Since she could hardly leave him lying in the driveway, she put down her load, reached under his arms and rolled him to his back. No return to consciousness. She considered slapping him, but as on that day at the shore, she couldn’t quite do it. Clenching her teeth, she hoisted him up against her thighs and dragged him to the porch, amazed at how light he seemed. Maybe he had been used up.
“O mischief!” Star hurried down and caught his ankles, but Rese noted the glance that darted to Antonia and past her to the empty driveway, looking … for Rico? Rese huffed. One delinquent appearing was quite enough.
With Star’s help, Rese got Lance through the door and into her own bed, which was the only one that didn’t require hauling him upstairs. He didn’t move, not even to blink his eyes, but he breathed, so she left him there and went back out for Antonia.
The old woman’s eyes had grown misty, and Rese wanted to gather her in and reassure her that whatever insanity Lance was perpetrating on her, she would make it right. What was he thinking dragging her all the way out here? But then, it was Lance. He didn’t think.
She scooped her things up from the driveway and helped Nonna climb the steps of the porch while Star came behind with her walker. Lance had been light, but Antonia was almost weightless. At the top, Antonia searched the porch as though missing something, maybe a swing or piece of furniture that must have held memories. Rese had sensed a lot of history in this old place when she bought it. She had never guessed she would get to know so much of it, or the people who had lived it.
Star placed the walker in front, and Rese helped her get hold of it; then Antonia focused her gaze through the open door, and her arms shook.
Please, please don’t have a stroke.
Rese could hardly imagine how this must be for her, forced out as a girl and not seeing her home once in all these years. Not to mention the grief and violence that happened to her family inside these walls. Though Rese had mistaken old wine corks popping in the cellar for ghostly gunshots, Antonia might very well remember the real thing.
But then, if she expected things to be as she recalled, Antonia had another blow coming. To soften it, Rese said, “It might not look the same. It was badly damaged, and I took some liberties.” A few walls removed, new floors, new shelves, new moldings, paint, and carpets, but always with a tenacious replication of the original style and materials. Antonia nodded as she stepped inside, tears streaking the soft powder on her cheeks. Rese’s anger drained at the sight. Certainly she could not blame Antonia. Even if, as Lance said, she had wanted to see the place. Wanting and doing … well, Lance did have a problem saying no to her.
Antonia raised her face. “Lance?” Her main concern, even in these first moments home. He sure knew how to steal the scene.
“This way.” She led her down the hall into the kitchen, where the old woman paused once again, gulping. Anger rose at the poor woman’s predicament—Lance dragging her there, then passing out and leaving her to face the shock of it alone. Not alone, Rese vowed.
She’d do whatever it took to ease Antonia’s stress. “He’s in here.”
Antonia looked through the door. “N … onno’s room.” Her mouth trembled.
With Star hovering, Rese ushered Antonia through the narrow passage and into the room, which, judging by the look on her face, was also steeped in memories.
Lance lay as they’d put him, his eyes sunken, his breathing shallow. A surge of concern tugged her. “Does he need a doctor?”
Antonia shuffled to the edge of the bed, her hand on the walker reminiscent of Evvy’s, though without the crabapple knuckles. She looked down at Lance, her face flushed.
Rese swallowed hard. She did not need this. She had found her equilibrium.
Antonia shook her head. “Let him rest. M … aybe now he’ll eat.”
Eat? But unbelievable as it was, he didn’t appear to have eaten in ages. Lance—for whom sharing a meal had eternal significance. “Does he have something awful?”
“Yes.” Nonna nodded. “The w … orst I’ve seen.”
Fear tore through her. If Lance had come there to die, she’d never forgive him.
————
Antonia swayed, the edges blurring again.
Rushing into Nonno’s room, I shake him awake. “Come, Nonno. Hurry. There’s trouble. We have to hide.”
