by Cara Colter
“That doesn’t look very comfortable.”
“I’m used to discomfort.” Connor picked up a particularly messy-looking sun drawn on yellow construction paper.
“Luigi’s?” he guessed.
She lifted a shoulder—yes.
When they had been swimming, that task had occupied them and filled the space between them. There had been no need for conversation on a personal level.
Now, tongue caught slightly between his teeth as he tried to fit his hands in the little scissors, Connor said, “So, tell me everything.”
“What?”
“Where you grew up, how many kids are in your family, what your favorite color is and what your most secret dream is.”
Again, she had the feeling he might be trying to distract her from some uneasiness he was feeling. Still, she was happy to do that and so, with his encouragement, she talked. It was amazingly comfortable sitting at the little table, cutting with little scissors, the sun pouring in around them. She marveled at how good it felt to be with him like this, at ease, and yet not at ease the way she had been with Giorgio.
With Connor, something sizzled in the air between them. All that time in the pool together had increased her awareness of him, and that did not change now that they were sitting in her classroom, in chairs too small for them, fully clothed.
She answered all his questions except one.
He didn’t miss that, of course.
“And is there a secret dream?”
She thought of the way she had felt when she had learned Marianna was pregnant. Happy for Marianna, of course, and yet...
“No,” she croaked.
His scissors stopped moving. He looked across at her. “There is,” he said.
“I’ve given up on the secret dream thing.”
“Ah.” He obviously did not believe her, but he didn’t press. They finished all the costume pieces, and he helped her build a simple set.
How could it be both so easy and so difficult to be with him? He came into her world of paper and glue and paint as easily as she had gone into his world of water. And he did the same thing to it.
An existence that had seemed mundane suddenly sparkled. There was laughter everywhere.
Except as he got ready to leave. He was suddenly very serious. “Can you request a different classroom?” he asked.
“What? Why?”
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You should just ask for one on the first floor, if you can.”
“I like this one,” she said, feeling stubborn.
“I’m sure you do. Unless there’s a fire.” His voice, which had been laughter filled only moments ago, was suddenly very grim.
Now, a few days after they had begun, they stood back from her completed set, costumes and props. The set was lightweight cardboard so that it could be moved easily to the village square the day of the fete.
She sighed with contentment. With his help, it was so much better than anything she could have ever done alone.
He stood beside her. “It’s done to your satisfaction?”
“Yes. A whole two days before the fete. I am officially out from under the eight ball.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Because now we can have our date.”
She slid him a look. He was covered with splotches of blue paint from painting the sky. He had a relaxed smile on his face.
She was so aware of him. It was dangerous. But she had no fight left in her. She did not want to fight anymore. She wanted to see what would happen between them.
Even if it was the most dangerous thing of all.
“Did you have something in mind?” she asked. Her voice sounded like a mouse squeaking.
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“What?” She hoped he would say something safe, something not that different than watching television at her house. A movie, maybe.
“I want to surprise you with it.”
“How do I know what to wear for a surprise?” she asked.
“Anything you wear will be fine.”
Did he not understand women at all? “If you could give me a hint,” she suggested.
“It will have something to do with the chapel.”
“The chapel?” Isabella could not imagine what he had in mind. The last time she had seen it, the chapel had looked like a construction site, surrounded by scaffolding.
“Trust me.”
“All right.”
“I’ll pick you up just before eight.”
“All right.”
It was complete surrender, and she knew it. And looking at his face, so familiar to her now, she realized it was a surrender for him, too. It was a surrender to what had been building between them like a thunderstorm on the horizon.
Looking at his face, Isabella wondered when exactly this had happened. When had he come to feel beloved to her?
Had it been as he painted the sky on cardboard or cut the head hole from yet another sunshine? Or had it been before that, when he had drawn her into the swimming pool and taught her to embrace what frightened her most?
Maybe it was before even that. Maybe it had begun that morning they had walked through the dawn to the river and she had felt the mud ooze up between her toes.
Or maybe it had been from the very first moment, when she had put his breakfast outside his door and been assaulted by him in her own home, the beginning of the waking up that had led to this: how she loved her life with Connor Benson in it.
It was a warm evening, so Isabella wore a simple white sundress of eyelet cotton, with narrow straps and a ribbon at the waist and a wide skirt. It did not sing the siren song that her red dress had, but it showed off her coloring and her figure, and it was more her, somehow. It was as if, with Connor, she was exploring herself and slowly arriving at what that really was.
She saw she had chosen exactly the right ensemble when he arrived at her door. She could see it in his eyes even before he told her that she looked beautiful. Connor looked extraordinary. She had always seen him looking quite casual. Tonight he was in pressed dark slacks and a cream-colored linen dress shirt.
