Lance cocked his jaw. “I think we’re pawns in a match we can’t see. The moves are made and pieces sacrificed. We can hate God and despair. Or love God regardless.”
She touched his arm. “Which do you choose?”
He answered without looking. “You know which.”
“Say it.”
He swallowed. “I choose to love and serve God.”
“Then you can’t despair. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Maybe.” He gripped the fence and stared a long time. “But here is a world where heroes die and screw-ups are left to pick up the pieces.”
The foolish things to confound the wise, the weak to shame the strong. She would tell him what Chaz had said, but Lance didn’t seem to be talking to her anymore.
“Either I accept that this was His purpose, that He intended to take Tony and leave me and somehow it was right and perfect, or I despair and curse Him.” His knuckles whitened. “I resist; I doubt, but without the guts to turn away, because I’d rather love a cruel God than have no God at all.”
He didn’t say it to shock her. He was professing a loyalty and love for one who seemed undeserving, yet whose service he could not resist. It ought to terrify her, but it didn’t. She drew back her shoulders. “So what’s next?”
They left Ground Zero but not the city. Gaping up from the bike, Rese relived her dream—only she was in the maze, not Mom. The effect of the towering buildings was stunning and unnerving. And there didn’t seem to be room to breathe, every inch of space in use. She was glad Lance suggested the Staten Island ferry just so she could stretch her arms.
As they circled the Statue of Liberty, with the marine-scented breeze in her face, she said, “I did a report on that statue in sixth grade, all about its shipment in pieces that had to be assembled, and the strengths and weaknesses of copper as a construction material.”
Leaning on the rail, Lance slid her a look.
“The teacher wondered if I couldn’t have focused more appropriately on the statue’s symbolism as it related to American history.”
He half smiled.
Back in South Ferry, they disembarked and headed up to Greenwich, where Lance and Rico had sung on the sidewalks until they’d been discovered and booked into the clubs. He motioned toward a doorway as they puttered past, the haze of their own exhaust engulfing them. “That’s where we had our break.”
The club wasn’t much to look at, and in the middle of the afternoon, nothing was happening. But she could imagine the two of them setting up as Lance had in the inn’s dining room, the excitement they must have felt to be taking their music somewhere. The front side of a dream. Had Lance really put that behind him? Would he be content with the inn?
When their stomachs started sounding like Rico’s bike, she ran in for Gray’s Papaya hot dogs while Lance circled the block. She didn’t have to worry about getting a table. There weren’t any. She climbed back onto the bike when Lance came around. He hadn’t found a place to park, so he double-parked behind a delivery van. She handed Lance his hot dog and bit into hers. The bun was crisp, the hot dog bursting with flavor even though she’d forgotten to add condiments.
“Like your dogs naked?” Lance glanced over his shoulder.
“I was worried about you circling.” And food details were his province. She kept her seat, but he swung his leg over and leaned sideways on his.
He bit into his hot dog and smiled. “Sometimes simple is best.”
“What makes it taste so good?”
“Location.”
She scrunched her brow.
“Any hot dog you eat in New York will taste better than anywhere else in the world.”
She snorted, but there in the street the plain hot dog did taste better than any she’d had. She didn’t admit it though. It would only go to his head.
In midtown she studied the architecture: statuary on the buildings, whole figures or just faces, plant motifs on corners and doorways, art rendered in concrete and stone similar to what she did with wood. Many of the buildings had renovation scaffolding, and she couldn’t help noting the ones she’d love to get her hands on—if she were still in the business. Like Lance with his music, it wasn’t easy to leave it behind. It wasn’t easy to keep at it either. Not after the accident, not when the mere sound of a saw blade …
Brad had wondered if she still had it, and she supposed she did, since she had accomplished the transformation of the dilapidated villa into a beautiful bed-and-breakfast, but she would not be able to hide the strain from the guys. It was better that she’d let it go. And they deserved their fate with the new owners. She just wished she’d made them change the name. Of course, that was what they were trading on.
The day had slipped away, and under the streetlights, Lance eschewed the Empire State Building with its serpentine horde coiling to the ticket counter and elevators. He took her instead to Saul Samuel’s apartment building. The doorman spoke their request over the intercom to the agent Rico had landed and whom Lance seemed to know as well.
After a minute, the uniformed man admitted them into the lobby. “Mr. Samuels said go on up to the roof. He’s unlocked it.”
No gift shop or observation deck swarming with tourists; Rese walked out to a garden overlooking the city. Potted trees on a rooftop. If that wasn’t the difference between Lance’s coast and hers, what was? At the waist-high wall she stared down. All the jewels in the world were spilled beneath her. But looking up, she saw only the reddish hue of the expanse spread above her. “No stars?”
Lance rested his palms on the wall. “They’ve all been wished on and fallen.”
Looking down at all the fallen wishes, she asked, “Did they come true?”
“Maybe. Some.”
She searched the sky again for even one prick of starlight, one faint glimmer to hang a wish on. But she didn’t know what to say anyway.
