“None of your business,” Francesca called back, relieved that she had thought to tuck away the little card from Loretta. “Maybe I’ve a got a boyfriend. What’s it to you?”
“Just askin’,” said Joey, ambling back into the kitchen, where his mother was stacking one box atop the other.
“Here you go,” said Francesca, tucking the bag of rolls into the box before covering it all with a towel to keep everything warm.
Joey reached out and gave his mother a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, bella,” he said. “I owe you one.”
“Ayyy, you owe me a lot more than that,” said Francesca. Turning to the counter, she passed the boxes to her son and guided him to the door. “By the way, those flowers are just from a sick friend I cooked some food for last week.” This she told him hoping to preempt any suspicions her son might have. “And if you really think you owe me one,” she added, “you can pay me back by taking a look at my car one of these days. It’s making some funny noises lately.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Joey. “I’ll take a look at it any time you want—that is, any time I can find you at home.”
“Very funny” said Francesca, opening the door for him. “Just watch how you go, so you don’t drop everything.”
Despite her good spirits of just a short time earlier, Francesca felt a pang as she watched Joey walk to his car. She had told her son another white lie, this time about the flowers. It was getting to be a bad habit, she realized. It bothered her for many reasons, not the least of which was her certainty that it was only a matter of time before one of the liberties she had been taking with the truth of late would come back to haunt her. She shuddered to think of the commotion it would cause with her children, particularly her daughters. It would be better, Francesca decided, to take control of the situation and tell them straight out what she had been doing. This she vowed to do very soon—just not today.
CHAPTER 37
As it sometimes does during even the coldest of years, winter finally paused to catch its breath. The north winds fell silent for a few days, and a more gentle breeze puffed out of the south and west, nudging the daytime temperatures into the high thirties and occasionally the low forties, positively balmy in comparison to the bitter weather that had prevailed the previous several weeks. The February sun still climbed in a low arc through the vernal sky, but the days were growing ever so slightly longer. Little by little, patches of dark earth were beginning to show themselves everywhere outdoors; the ice and the snow were beginning to melt.
Francesca was too much a veteran of New England’s peripatetic winters to be taken in by this midseason thaw. She had seen it all before, a winter that remained unnaturally warm for weeks on end, lulling everyone into the false hope that it had passed and an early spring was in the offing, only to suddenly return one day and attack once more, with all its wild, freezing fury. Nonetheless, though she trusted it little, Francesca was grateful for the respite from the arctic chill, for however long it lasted. If nothing else, the moderation of the weather put everyone, including herself, in a better mood.
Not to say that Francesca had been feeling downcast in any way. To the contrary, she could not remember a February when she had felt in better spirits. The few hours she spent with Penny and Will each afternoon brought a sense of order and purpose to her days that had long been missing. It gave her a thrill to see the two children come traipsing home from the bus stop every day. She enjoyed baking them after-school snacks and occasionally preparing dinner when Loretta had to work late. Most of all, she loved simply being there, to hear their stories about school, to share in their triumphs, or to comfort them when things did not go their way. She fell easily into the daily routine, for she found in it something comfortable and familiar, a feeling like that of an athlete returning to his training regimen after a long hiatus from competition. Will and Penny had become an important part of Francesca’s days, and it gratified her deeply to think that she was becoming an important part of theirs.
This growing familiarity with one another, reassuring as it might have been, was not without its consequences. The children, particularly Penny, had long been accustomed to speaking their minds and easily manipulating their mother to get their way. In Francesca, they found a far less malleable authority figure, one who always insisted on getting her own way. Occasional clashes of will were inevitable, and Francesca’s inevitably reigned, a state of affairs that did not always sit well with the two siblings, who decided one afternoon to try their hand at mutiny.
It was a dark, dreary day. A thin, miserable drizzle had misted down from the clouds all morning and into the afternoon, making it damp and foggy withal. It was a day best suited to hunkering down indoors and curling up by the fire, so it was a distinct disappointment to Penny and Will when they returned home from school and did not detect the aroma of something sweet baking in the oven when they walked through the front door. They made their displeasure known by unceremoniously dropping their backpacks and coats on the floor.
“Ayyy, is that where those go?” said Francesca, wagging a disapproving finger at them.
“I don’t feel like hanging up my coat,” said Penny, slouching over to the computer in its new home on a little table by the bookshelf. Its relocation downstairs to the living room by their mother had proven to be a constant source of annoyance to the young girl.
“Me either,” said Will, emboldened by his sister’s defiant attitude. With a long face, he turned on the television and plopped down on the couch.
Having anticipated their pique, Francesca said nothing, for she knew its precise source. Instead, she sat quietly at the kitchen table, leafing through a magazine, while the two children sulked in silence.
“I thought you said you were going to make us some gingerbread today,” Penny finally blurted out, getting straight to the heart of the matter.
“Yeah,” brooded Will.
Francesca closed the magazine and came into the living room.