He went down her narrow walk before her and held open a car door. It was a very sleek, sporty car.
“Did you have a car before?” He hadn’t ever parked one when he lived with her.
“I had one at my disposal, if I needed it. I prefer to walk. It gives me a better sense of a place. You notice more.”
“Is this the car you had?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I traded up.”
“Why?” she whispered, looking at the sleek gray convertible with awe.
“It seems to me, my lady, you have missed a few things on the road to romance. Your man wants to show you new worlds and impress you.”
Her man? On the road to romance? Was she really ready for this? Isabella could barely breathe as he held open the door for her. It seemed like a long step down into the low-slung sports car, and he took her hand and helped her. She settled back in a deep leather seat.
The car was a dream to ride in, and she loved the way Connor handled it in the narrow streets. There was nothing about him, she realized, that was inclined to show off. And yet he was obviously extremely confident and capable handling the very powerful car. She loved the way one hand rested lightly on the wheel, his other on the knob of the gearshift. The ride seemed over way too soon. When she reached for the door handle, he gave her a meaningful look and she let her hand fall away.
He opened the door for her and then went around to the trunk and opened it as well. He looped the handle of a large wicker basket over his left arm and offered her his right. She threaded her arm through the crook of his elbow and they went up the well-worn path to the palazzo’s chapel.
It was as she had remem
bered, almost completely engulfed in scaffolding.
“It must be American,” she said out loud.
“What?”
“A date at a construction site.”
“What? Italians don’t date at construction sites?” He shook his head, teasing her. “I thought you people had perfected the romantic gesture.”
“Why would you think that?”
“My mother calls Italy the land of amore.”
The land of amore. She lived here, and she had missed it! Not that she was going to admit that to Connor.
And then he led her around the back of the chapel.
Isabella gasped. There was a table set up there with a white tablecloth on it. It faced out over a view that seemed to show the rolling, vineyard-covered hills of the entire valley.
Connor placed his picnic basket on the table and pulled back a chair for her. “The sun will be setting—” he glanced at his watch “—in seven minutes. Do you want a glass of wine?”
How could she refuse? He took a bottle out of his basket, dewdrops of condensation running down it. He popped the cork with complete ease. While the wine breathed, he took long-stemmed glasses, plates and cutlery from the bag.
He glanced at his watch. She could see the sun beginning to lower to the edges of the hills. The light was changing, softening all around them.
“What I want to share with you is this way,” he said. “I’ll let the wine breathe for a moment before I pour it.”
What did he mean? The sun would go down over there, in front of them. Was that not what he had brought her here to see, a most wildly romantic gesture? She turned and looked at him. He held out his hand to her, and she took it. Could she ever get used to the feeling of a hand like his closing around hers?
He led her around the chapel and in a side door.
The light inside was suddenly drenched in color, golds and pinks. It was almost as though the chapel had been designed for this moment in time: the setting of the sun. Despite much evidence of work and restoration, when it was suffused with light like this the space seemed sacred.
“I wanted you to see this,” he said, and with a sweep of his arm directed her gaze to the side wall of the chapel, by the family pews.
She saw a fresco on the wall of the chapel. Even without the amazing addition of the light from the setting sun, the fresco took her breath away. She moved toward it as if in a dream, staring at the scene before her with utter awe.
The detail of the Madonna and child was stunning: as if each hair on their heads, each eyelash, had been painted individually.
“The color is astounding,” she breathed. Connor was standing right beside her, gazing at the fresco. “Their skin, the color of her robe, the child’s lips.”
Both Madonna and child had enormous, expressive eyes turned to the heavens, where the clouds parted and a beam of light illuminated them.
“Do you think I can touch it?” she whispered.
“I think so.”
She placed her hand on the wall. The sun was touching the wall, and its warmth had seeped into it, making the fresco seem even more like a living thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as this.”
His hand covered hers. “I know. I felt the same way when I saw it. It’s been covered all these years. I can’t imagine why, and yet it probably preserved the magnificence of the colors. You know, Isabella, I have seen the world at its ugly worst, and I’m not sure why but this restored something in me.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, it’s like it holds a message. That beauty survives, or wins. It’s like it is saying, when all else falls away, the best, the good, will remain.”
“That’s exactly what I felt when I saw it, not that I could articulate it like that.”
“The best,” she said quietly, “a mother’s love for her child. The Madonna radiates love. Maybe not just for the child. Something bigger. For the world.” She could feel the tears clogging her throat, and she bit them back. Even so, he seemed to know what an emotional moment this was for her, because his hand came to rest on the small of her back.
Time slipped away as they explored the fresco together, pointing out incredible details they thought the other might have missed.