“What would you wish, Lance?”
He stood silent so long she could almost hear the fallen stars sighing from the ground where they’d lighted. Not even one wish between them. How sad was that?
“There’s nothing you’d want?”
He swallowed. “Too much.”
Of course. Lance wouldn’t stand there like her, wondering what she wanted in life, unaccustomed to wishing or hoping, just bracing herself for what would come next, ready to meet it head on. He was the dreamer, greedy with hopes.
The noise of traffic and sirens in the city that never sleeps seemed far away. She hadn’t known Lance could be so quiet, yet it wasn’t empty silence; it was filled with thoughts and feelings, as though he charged the blank air above them with the wishes he couldn’t speak. They would settle like a mist, sparkling drops of dew at the first touch of morning light. Lance’s wishing stars.
————
Lance locked the bike back into the enclosure and turned. He hadn’t been very good company, but Rese had taken up the slack. That meant a lot to him. “So how come I didn’t get anything pierced? No double rings in both ears, no stud in my nose?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Wish I’d thought of it.”
He laughed. “Good thing you didn’t. Pop almost ripped this one out.” He tapped the diamond stud in his left earlobe. “He’d take me apart if I came home with more.”
“You’re twenty-eight years old.”
“And he’s sixty-three. And if he wants to take me at eighty-three, he will.”
“He’d hit you?”
“Call it physical communication.”
She frowned. “Dad’s worst punishment was silence. All he had to do was withhold comment, and I was frantic to figure out a way to do better.”
Lance headed for the door, unlocked and held it open. “I’m harder to get through to.”
Rese paused before entering. “Would you hit your kids?”
Lance leaned his hip to the jamb. “First, you don’t hit the girls.”
Her chin came up as he’d known it would. “They’re too weak?”
“Too precious.”
She glared. “I thought sons were the preferred offspring.”
“Fagedda-bout-it. They’re too thickheaded. Gotta knock the sense in.”
“Do you have any idea how that sounds?”
He spread his hands. “Wha-at?”
She shoved his arm. “Be serious.”
He motioned her inside the dimly lit hall full of family detritus. “I don’t know, Rese. I haven’t thought about kids. I mean, I have, but … not the details.” He pulled the door shut behind them. “There’s too much at stake with children, their whole lives in your hands. I’m not sure …” He turned the dead bolts. “It’s too easy to mess it up.”
“You think you wouldn’t be a good father?”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re kidding, right? Lance, I saw you with them. With your nephew in the sandbox.”
“No risk. You can’t mess up someone else’s kids.”
She frowned. “Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“Pretending to be something you’re not.”
“I’m just saying—”
“In Sonoma you had all the answers. There was nothing you couldn’t do. You knew exactly what I needed, what Star needed. Even Evvy. Here it’s as though you’ve forgotten it all. Did it ever occur to you your dad could be wrong?”
He stared into her face. “What if he’s not?”
“Then deal with it.”
Looking into her strong, practical face, he could almost imagine it. Maybe he just needed the right balance, the right person in it with him—for the long haul. The thought seized in his chest. Bobby was right that it was new territory. But with the light behind him making crags in her face, he could almost see them growing old together.
If he asked her for real, would she say yes? After his performance so far? Not a chance. But it didn’t stop him wanting. “Rese …”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Thanks for showing me around.” She started for the stairs.
“Sure.” He climbed the stairs behind her, getting the point. Don’t get close and personal. Don’t want more than he should. Don’t pretend there’s even a chance for permanence.
He had to stop reading more into things than there was. After all, she’d said “your kids,” not “ours.”
CHAPTER TEN
Terror stalks on padded feet,
a death mask alight by the glow of a flame.
One tiny match showing what I do not wish to see,
can’t bear to see. Papa. Papa!
Marco rushes to my side in the dark. “Shh, cara, shh.” Dressed in skivvies and trousers, he sits on the bed and holds me to his chest. I sense more than comfort in his embrace. I sense fear that I will draw them to me, to this boardinghouse or the next, assassins bent on my quick and final silence.
My breath comes in jagged gasps. “I can’t stop my dreams, Marco.” For days I have found glass in my hair, though the cuts have closed up and some of them scabbed. The worst violence is to my dreams. Bloody bodies with Papa’s face.
He stares a long moment. “Then scoot over.”
Shaking, I make room for him in the saggy bed. In the sweltering heat, he holds me, back to chest, knees nested, yet still a chill hollows my belly.
“If you scream, I’ll cover your mouth, but you won’t scream now.” And his arms are strong and tight around me.
It is the first time we have lain down together, the first time he has held me as a man holds his wife. How will it be to grow old with him in my bed? But he is already old, and I might never be. The chill makes me shake, but he murmurs into my neck. “Shh, Antonia, shh.”
The judge this morning seems far away, a scene played on a stage that I watched unbelieving. After the attack, it seemed right and necessary, but after all I’d hoped for? The castles I built in my dreams? Not some rushed wedding to a man I don’t know, but who seems able to accomplish anything.