“What I said,” she corrected them, “was that I would bake some gingerbread today—if you straightened up your rooms last night and made your beds this morning before school. From the looks of things upstairs, you didn’t bother to do either, so I didn’t bother to bake any gingerbread today.”
“But that’s not fair!” Penny protested. “You’re always making us do stuff we don’t want to do. You’re not our boss, you know!”
“Yeah,” added Will.
“And I’m not your chef,” Francesca pointed out. “Now, it’s still early. Plenty of time for me to make a treat for you two to have for dessert, after your mother makes supper. But if you really want me to do it, you’ll have to ask me nicely and—”
“And what?” the two children asked in unison.
“You’ll have to straighten up your rooms and make your beds, like you promised. In any case, hang up those coats and hats before your mother gets home, and start your homework.”
There was no hesitation in Francesca’s voice, no pleading for cooperation, and no hint in her tone that she was anything less than in complete control of the situation. For whatever reason—perhaps it had been a particularly long day at school—it was all too much for Penny to bear.
“No,” the girl said, glaring at the old woman with an expression of open rebellion. “I’m not going to do it.”
“Me neither,” said Will, though his demeanor was much less convincing. He sat there, cringing, as he waited to see what the old woman’s response might be.
“Really,” said Francesca, giving them a withering glare of her own. “And just what do you plan to do instead?”
“Whatever we want,” declared Penny. “This is our house, not yours, so just leave us alone.”
“Yeah,” murmured Will, but with even less conviction than before.
Francesca folded her arms and scowled at the two mutineers.
A long, awkward silence ensued. No one, Francesca could tell, felt very good about the verbal skirmish that had just transpi
red, but for the time being at least, it appeared that the rebellion had fallen back to regroup.
“Well, you children do what you think best,” Francesca finally told them in a well-practiced tone of voice intended to inflict the maximum amount of guilt on its recipient. With that, she turned away from them and walked back into the kitchen. She sat down at the table and opened her magazine once more, pretending all the while to pay them no further attention, when in fact, she was watching closely out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see what they would do next.
Penny and Will stayed there in sullen silence, shooting questioning glances at one another. A silent debate was raging between them. To retreat to their bedrooms, Francesca understood, would signal outright surrender, but to just sit there doing nothing probably seemed as silly to them as it did to her. Finally, with a communal sigh of frustration, the two reluctantly slunk to the front hall, hung up their coats, and dragged their backpacks into the living room. Will turned off the television and pulled out his math book to start his homework, while his sister returned to the computer to work on a school project of her own. It was, Francesca supposed, as much of a face-saving solution as they could be expected to manage.
Barely a word was spoken in the house, until Loretta returned home from work. By this time, Penny and Will had finished their homework and were sitting on the couch, watching television. At hearing their mother open the door, the cue that they could, with honor, finally abandon their positions, the two jumped up and gave her the briefest of greetings before hurrying upstairs to the sanctuary of their rooms. They were, no doubt, anxious to be as far away as possible when their mother received the report of their attempted insurrection that afternoon. The two were long out of sight when Francesca came out of the kitchen to collect her things.
“Hi, Francesca,” said Loretta brightly, though there was a marked look of curiosity in her eyes. “Everything go okay today?”
“Yes, of course,” Francesca assured her, though she knew full well that Loretta had been around long enough to pick up on the strained atmosphere to which she had come home. Before the younger woman could pursue the subject, Francesca quickly engaged her in some idle small talk about the weather and something she had read in the morning newspaper while she pulled on her coat and gloves. She was just about ready to get on her way home when Will and Penny suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. As solemn and contrite a pair of children as she had ever beheld, the two looked down at her with sad, penitent eyes. Returning their gaze, Francesca gave a half smile and nodded to them in a gesture of patience and understanding.
“Are you sure everything is all right?” said Loretta at witnessing this quiet exchange.
“Trust me, everything’s fine,” said Francesca, patting the younger woman’s hand. “Good night, children.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. C,” they answered. Then, as Francesca was walking out the door, Penny meekly added, “Thank you.”
Giving a wave over her shoulder, Francesca went on her way.
After watching to make sure that the older woman made it safely to her car, Loretta closed the door and turned to face her children, who by now were sitting on the top stair, looking gloomier than ever.
“What’s going on, guys?” she asked with growing concern. “What’s with the long faces? Did something happen today?”
“Yeah,” Penny admitted. “Sort of.”
“What? Tell me.”
Neither child said anything, until Will finally shrugged and gave a heavy sigh.
“She made our beds,” he said.
CHAPTER 38
“Hey, Frannie,” said a surprised Peg. “What are you doing here at this hour on a Wednesday afternoon? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
It was two weeks later. For the past few days, Francesca had been hanging around the house, restless and bored. She had come to the library as much for the change of scenery as to pick out some new books to keep her occupied.
“Winter vacation,” she said ruefully as she stepped into the library’s computer room to chat with her friends. “The kids are out of school, and the mother took the week off from work.”
“Then why are you looking like a mope?” said Connie, who was installed at her usual post on the computer next to Peg’s.
