed it aside.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I don’t understand why.” An attempt to cajole.
She glared. “L … eave it.”
He set the deed on the table and took from the box a bundle of money. “I found a stash of these in the cellar with Nonno Quillan. Silver certificate bills. They’re worth a lot.”
Money in the cellar? “Antonia, under …” Was it Nonno’s savings, or had Papa hidden it there for some underhanded purpose?
“I also found these.” He took a stack of envelopes from the box and laid them so that she saw the names written on each; some she recognized though she didn’t want to, men affiliated with Arthur Jackson, some who’d been taken in as Papa had, others as distasteful as he.
A raging geyser shot up inside. Stop it! Stop! Wasn’t it enough that Papa was killed? Did he have to be dishonored in her grandson’s eyes as well as her own?
Lance sat back. “How come Nonno Marco never said he was a federal agent?”
The geyser died as quickly as it had spouted. Marco a Federal agent? “What?”
“I have a letter that says Marco Michelli was a federal agent and your pop, Vittorio, was working undercover with him.”
Antonia sank back, weak in every cell. It wasn’t possible.
But he took the letter from the box. “I got this from Arthur Jackson’s great-granddaughter.”
Hearing the name spoken nearly stopped her heart. She refused to take the paper he extended. Nothing tainted by Arthur Jackson would touch her fingers.
“I think this is why Vittorio was murdered.”
Her hands trembled. Her lips shook. Her face hung slack. He knew it all, then. Pain coursed through her.
“Nonna? You okay?”
She could hear him, but she couldn’t respond.
“Nonna? Rese, get Momma.” Lance took the diary from her lap, chafed her hands. “Talk to me, Nonna. Please. I’m sorry I upset you.”
Her vision blurred. Her body felt stiff. Her head was a buzzing hive.
Lance dropped to his knees and took her in his arms. “Please, Nonna. Don’t do this. I’m sorry.”
She wanted to comfort him, to tell him this hurt had nothing to do with him. That he was her joy. That he made everything she’d lost worth it. But no words would come.
Then Dori hovered over her. “Momma?” Doria, her daughter-inlaw who had moved into their world when she married Roman, who now took responsibility for the old woman who was no longer able to feed herself, to dress or move about. How bad would the damage be this time?
If she could wonder, wasn’t that good? The last time, she’d awakened to a broken mind and a crippled body. She was not unconscious. Maybe this one wasn’t as bad. Maybe.
Lance had jammed his fingers into his hair and stood like a tortured soul in Dante’s Inferno, blaming himself. Damning himself.
“M … ah.” That wasn’t the sound she needed.
“Don’t try to talk, Momma.” Dori soothed her brow with a cool hand.
She had to talk, to tell Lance not to worry, not to blame himself. But the sounds that came scared him worse than before. She stopped making them. Stopped trying. Stopped fighting.
“I’ve called the doctor.”
No. No more doctors. No hospital. She wanted her family, not strangers who would take her away. She used to know the people at Saint Barnabas as well as the cheese maker and the baker and the shoe repairman and the clockmaker. Now there were faces she’d never seen. People who never knew she had once been lovely and bright. They saw only her disfigurement.
She closed her eyes. Leave me alone. Leave me.
CHAPTER SIX
Lance felt the knife in his gut twist with every breath as he stood in the hall outside Nonna’s door. Every time he thought he was getting it right, thought he was in God’s will … Rese stood beside him, but his mind circled one thought only. My fault.
He fought the tightness in his throat. He might have had nothing to do with the towers coming down on Tony, but he was directly responsible for Nonna. He had pushed when she begged him not to. He’d wanted to tell her things she didn’t want to know; made her remember things she’d never spoken of. Maybe she hadn’t even known her papa was murdered. What was he doing, blurting it out like that?
The doctor emerged, one who made house calls to an aged stroke victim in the neighborhood of the hospital. He’d been making rounds, and six blocks wasn’t far out of his way. Better than sending an ambulance, taking up a bed. He knew Antonia Michelli.
He had allowed only Momma into the room with him, and Lance was glad. He didn’t want to see the damage, to know he was to blame. But now in the hall Dr. Stern said, “Mrs. Michelli has had what we call a ministroke. The anti-stroke medication she’s taking seems to have minimized the damage.”
