Rese eased her into the chair by the window so she could look out over the olive tree to the garden. Then she stepped back, surprised when Star knelt beside her with an expectant look in her eyes. Did she hope Mom would still see the colors? Call her the fairy child; bring them back?
Rese didn’t want Star disappointed, but she had kept praying as Lance told her, and under her breath she whispered, Lord, protect her. If Mom saw something now …
But though not one word had passed between them on the drive, and only nonsense since they’d come in, her mother raised her hand to Star’s fragile curls and said, “You don’t need the black one either.”
Star gasped, almost choking, and gripped Mom’s knee. Her breath quickened, then quieted. Her pinched brow smoothed, and staring into Elaine Barrett’s eyes, she smiled. Rese had no idea what had just happened, but something had. She looked from one to the other, part of it herself without even knowing how.
Star stood up. “I’ll brew some tea. Green tea with peppermint.”
She swept by with a glancing stroke to Rese’s arm.
When Star had gone, Rese smoothed her mother’s loose white hair, freshly clipped below the ears. It was almost the color of Star’s pale tousle, and she imagined them all in a photograph. Mother, Rese, and little sister. Not how she’d thought it would look, but okay. More than okay.
“I hope you’ll be happy here.” She didn’t expect an answer. Happy was not something her mother could gauge. Emotions passed through her without causative connection. But that was okay too. She stood beside her mother until Star came up with the tea, three mugs in one hand like a barmaid.
Rese took one and let Star serve Mom’s. With a quirky smile, she held out her mug to Star’s. “Here’s to us Looney Tunes.”
Star giggled and clinked mugs. “The excellent foppery.”
Foppery maybe. Excellent for sure. She sipped, then checked her watch. “Brad’s expecting me.”
“Then off you go. We’ll read sonnets and bless your horny hands of toil.”
Rese laughed. “Good. I can use the blessing, working with Brad and the rest of them. They think it’s a great joke that they’ve roped me back in.” The strangest thing was glimpsing the affection behind it.
“Ah, the damsel’s woes.”
“Yeah. Damsel.” Rese glanced at her mother, almost asked if they’d be all right, then stuffed it. “I’ll be back by dark.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Chaz carried the large flat package into the apartment. Rico sat on his drum throne, but he wasn’t drumming. His stare jumped, and he’d obviously been deep in thought. “Something for you, mon.” Chaz set the box on edge and balanced it. He didn’t say where it was from or Rico might kick it to pieces or set it on fire before he saw what was inside.
For some time now, Rico and Lance had been like cats in a lightning storm, all raised fur and tight nerves. Something was brewing, something that troubled Chaz’s spirit, but between his jobs and volunteering at church and a Bronx youth center, he hadn’t figured out what.
“Want me to open it?”
Rico’s brow puckered. “Okay.”
His arm had healed better than anyone expected, but he was behind the drums and it was just as easy for Chaz to cut open the edge of the shipping box and bubble wrap, releasing the scent of oil paint. Holding the bottom edge of the box between his shoes, he reached in and slid the canvas out, studying the design and star-shaped signature before he turned it to Rico.
Mercurial reactions raced over his features as Rico took it in. He muttered something under his breath, but his gaze remained riveted. Then he stood and came around the drums. He took the canvas and studied it up close. “So this is what she does now.”
“It’s what she did before.”
“I didn’t remember.” Rico frowned.
“She had something like it in the carriage house.”
Rico narrowed his eyes. “A garden scene.”
“Yes.” With Lance worked into the foliage, but Chaz didn’t remind him.
Rico shook his head. “She’s crazy, man.”
“Maybe we’re all a little crazy.”
Rico laughed. “Maybe we are.” He started for their bedroom with the painting. It would either be hanging there when Chaz went to bed or meet some destructive end.
“Where’s Lance?” Chaz called just before he passed through the doorway.
Rico answered without turning. “In the restaurant.”
“Cooking?” A leap of hope in his chest.
“Doesn’t mean he’ll eat it.” Rico disappeared into the bedroom.
Chaz smelled the savory broth all the way down the hall, but like Rico, he doubted Lance would eat much if any of it. It was odd for someone who’d considered food a mission to suddenly reject it. He had said nothing, hoping whatever Lance was struggling with would pass, but if anything, it had gotten more extreme since their conversation.
Lance turned at the stove. “Not working?”
“Tonight I will wait on tables at an extravagantly expensive restaurant, wielding my island charm to elicit big fat tips.”
Lance smiled, but it was strained. He turned back to the pot, rubbed a small dry leaf to powder with his fingers, letting it drift into the mix, then stirred. As he set the spoon aside, his hand shook. How long had it been since he’d eaten anything to speak of? Something was devouring him, and the easy companionship between them as well.
Where once Lance had been painfully open, showing everything he thought and felt, it shocked Chaz now to see him hidden. What was it he thought the Lord had laid on him? Or was it also from God he hid?
“You want to talk about it?”
Lance pulled out of his thoughts as though he’d already forgotten he wasn’t alone. His throat worked, but he shook his head. “There’s nothing to say.”