“Really,” added Natalie, turning away from her own monitor. “You think you’d be happy getting a week off for yourself.”
“Eh, I guess you’re right,” agreed Francesca with a shrug, “You think I would be, but…”
“But now you don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?” Peg finished for her.
“Mannagia, I’m going crazy!” cried Francesca. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
It was true. Without fully realizing it, Francesca had built the entirety of her weekdays around the few hours she spent with Will and Penny each afternoon. Those hours had become for her the center of gravity, holding everything else in place. They were the best part of her day, and she looked forward to them with great anticipation. Now, with nothing on which to focus her energies, Francesca’s days suddenly lost their shape. Even though she knew it was for only a single week, she felt completely out of sorts, like the wind had gone out of her sails and she was drifting rudderless again.
“I think what you need is a hobby,” Connie kidded her.
“Maybe I should take up surfing on the computer, like you three,” griped Francesca.
“It’s called surfing the Web, Frannie,” Peg corrected her.
“Whatever.”
“Never mind that,” said Natalie. “Tell us about the kids. How’s it been going?”
“Ayyy, what’s to tell?” said Francesca, hesitant at first to say too much. “I go to the house, the kids come home from school, I wait until the mother comes home from work, and then I go back home again.”
“Oh, come on,” Connie urged her. “You can do better than that. You can’t tell me that all you do is just sit there twiddling your thumbs all afternoon while you wait for the mother to come home.”
“Well, not exactly,” admitted Francesca.
It required but a little further prodding from her friends to start Francesca talking about her days looking after Penny and Will. She was discreet enough not to go into too much personal detail about the little family, for that’s the kind of person Francesca was, but instead she told them of the ups and downs she had experienced getting to know the two children since first coming to their house, and the wonderful feeling it gave her to see that they and their mother were all finally starting to warm up to her. Her face beamed as she recounted some of the precious moments that had already passed between them, and even the recent confrontation about the gingerbread made for a pleasant reminiscence. As expected, Peg reacted unfavorably to the news that Francesca had been baking treats and occasionally cooking dinner for the children, and worse, straightening up their bedrooms—and not charging the mother extra! Just the same, as Francesca rambled on, she caught a faint hint of envy in her friend’s eyes. She saw it, in fact, on all their faces.
“So anyway,” sighed Francesca when she finished telling her little tale, “I guess things have gone pretty well—better, really, than I had expected. I just don’t understand why I feel so inside out today.”
Her three friends looked at one another and exchanged knowing smiles.
“Can’t you guess what it is?” said Natalie.
“Guess what?” said Francesca innocently.
“It’s easy,” said Connie. “Go ahead. It’s okay. I’d probably feel the same way if I were in your shoes. Just admit it.”
“Admit what?”
With a kind grin, Peg leaned over and patted Francesca on the shoulder.
“Frannie, it’s as plain as the nose on your face, what’s bothering you,” she said. “Face it. You miss them.”
It was small consolation to Francesca to realize that Peg was perfectly correct, and later, after she had said her good-byes and checked out her books, she left the
library feeling just as moody and irritable as she had when she first arrived. That night, home alone once again, Francesca tried calling Rosie and Alice while heating up some leftover soup for her supper, but no one was home at either house—or at least, no one was picking up when she left her messages on their answering machines. When it was sufficiently warmed, Francesca poured the soup into a bowl and brought it into the den.
While she sat on the couch and ate her soup, Francesca scrolled through the channels, trying to find something to distract her, but soon grew impatient with the long list of inane shows on offer. What was the use, she wondered, of having so many cable channels, when there was almost never a single show on any of them worth watching? Disgusted, she turned off the television, tossed the remote control aside, and ate the rest of her soup in silence.
Afterwards, when she brought the bowl into the kitchen and was rinsing it out in the sink, Francesca gazed out the back window into the night. Across the city, the rising moon hovered low over the horizon, struggling to pull itself free from the surrounding dark clouds that partially obscured its orange glow. It was an eerie, beautiful sight, one that might ordinarily have truly captivated her. On this night, however, it did little to draw Francesca out of the doldrums. With no other remedy for them coming to mind, she decided that the only thing left to do was to get in bed early and take a look at the books she had checked out of the library. One, a history of early Italian Renaissance art, had looked reasonably interesting. Perhaps spending a few minutes with Giotto and the rest of them would help her drift off to sleep. And so, with a nod to the heavens, Francesca dropped the bowl into the dish drainer, headed out of the kitchen, and trudged upstairs to her room.
Monday, she reflected, seemed as far away as the moon.
CHAPTER 39
If she could have arranged things her way, Loretta would have loved to take Penny and Will on vacation to Florida, or Bermuda, or any warm destination for that matter, just to escape the New England cold for a few precious days. Winter had long ago worn out its welcome with her. Unfortunately, airfares, hotels, rental cars, and expensive restaurants simply weren’t accounted for in her budget that winter. As it was, she felt lucky simply to know that she had enough money on hand to pay that month’s gas and electric bills.
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