The judge balked at our lack of birth certificates until Marco took him aside and spoke into his ear. A phone call was made; then we stood with two witnesses and said, “I do.” But still, I can hardly believe any of this is real.
When morning comes I feel as ragged as my silk Milanese princess petticoat, the lace of which is hopelessly frayed. I washed my skirt and blouse last evening in the small sink at the end of the hall, and they have dried wrinkled, but there’s nothing I can do. As we enter the breakfast room, the woman who runs the boardinghouse looks at us askance. No rings on our fingers, circles under our eyes.
“She thinks I beat you last night,” Marco murmurs. “She’s looking for goose eggs.”
I search the faces in the breakfast room. Did they all hear my screams? “I could walk with a limp,” I whisper back.
A quick, wicked grin finds Marco’s lips. “And moan a little when you sit.”
I jut my chin. “You’re enjoying the thought.”
“Heaven forbid.”
But I’ve seen him with a gun, seen him kill. Might there be a cruel streak as well? “If you ever hit me, you’ll be sorry.”
He raises his brows. “Would I hit a peach like you?” But again there’s amusement in his eyes. He is toying with me, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.
He leads me to the empty end of the long table. “Shall I fill your plate?” He indicates the toast and gravy on the buffet.
I nod, weary in every bone. It should be the other way. He should be sitting with the napkin tucked into his collar, and I placing the dish before him. That’s how it will be when … The thought spins in my head. I am his wife. How has this happened?
Grief slices through me. Nonno, where are you? Papa? They are the men I know, the men I love. I’d been larking with Marco, enjoying the way my heart lurched and skipped. I enjoyed baiting him, tempting him, but now …
He sets my plate before me, nothing like the breakfasts I used to prepare. The country is poor; the food reflects it. How much better it was in Sonoma! I took a quarter to the picture shows every Saturday. My clothes were clean, my sheets sprinkled with lemon water. We had our garden, Nonno’s vines. Migrant workers came to us. We put money in their pockets, food in their bellies.
Beggars received at our door. Neither Papa nor Nonno ever stood in a breadline or swarmed an unemployment office. Neither rode the rails looking for work. I’ve seen too much of that now, the helpless faces. I want Marco to take me home. Who will pick the peppers, harvest the grapes? My eyes fill. My home, the people I love. All gone.
Marco takes his seat beside me. “Cheer up,” he whispers. “You’re making them stare.”
“I don’t care.” I hate every one of their staring faces.
“People remember. And when others come asking …”
Men with guns and evil hearts. There are worse things than losing my home. I straighten my spine and apologize. “Io lo fatto.”
“No Italian, darling. And there’s nothing to be sorry for.” He lifts my hand and kisses the fingers.
A warm rush curls around my belly.
“Just try to look as though you’re enjoying your honeymoon.”
Another couple comes to sit in the chairs beside us. Marco chats easily, but my throat has closed around the word honeymoon.
He says, “No, we’re just passing through. Thought we’d have a look at some property in Pennsylvania.”
“Got them Amish up there,” the other man says. “Beards and all.”
Marco smiles. “That right?”
He had not actually lied, since we will pass through Pennsylvania and see lots of property from the windows of his Studebaker, but as the conversation progresses I realize he is carrying on like a swell, nothing in speech or mannerism to clue in the pale Swede with whom he converses that we are on the run, that I have nothing but the clothes on my back.
Why did he say no Italian? If I hadn’t heard him sing La Bohe`me, I would not believe him a countryman. I have always treasured my heritage, a culture even No
nno adopted. Marco has changed like a chameleon into someone I don’t know. But I picture the gun in his hand and realize there’s no part of him I do know.
When the man asks about his occupation, Marco remains vague, only giving the impression that hard times are not as hard for some. I blush when he refers to me as his young bride, when I only let him into the bed mostly dressed last night to keep from screaming. What if the nightmares continue? What am I going to do?
Back on the road in the car, I ask, “Should we be telling people we’re married?”
He slides me a smile. “Sure.” He reaches over and pats my knee.
“We are married.”
Dio, how can I forget?
————
Rese gave up tossing and slipped out of bed. With no window, it was impossible to gauge the time, and the clock’s face was not illuminated. She didn’t want to bother anyone, but she was too restless to stay put. At home, she would have gone to her workshop and sanded or planed or hammered. Her muscles longed for the release.
There was none of that here, but she slipped out of the bedroom, tiptoeing so she wouldn’t wake Lance on the couch. But he was awake already, with only the dawn light streaming through the window. He looked up and set his pencil down.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Jotting something down.”
“A song?”
He nodded.
“Can I hear it?”
“It’s not there yet.”
She sat down across from him, a seed of concern growing. “What are you going to do with it?”
“It’s not like that.” He sat back and stretched. “Sometimes it just comes out.”
“Did you wake up with it?”
Unforgotten Page 13