Arthur Jackson’s face, match-lit in the driveway; another man hidden by shadows—Carlo Borsellino. Stealthy footsteps, gunshots! Fear fills my lungs. The tunnel. We must hide in the cellar. Hurry, Nonno! But …
Was the tunnel still there? Yes, Lance had found Nonno, buried him. Time overlapped, and she struggled to keep it straight. Did they have to hide? Where was Papa?
A hand touched her shoulder. “Let me pull the chair up for you.”
Rese. Lance’s Rese. And it was Lance in the bed, not Nonno. The fear was past, but she sank into the chair, overwhelmed. How had she come here after all these years? And then she looked at Lance, lying where Nonno had lain. Ah. It wasn’t over. Not yet.
————
It would help if Star stopped laughing. Having settled Antonia into the wing chair in Lance’s room—formerly her own, but seemingly not to be for a while since neither Lance nor Antonia could manage the stairs—she stalked out to the yard before doing something she’d regret. She had worked hard on the walls and didn’t plan on repairing punch holes.
“I’ll need to rig up a cot in the office for Antonia until Lance can get out of my bed,” she told Star, then stopped halfway down the flagstone path. “Or maybe I should put them both in the carriage house.”
“She’s awfully old, Rese.”
“He’s not.”
Star caught up. “He doesn’t look up to helping her if she falls or something.”
“It’s an excuse for showing up without a word.”
“And what, pray, could he have said?” Amusement danced in hereyes. “This isn’t funny, Star! I wish I could—”
“Did you see Antonia’s face?”
Rese sighed. “Yes.”
“Such rapturous sorrow.”
“I know. It must be awful and wonderful.” Her chest squeezed. Maybe it really had been Antonia who needed to come. Maybe that was what Lance had tried to say: “Don’t think this was my idea; I only came for Nonna’s sake.”
“Call Michelle and see if she has a cot, and tell her it needs good cushioning.” All those bedrooms with their top-quality beds were inaccessible for a ninety-something stroke victim. She should have put in an elevator. Maybe she’d build the shaft tonight. It was a sure bet she wouldn’t sleep.
“I’m going to tell Mom they’re here so she doesn’t think she’s seeing things.” Rese went upstairs where Mom was watching the only TV in the house. It had been in her own room, but she gave it up. Maybe she should have seen that as prophetic.
“Mom, we have visitors.”
Her mother nodded. But that could have been an involuntary motion.
Just in case, she added, “It’s a man and his grandmother.”
Mom didn’t turn from the nature show on the TV, just started nodding again, her fingers flicking away. “All they have is water. Water’s all they have.”
“Okay, then. You doing okay?”
Nodding and flicking. “Fine. Fine. I’m fine.”
Rese went out, stood against the wall, and dropped her head back against it hard enough to hear the thunk. What was happening? Having Lance in the house was some nightmare dja vu. She hadn’t wanted him there the first time, but he’d talked his way around all her objections. Now he didn’t even bother to talk; just fell at her feet.
No one else could have pulled that off. And she didn’t believe there was nothing wrong either. He looked worse than Star had when she brought her home. Or Mom for that matter. How many ailing souls was she expected to care for?
The whole thing had her so worked up that when Michelle came with the cot and an extra foam topper, she hugged her.
Michelle rai
sed her eyebrows. “So what’s up?”
Rese glared. “Unexpected guests. Lance and his grandmother.”
“Oh.” Michelle’s face brightened. “Where is he? I’ve got some Baxter stories.”
She thought about asking Michelle to hide the dog, but didn’t. “Sorry. He passed out in the driveway and isn’t awake yet.”
Michelle squashed the foam pad under her chin. “Passed out?”
Rese pulled the cot out of Michelle’s car. “Antonia said he’s used up by God. Whatever that means.”
“Well, howdy. That’s why I’ve had such a burden for that man.”
Rese stared. “You have?” With all the people Michelle cared for daily, she’d been worried about a man three thousand miles away whom she hardly knew?
“It just seemed he was under fire.”
Rese vividly recalled too many nights, waking up gasping, aching for him in a way that was deeper than her own loss. Feelings that now intensified her anger.