————
Knowing what was required of him, Lance had set the next step in motion. It would be harder, in a way, than what he’d first imagined, but there was no uncertainty. In that, he felt relieved.
He went first to Nonna’s room and stopped beside her bed. Her eyes were closed. The broth he’d made sat half eaten on her bedside table. She wasn’t doing much better than he, these days. Momma had threatened to spoon-feed him if he didn’t quit with the not eating, but it was difficult to take much of anything in. Most of the time anything more than bread and broth seemed obscene.
Maybe that would change when this was done. He raised Nonna’s hand, but of course she didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed, and maybe she slept, maybe not. He pressed his lips to her papery skin and the web of veins that mapped the years of her life. “Even if you can’t hear me, Nonna, I want you to know it’s as much for you as for me that I’m doing this. It’s for all of us.”
Her eyelids flickered, but didn’t open. He didn’t need her acknowledgment. His own doubt had been cured by fire, and a brilliant glaze of trust replaced it. He knew what he had to do, and didn’t waver a couple hours later as he emptied his pockets and was searched. He would not only do what was demanded, he would embrace it. The thought fortified him for the moment he sat face-to-face with a bulletproof barrier between himself and Paolo Borsellino.
The man was shriveled, white-haired, and scarred, with the look of someone who’d learned life the hard way. “You’re Michelli?”
Lance nodded. “Marco’s grandson.”
The man’s throat worked. “He sent you here?”
“We both know that’s impossible.” Though in a way he had.
Paolo’s eyes shifted away. “Whatchu want?”
Lance looked around the dismal room, the shabby chairs, the clouded glass dividing the free from the not free. “Do you hear from your family much, letters, maybe visits?” He named every one of the Borsellinos who had been mentioned in the report, then added wives and children he’d found and followed. Did the old man wonder which one he would hit?
As Lance looked into Paolo’s face, his breath suddenly seize
d. Not going to be easy, not easy at all. He thought of Nonna slipping away, the knowledge of Marco’s murder stealing her hope, her strength, her very life. All the years he’d lost with Nonno, hardly knowing the man he’d revered. And it hurt.
“You took something valuable from me, something that can’t be replaced. The life of Marco Michelli, my nonno.”
“You can’t prove nothin’.”
Battling through the sudden rage, he said, “I don’t have to. I can return the vendetta.”
“Yeah, well, Jojo’s dead. You’re too late. Nine years too late.”
Lance took that in with hardly a blink. The answer to all his searching, and it meant nothing. “We’re talking vendetta. Doesn’t matter who did your dirty work. I have addresses, phone numbers, schedules. I can make it look like an accident.” He’d thought of a hundred scenarios. Or he could just borrow theirs.
Paolo sat silent and staring, one eyelid twitching.
And now it came to it. Lord. “I could return the curse.” He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and emptied himself, because if he didn’t, he’d see the planes crashing into the towers and Tony inside, imagine Nonno’s car skidding and burning, Nonno Vittorio’s body ripped apart by bullets, Nonno Quillan’s heart stopping in the tunnel. The evil pitted against his family, instead of the hand of Jesus calling him out onto the waves. “But I came here to forgive you.”
Paolo jerked back in his chair as though punched. He shook his head with a half laugh that stilled as the smile fell from his mouth. Then he pressed his trembling lips together. “Some things … you regret.”
Lance closed his eyes as both the truth of it and the pain overwhelmed him.
Paolo said, “I didn’t show him the respect he gave me.”
Nonno could never have respected the man. But he’d kept his part of their bargain. Lance opened his eyes, stayed silent.
“I dishonored him.”
You murdered him.
“You still mean what you said?”
With a strength beyond his own, Lance nodded. “For my family and myself, I forgive you.”
Paolo stretched a shaking hand to the glass, and Lance pressed his to it. Paolo fought the sobs, but they took hold anyway. “Pray for me to God. He don’t hear me so good.”
Sure, heap it on, Lord. “He hears you.”
“Yeah?”
“How else would I be here?” As likely as not, it was this man’s prayers that had brought it all to light. No matter what he’d done or who he’d been. They were all nothing before the Lord. And everything.
Paolo sat back, raggedly pulling himself together. He said nothing more, and neither did Lance as he stood to go. They shared one last glance, then he left the Ryker’s Island Prison and went home, tears streaming, with an emptiness he could hardly bear.
————
How empty it was without the memories. Was she dead? Maybe that was hell, to remember no one. No face, no voice. No scene played out in her mind. All gone.
She had blocked her heart, shaken her fist at heaven, and all that was good and beautiful, all that had brought her joy had faded to black. She was more alone than she’d ever been.
Weary. So weary. Yet she must be alive to know the effort of every thought. Not hell, then, but a blackness of soul. A vale of tears. The valley of death.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death … How well she knew that shadow. How it haunted her, tested her.
