Love of a Lifetime

by Carol Voss

  He swiped his free hand across his brow, leaving a streak of soot in its wake, and peered at her with what might be construed as guilt. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  She shook her head, raising her chin in as haughty a pose as she could muster. “Did you burn the boards, too? The ones for the ramp?”

  “Why would I burn perfectly good boards? Although some of them are warped because of last night’s rain. I stored them in the shed that’s not falling down.” He drew in a deep breath. “Can I do anything to make it up to you for burning your flowers?”

  She looked him straight in those black eyes. “You can help me get your nonna’s house ready for her to come home.”

  “You know I can’t do that in good conscience. But I will help you look for a one-story house for the two of you to move into.”

  She harrumphed. She hadn’t even bothered to get her hopes up. She spotted part of a rickety trellis that Stella had stored in one of the sheds, probably for sentimental reasons. She pointed. “You’re burning Stella’s trellis?”

  “She never used it,” he said glumly.

  “How do you know? She’s kept it forever. Maybe Salvatore made it for her.”

  “I made it in my eighth-grade manual arts class for her roses. She loved it so much, she had me plant beans to grow on it.” He glared at Maggie, obviously wanting to make sure she got his point.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “Don’t be. It’s just a rickety old trellis, which is why I’m burning it.”

  She swallowed, knowing it had meant a lot more to him than he’d admit. “But you have to consider how long she’s saved it.”

  The fire popped. She stared at shattered glass of a picture frame. A frame holding a portrait of his father. Horrified, she reached to retrieve it, but heat made her take her hand away. She watched the edges of the picture curl and catch fire.

  What was wrong with him? He seemed bent on destroying his past as though it was some kind of dark, despicable thing. “Do you really think the bad memories will go away if you burn things that remind you of them?”

  His jaw clenched. “I can always hope.”

  The desolation in his voice doused her anger like a cold rain. She stared at him. His eyes were serious. Deadly serious. He was in pain, and he honestly didn’t know what to do about it. “Tony…” She wanted to put her arms around him to comfort him. Bad idea.

  Help me find a way to help him, God. She searched for words that made sense. “You know, your past, good and bad, will always be with you. It’s what makes you who you are.”

  He gave her a wary look. “Don’t wax philosophical on me, Blossom.”

  She caught herself up short. He’d always run from emotional issues like he’d run from Noah’s Crossing. But why wouldn’t he if all they brought him was pain? A little scheme began hatching in her mind.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I can almost see the wheels spinning in your brain.”

  “Where’s Stella’s trunk?”

  “The one in the attic?”

  She was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “Did you burn it?”

  He scowled. “Give me some credit. I’m not burning Nonna’s things.”

  Deciding against reminding him that he’d burned his nonna’s trellis, she drew in a deep breath. Maybe, just maybe, some of the things in that trunk would reconnect Tony with good memories of his past, his home. “I’ll show you what’s in that trunk.”

  “All I saw in there were old financial journals and some ancient clothes and scrapbooks and letters. Nothing valuable.”

  She shook her head. He had no clue. “Stella keeps her very best treasures in that trunk. Treasures you need to see.”

  * * *

  Tony followed Maggie up the narrow attic stairs, the temperature climbing with each step. He’d tried to talk her out of coming up here. But she wouldn’t listen to his argument that he needed to tend the fire, not when the fire was almost out and was contained by the charred grass around it.

  Seemed she was bent on rifling through that old trunk before another moment passed.

  Her lack of logic baffled him. She’d returned to this little town when she had enough smarts and education to make a success of her life anywhere in the world. She clung to her belief that the dilapidated old house was the only thing that would save Nonna. And she seemed incapable of understanding why the soaring temperature in the attic just might be a deterrent to spending time up here.

  Maybe her blood sugar was low. “Hey, Blossom, how about eating supper before we go through that trunk? I’ll demonstrate my talents in the kitchen.”

  “It’ll be too dark if we eat first. Even with the gable windows, the light is dim enough now.” She reached the top step and strode across the planks, careful to avoid the pots and cans strategically placed to catch the rain from leaks in the roof.

  He followed, admiring her reflection in the full-length mirror standing near the battered trunk in the dry area of the attic. She sure did look determined. She’d always gotten determined over things. A trait that had kept life interesting growing up.

  She turned to him. “We can eat first, if you want to move the trunk downstairs for later.”

  He glanced at the huge box, then sized up the narrow stairs. “It’s too wide. Somebody must have built that thing up here. But I’m starved. And I could be whipping up my world-class marinara sauce instead of lingering in this sweltering attic.”

  She gave him a condescending look. “Try to cope, Tony. Hannah will be home soon and she’ll eat with us. Anyway, I doubt you’ll collapse from hunger if we eat in an hour. An hour if you give your undivided attention to these treasures.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “It’s the least you can do. I’m sure I needn’t remind you how many years of work and careful tending you reduced to ashes?”

  “No, you don’t need to remind me.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She was a stubborn woman when she set her mind to something. He might as well try to ignore the sweltering heat and his rumbling stomach and settle in for the duration. He leaned against a gable beam, one of the few that wasn’t succumbing to water damage. Yet.

  She bent over the ancient trunk and moved the wire hangers he’d taken his old clothes from. His band uniforms in graduated sizes, likewise his baseball uniforms. Thankfully, he was better at baseball than he’d been at football, but not by much.