Michelle looked toward the house. “Can I see him?”
Rese frowned, feeling incongruously protective. “I guess. But he’s pretty wiped out.”
She carried the cot into the office portion of her suite, where Antonia would sleep. Star took the foam pad from Michelle, and then they went into the bedroom, where Antonia was already sitting. Lance had not moved a hair. She had never seen him sleep but doubted this dead faint was normal, even for Lance. Her heart clutched up inside her. With four women gaping at him, shouldn’t he show some sign of life?
Michelle put a hand on his head, silent for a few moments, then nodded and released him. She bent and patted Baxter’s head, but the dog wasn’t budging from beside the bed. Rese found a sliver of consolation in that he hadn’t climbed in. A matter of training, not preference, she knew. Even unconscious, Lance had better control of him than she did. So why had he deserted the animal, and her, and their plans, and …
She crouched beside his grandma, breathing a scent like winter roses. “Antonia, what’s really wrong with him? He told me there was something he had to do, but he looks …” How did he look? Not sick, really, but gaunt and certainly exhausted. A pang shot through.
Lance kept intruding on her life with no warning and no explanation. And anger and hurt made her vulnerable. She had to keep a clear head.
Antonia seemed to pull herself back from somewhere, cognizance dawning in her eyes. “It s … tarted here. In this r … oom.” She spoke slowly, but much more clearly than when Rese had last seen her, sometimes searching for words, but doggedly continuing. A lot of the story Rese knew, but not what had happened after she and Star left New York.
Antonia barely held her emotions in as she told them Marco had been murdered, but when she said Lance believed God had called him to settle the vendetta, Rese almost lost it. How could he think that? But she’d seen the anger simmering, the unresolved grief and his need to prove himself.
Was it really surprising he would retaliate? Her throat closed. And now? Was that why he hadn’t told her he was coming, why he’d said everything would be different? She rasped, “Did he settle it?”
Antonia nodded. Rese looked from Star to Michelle, whose faces reflected her concern. Even if he might believe she would shelter him, he couldn’t expect them to.
Antonia drew a breath, and her mouth worked hard to find the words. “H … e prayed and f … asted. And when he knew God’s h … eart, he forgave Paolo Borsellino.”
Star made the connection first. “He settled the vendetta with forgiveness?”
Antonia nodded again. “He w … ent to the prison and f … orgave Paolo.”
Comprehension rushed in. Relief and fury. Rese turned and stared at him. Lance had done the right thing, even a great thing. He’d found God’s will—that big all-encompassing purpose—and had discarded her to accomplish it.
————
Waking with a jolt, Antonia sat up in the cot and searched her surroundings in the eerie half glow of a nightlight in the bathroom. Strange furniture filled Nonno’s study, his writing desk gone and a computer in its place. Her cot had been tucked between that and a hodgepodge of things stored against the wall. She studied the shadowy stacks until a glint caught her eye near the corner. Something … familiar.
Drawn almost in spite of herself, she sat up and slid her feet into her shoes, then braced herself up and stood a moment to find balance. Her walker was folded against the wall, and her eyeglasses were near, she supposed. But she took three sliding steps toward the corner, reaching through the clutter, her fingers pulled toward the object.
Though her vision was foggy, the light only a dim glow, as soon as her fingers touched, she knew it. With fierce concentration, she slid it out and fondled the silver head Nonno’s hand had held as he found support from the walnut shaft for his own leg crippled in his prime.
Ah, Nonno. She knew all about limbs that no longer held their own. But using the cane with her stronger arm, she crept past Lance, sleeping in the bed not unlike Nonno’s, into the kitchen that hadn’t changed so much. Memories rushed in: Papa at the table, Nonna Carina teasing Nonno with a spoonful of sauce. Friends and relatives. Even Momma was there, planting a kiss on Papa’s lips, leaving a lipstick stain and laughing as she tried to smudge it off, Papa taking hold of her long strings of pearls and drawing her back for more.