Lance swallowed. “Is she conscious?”
“Yes. But I don’t want her disturbed.”
Right. No forcing unwanted information on your enfeebled grandmother.
“One person with her at a time.” He knew the rest of the Michellis. “She needs rest and peace. If she can’t get it here, I’ll have to hospitalize.”
“She’ll get it.” Lance only wanted to tell her how sorry he was, that he would not bother her with any of it again. The business with Marco and Vittorio and Arthur Jackson could remain silent forever. Basta. Enough.
After the doctor left, Rese frowned. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What.”
“Blaming yourself.”
“She asked me to stop.”
“Well, that’s not your forte.”
Understatement of the year. His cell phone rang, and he told Monica the status and the doctor’s stipulations. She had taken all the children out to the park, and they’d have to find ways to keep them occupied for the next few days at least. No swarming Nonna. Only one person at a time. And he wasn’t the best choice anymore.
“Pray,” he told Monica. And he should too. He hung up and looked at Rese. “Is it okay if we go to the church?”
“Sure.” She looked relieved, actually. He must be really grim.
They took the stairs down and out to the street, then walked the few blocks to the church. Mount Carmel had been the center of life in his neighborhood since the basement church was built in 1907. Now the triple-arched entrance between the two rusty-red brick towers embraced him. He and Rese arrived as the donne anziane, old women in their black scarves and thick stockings, were descending the pale stone stairs from the midday Italian Mass. Many of them greeted him, and he forced a smile as he led Rese inside.
He lowered his head and settled on the kneeler. How many times had he ended up there, hoping God could fix something he’d messed up? He must have some kind of record for getting it wrong. In Sonoma when everything blew up, he’d tried to give it all to Rese; the deed, the money, tried to let her go, thinking that was God’s will. But when she wanted him to stay, it had seemed right to bring it all to Nonna, whose approval mattered as much to him at twenty-eight as it had at eight.
But Nonna had asked for help, not a battle. Lord. He deserved the tongue-thrashing only she could deliver. Or could she? How much progress would be lost, and how frustrated would she be? He dropped his face to his hands. Lord, heal her. I’ll leave the past to the past. I don’t need answers. Just bring her back.
He dropped his forehead to his hands and sank down until his backside rested against the pew with his knees still on the kneeler. He could remember Momma scolding him for slacking into that position. “Keep a straight back for the One whose back was scourged for you.”
He meant no disrespect but drew himself up again anyway, sensing a perpetual
incense inside the walls, not from the burning of gray powder, but of prayers raised to heaven in silent anticipation and faith. He could almost hear the murmur of whispers in the rafters and added his own.
Into your heart, into your hand,
All that I am, naked I stand.
Selah, O Lord, Selah. In the silence you find me.
Selah, my Lord, Selah. In the stillness refine me.
His lyrics. The problem was he couldn’t get still, couldn’t find the silence. He needed the road. He stood up and motioned Rese out ahead of him, dropping down to genuflect before leaving. God had heard him, he was sure. But he didn’t know what the answer would be. And he couldn’t stand still to find out.
————
Lance’s stride leaving the church meant trouble. He had obviously not found peace and comfort, even though she’d been amazed by the beauty inside, the adoration it inspired. Rese hadn’t expected the wealth of stained glass and marbled pillars, the carved and painted scenes along the walls and ceiling. She hadn’t thought to find any of that in a neighborhood church.
But she hadn’t expected anything that had happened so far. A quick explanation of their plans, a sincere effort to set things right, a chance for Lance to bring his efforts for his grandmother to conclusion—that was what she’d expected. Now she worked to keep up as they descended the sun-warmed steps.
“Lance?” she puffed.
He didn’t respond for two blocks, or when they reached his apartment, or when he searched through the keys by the door and raised a ring wordlessly to Rico, who was practicing a drum riff with Star at his feet. Rico didn’t pause, merely nodded.
Back downstairs and out the back this time, Lance used one key to unlock a lean-to in the courtyard, then wheeled out a Kawasaki so stripped it made his Harley look like a luxury cruiser.
Rese’s jaw dropped. “What’s that?”
“Rico’s chopper.”
“I thought he had a van, the one he drove to Sonoma with all the gear.”
Lance brushed the dust from the seat. “He borrows that when he’s got a gig. These are his wheels.”
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