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. A long moment her mind contemplated that; then in her desolation she recognized what she had failed to see before, how she had been protected. God had never left her.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Even in her distrust, He had kept her from wandering.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. She had not only survived but prospered.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Goodness and mercy. Mercy? Yes. Mercy, joy, and love. Gifts she hadn’t earned, didn’t deserve. There was nothing owed to her, nothing she had the right to claim except her place before the throne, worshiping the One she now missed with all her heart.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Where was the dread? The anger? Where was the need? Through it all, He’d been sufficient.
Antonia heard someone come in, felt him stop beside the bed and stand there. She opened her eyes and looked into his face. How had he gotten so gaunt, so haggard? “L … ance?”
————
He wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. He’d given up hoping for a response, and here she was talking. With his luck he’d put her right back over the edge, but he took hold of her hand and sat down beside her. “It’s done, Nonna.”
She searched his face, not comprehending until he told her word by word what he’d gone through while she fought her way back to them. He could almost read her thoughts: You forgave him, the man who ordered Nonno’s death? He expected anger, but it seemed all burned out of her. Into her eyes came acquiescence and even acceptance.
“Yes. All right.” She motioned him to come close, kissed his cheeks and cradled his head. They stayed that way a long time; then she raised his face.
He tried not to show what it had cost him, but when could he ever hide from her?
“Lance,” she whispered. “I w … ant to s … ee your inn.”
The blood left his head. She must not understand. “It’s not mine.” His brow pinched with what he’d lost.
She did not relent. “I w … ant …”
“Nonna …” He groaned. “I can’t. It’s not fair to Rese. And you’re not strong enough to go anywhere.” They’d both been through fire. But then, fire could temper steel, and he saw the look he knew too well.
“I’ll get strong.” She squeezed his hand. “Take m … e home.”
He drew a shaky breath. And he’d thought the worst was over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Rese stuffed the diagrams and a case of new chisels under her arm and climbed out of the truck. She laughed when Baxter bounded over and planted his paws on her belly, panting his warm dog breath right into her face. He’d only recently started jumping up like that, and she really should make him quit, but it was so like a hug that she loved up his head instead. “Hello, boy. Miss me?” She bent to nuzzle his face, and he stroked her chin with his velvety tongue.
The evening light slanted through the bare lacy trees, the raised beds of the garden still dimly fragrant with pale green and dry russet sprigs. The vines around the carriage house had borne grapes, but they’d been tough-skinned and too tart for eating—a wine variety, she’d guessed, so hadn’t picked them. Neither she nor Star had any interest in making wine or jam or whatever else.
Easing Baxter down, she locked the truck door, then froze when a taxi turned into the driveway. Panic rushed her. Had she forgotten to cancel a reservation? Had she taken any after the new year? Who visited wine country in January? But her panic morphed to fury when the car stopped in front of the villa and she saw who it was that climbed out.
Of course there’d been no call; she would have saved him the trip. Well, she’d save him the trouble of unloading now … except he went around and opened the door for Nonna Antonia. Rese sagged when the old woman pulled herself up to cling to her walker. While she might have ordered Lance back into the cab, she could hardly do that to his dying grandmother.
Shielded by the truck, she was out of Lance’s direct view, but Baxter heard, sensed, or smelled his master. As Lance paid the driver who had taken their bags from the trunk, Baxter bounded over. Lance turned at the dog’s joyful yips, knelt and took the animal into his arms.
Pure rage, not ennobled by understanding what he must feel, choked her.
After a long time communing with his dog, Lance stood up. He pulled the wool coat around Antonia’s thin shoulders, left the luggage in the driveway, and assisted he
r slow progress toward the door. Baxter led them on, the traitor, as though she hadn’t been the one rubbing his head and soothing his forlorn sighs these last months.
Antonia’s condition had obviously improved, but with both his leather jacket and his jeans hanging loose, Lance looked as though he’d been eaten out from the inside, and maybe that was what kept her from heaving the chisels at his head. But she stalked over, leaving him no question how she felt about his surprise appearance.
A poignant expression had taken over Antonia’s features as she stared up at the house, but Lance turned with a look she couldn’t begin to contemplate. “What are you doing here?” Because she would relinquish the Harley and good riddance, but Baxter was leaving over her cold, dead body.
“I should have called.”
She was beyond response.
The slight, chill wind lifted the front of his hair as he raised a hand toward the house. “Nonna wanted to see the place, to …” He swayed. “Can she just …” His legs buckled, and he went down.
Baxter darted back, nudged and licked his head, but Lance didn’t move. Rese stared at him lying face down in the white gravel driveway, his hand outstretched, as though he’d crawled through a desert to get there. Torn between concern and fury, she looked from him to Antonia.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Antonia pulled her eyes from the house, seeming only then to realize he’d collapsed.
Rese crouched and gripped his shoulder. “Lance?” Nothing. “Is he sick? He looks wasted.”
“N … ot sick.” Antonia shook her head. “Used up by God.”
What? Rese glared, then rubbed a hand over her face, feeling used up herself. Life didn’t have to be as complicated as Lance made it. She shook him again, but he didn’t respond even when another puff of wind lifted the hair from the back of his neck.
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