Finally, when darkness had fallen so completely that the church was pitched in blackness, Connor ushered her back outside.
He poured the wine and took some candles out of the basket, placed them carefully on the table and lit them. And then he took a dish of still-hot pasta out, wrapped in a tea towel. When he took the towel off, the spicy fragrance of the lasagna made her mouth water. She was not sure if it was because of the painting or because of him that the food tasted as if the angels themselves had prepared it.
“Tell me now about your secret dream,” he said softly.
The night was so perfect. Seeing the fresco had brought her secret dreams to the forefront of her mind. It felt right to give him all of her, to hold nothing back.
“Once, I dreamed I would have babies,” she confessed.
“Not now? I can picture you with babies. I can picture that look on your face, exactly like the one on the face of the Madonna in the chapel.”
“I’m getting very old for this dream,” she said, her voice small.
“You think thirty-three is old for having babies?”
“Isn’t it?”
He actually laughed. “My mother had my half brother Sammy when she was thirty-six, and my sister, Amelia, a year later. The baby of the family, Henry, arrived when she was forty.”
“Thank you for telling me that. It just feels as if everyone having babies is so much younger than me. Marianna’s shower is tomorrow night, and I was trying to think of reasons not to go. Of course, I could not think of a reason not to go that would not raise eyebrows. In Monte Calanetti, celebrating the coming of a baby is mandatory, like giving kisses to strangers on New Year’s Eve. But it is very painful watching others have what I wanted.”
“You are not kissing any strangers on New Year’s Eve,” he teased.
Isabella shivered. Would it be reading too much into the teasingly possessive statement to think she could count on Connor to still be part of her life as the village welcomed the new year?
His teasing tone was gone when he spoke again. “Isabella, you and your husband could not have children?”
She shook her head. “He was already too sick by the time we married.”
“Aw, Isabella.”
“Please don’t say that as if I’m to be pitied.”
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t my intention.”
“I wanted to try, even though I knew I would be raising a child alone. Is that selfish?”
“It makes me wonder why you wanted one so badly that you would be willing to raise it alone. That is the hardest thing. I know, because I watched my mom do it. Even if there had been financial security, which I am sure you would have, the emotional burden is huge. The responsibility is a lot to carry alone.”
“I see that every day in Luigi,” she said.
“And yet?” Connor heard the unspoken as clearly as if she had said it.
She drew in a deep breath. The stars and the wine and the gaze of Connor, steady and strong, drew her every secret out of her soul.
“And yet, I have always craved a family. A real family.”
“Yours wasn’t?”
“Oh, my mother and my father stayed together, but only because they both considered it a sin to split up. Our family was a sham. My father always had girlfriends, mistresses. My mother lived in a state of wounded pride and furious anger.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s no matter,” she said. “Not now. I have my students. They are all my children now. I am lucky in so ma
ny ways. And you, Connor? What are your thoughts on children?”
“My own?” he asked. His voice broke in pretended terror, and she laughed, but she was unwilling to let him off the hook so easily.
“I think you would make a wonderful father,” she said.
“How, when I have never had that modeled for me?”
“Yes, you have, by men you admired, if not by your own father. I can tell by how you taught me to swim how good you would be at it.”
“That’s what my mom says, too, when she sees me tussling with my new brothers and sister, that I’d make a great daddy.”
“You enjoy being with them?”
“Don’t tell anyone, but it’s one of my favorite things.”
“And why would you not want to tell anyone this?”
“Kind of spoils the whole warrior image. But seriously? I don’t think my lifestyle is very conducive to children.”
“I think you’re wrong. Your lifestyle is about honor, and about standing strong for what you believe. I am not sure you could give a child any greater gift than that.”
“Until you come home in a box.”
“What is this? Come home in a box?”
“It means to not come home at all.”
Isabella wanted to shudder at the harshness of the expression, but she reminded herself there was no room in this man’s life for a woman who shuddered at harsh realities.
“And just like that,” he continued quietly, “you’ve made a lot of pain in the world. You’ve made a Luigi.”
“Or maybe, if the love was strong enough, you’ve left a legacy that is not like the legacy poor Luigi has inherited.”
“Maybe,” he said, but he did not sound convinced.
The wind came up suddenly and lifted the tablecloth and blew out the candle. By the time they had rearranged the cloth and relit the candle, the serious mood was gone. They joked back and forth while they ate, and when silence fell it was comfortable, soaking up the beauty of the night skyline and the immense sky overhead and the stars that studded it.
Then he slipped his phone from his pocket. She was almost relieved he had made such a wildly inappropriate gaffe in the evening, because she thought to believe in perfection was probably an invitation to fate to prove you wrong. But then Connor searched through the phone and found some music. He put it on, then pushed another button. The phone glowed softly.