She couldn’t remember anyone being unhappy in the kitchen. Except once.
Heart squeezing, she stared a long minute at the pantry door. Oh, Nonno. She swallowed painfully. Papa. Slowly she passed the door and went outside in the dark. The velvet sky was studded with stars, the air a cold hand that gripped. Everything seemed too close. A shed that didn’t belong. The house next door. Hedges and fences. No fields lush with vines. What few vines were left had not been harvested. That especially hurt.
The motion light from the back door guided her to them. These vines were over a hundred years old. The grapes they had borne would have yielded a rare vintage. Heart pounding, she touched the gnarled wood, crisp leaves and tendrils, the shriveled fruit. These vines against the garage had worked hard to survive—as she had.
She gripped Nonno’s cane, reliving the effort it had taken to get on her feet again. Lance had resisted, afraid the trip would be too much for her … and simply afraid. It was hard to want something so much. She knew, and yet … life was in the wanting, and in cherishing what you had.
She turned around and studied the old house she had left with such regret. Change was inevitable. Back in Belmont she had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her friends and neighbors, her church. She knew every crack in the walls, every sound that came through her window. Here, where she had once known the breeze in the vines, the stones in the floor, the pace and pulse of each day, here it was all different.
She stared up at the window from which she’d heard the night sounds that had alerted her to danger. She might have died that night, but she hadn’t. She had lived and raised her family and run her restaurant and grown old. And now here she was, ancient and crippled, her days numbered by God.
Ay … maybe it was time to learn something new.
————
Dragging down the stairs in jeans and turtleneck with a flannel shirt thrown over, Rese tried for serene, but it wasn’t in her repertoire. Star had gotten Mom up, and Rese could hear them in the kitchen.
“Sausage biscuits, Mom?” Like Star didn’t know the answer to that.
In her strange monotone, Mom said, “Sausage biscuits for the queen.”
Rese joined them as Star took the plastic-wrapped sausage-stuffed biscuits from the freezer to stick in the microwave. Having discovered the gap in Lance’s kitchen setup, Star had purchased the microwave to cook most of what they ate.
Rese glanced toward the door to her suite. “Any sign of them?”
Star beeped the cooking time on the touch pad. “I heard voices.”
“Not you too.”
Star turned with a giggle. “ ‘O, wh
at a noble mind is here o’erthrown.’ ”
Rese turned as the door opened behind her and Antonia came out, braced by her walker.
Star plunked a plate down for Mom, then sucked her finger. “ ’Tis an ill cook that cannot lick her own fingers.”
“An ill cook in … deed.” Antonia smiled.
“Breakfast for the queen,” Mom said, secure in her role.
“He’s awake.” Antonia patted Rese’s arm in passing, guessing she wanted a word with the man in her bed.
She went through the door into the hall she had once forbidden to Lance. Funny how things changed. She tapped, then opened the bedroom door. He was up on one elbow, so he’d lived through the night. He looked a little better, though rumpled and contrite.
He said, “I didn’t mean to take your bed,” but his eyes were saying so much more.
She refused to acknowledge his regrets. “I wasn’t about to drag you up the stairs.”
Lance pulled up in the bed to sit, his torso hollow beneath his T-shirt. She hated the worry that took hold. Who did he think he was, jerking her emotions around?
She crossed her arms. “Exactly what do you expect to happen here?”
His throat worked. “I don’t expect anything.”
Right. Like he even knew what that meant. She went fully into the room. “You just show up with no explanation, not even a call. I would have told you the place is not open to the public anymore.”
He took “public” like a punch.
She softened her tone, but the next part of her message would hit even harder. “I’m not running an inn. I’m in business with Brad. I used the silver certificates to fund our partnership.” Why did it not feel good to tear away his illusions?
He nodded mutely, no condemnation, even though technically that money could have been considered his.
She expelled a breath. “I can see this matters to Antonia, and there’s obviously room.” Although it was hers. “We have our routine, but …” She planted her hands on her hips. “You can stay. For a while, anyway.”
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