  “I see you thought the hangers were worth saving.” Maggie’s soft voice held a chuckle.

  “Why not? They can be put to some use.”

  She lifted the hinged lid, dropped to her knees and rummaged inside the trunk. She unfolded a small blue dress and held it aloft. She smoothed its folds almost reverently, a dreamy look in her eyes. “Stella wore this gown to her first opera in Italy when she was eleven. Her father surprised her with a yellow rose, and she saw Puccini’s Tosca. She says it was the most beautiful memory of her life until she met Salvatore.”

  Tony could swear Maggie had tears in her eyes. She teared up almost as much as she blushed. He eyed the dress. It looked limp and old and wrinkled. Not at all like the young, vibrant woman holding it up for him to admire. Her slacks and blouse were rumpled and a little smudged, but she had to work hard physically to stay so trim. That and not eat, like now. “Very nice.”

  Looking pleased, she set aside the dress and blew her hair off her forehead. She reached into the trunk again and came up with one of the old scrapbooks Nonna had always wanted him to look at growing up. It appeared avoidance had come to an end.

  Head bent, Maggie smiled as she carefully turned pages.

  She wasn’t getting teary again, was she?

  “These are amazing,” she said. Beaming like sunshine, she st
ood up and leaned to show him the book. Seemed she was actually enjoying taking the time to show him his history.

  Would it kill him to act a little interested? He could handle it…for Maggie. His gaze flitted over a couple pages of baby pictures with a plane ticket attached to each one. He didn’t get it. “What are these?”

  Maggie smiled up at him. “They’re pictures Stella and Salvatore snapped of you and the tickets for the flights they took to visit you. Look at how adorable you were.”

  Breathing in Maggie’s subtle scent, his hand glazed her arm as he reached around her to turn a ticket so he could see its destination. Vienna.

  “I’d say you were a much-loved grandson to warrant your grandparents flying around the world to see you, wouldn’t you?”

  Did she sound a little breathless, or was it just his imagination? “Pretty impressive,” he admitted.

  “You should take these albums with you when you go to see her. She’d love it.”

  Yeah, if he ever had an attack of wanting to delve into the past with Nonna. “Maybe,” he said evasively.

  Leaving the book in his hands, she returned to the trunk and came back with a haphazard frame made from Popsicle sticks enclosing a picture of him at around four. “Your nonna saved this, too,” Maggie said.

  A warm memory of his mother sifted through his mind. “My mother helped me make that,” he said quietly.

  Maggie gave him the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. “A wonderful memory.”

  “Yeah.” A memory he enjoyed remembering. He handed her the album he held.

  She took it and the framed picture back to the trunk, this time bringing another album. She turned the page, then peered at him, apparently studying his features. Damp tendrils of copper hair clung to her temples and neck, and a fine sheen of perspiration shone from the smattering of freckles sprinkled across her turned-up nose.

  He wanted very much to touch each one of those freckles.

  She pointed to an old photo. “This must have been taken when your great-grandfather was about your age. Your resemblance to him is remarkable.”

  “You’d think we were related,” he said dryly. But having her full attention on him was feeling better and better. Besides, he liked her comment that he looked like his great-grandfather. That idea was a whole lot more palatable than looking like his dad as Nonna claimed.

  “Look, Tony…a picture of Salvatore in his army uniform.” Holding the scrapbook for him to see, she pointed to a picture.

  He peered at it, his gaze wandering to the one beside it of an impressive-looking horse named Dolly, if he remembered correctly. Then his gaze moved to a photo of his father, mother and him at about three. Dressed to the nines and standing in front of Nonna’s house, his statuesque mother smiled at his father, who was wearing a tux and beaming up at the scrubbed and polished boy perched on his shoulder.

  A distant memory floated through his mind. The memory of riding on his father’s shoulders, his mother laughing and warning him to duck so he wouldn’t hit his head on the door frame.

  His throat tightened until he couldn’t breathe. He needed to get out of here. “It’s getting too dark to see these.”

  Maggie looked up at him. “Do you remember this?”

  He dragged in a gulp of scorching air.

  “Oh, Tony. You lost so much when your mother died, but it’s good to remember there were happy times,” she said, her voice hushed and gentle.

  He shook his head. “If it’s so good to remember, why does it make me want to slam my fist into something—preferably my father’s face?”

  “Maybe you blame him for taking away those happy times.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? He was a selfish man whose main concern when my mother died was getting on with his violin tour. Not to mention the times he promised to come back and take me with him and never even visited.”

  “He could have planned to—”

  “Don’t defend him, Maggie.” He gave her a deadly look. “Not to me.”

  She pressed her fingers to her lips as if to silence them.

  “Nothing can change the truth I’ve always known in here.” He thumped his chest over his heart.

  “What truth?”

  Did he really want to tell her his deepest thoughts?

  “What truth, Tony?” she asked again.

  He blew out a breath. If he couldn’t tell Maggie, who could he tell? “He didn’t love me.”

  “What?” Maggie stared at him. “Of course he loved you. You can see it in his face in the picture. His love for you didn’t just disappear when your mom died.”

  “What happened to it, then?” He grasped the album and pointed to the picture. “How could he look at me like that and then turn his back on me?”

  Maggie bit her lip, her eyes clouding. “I don’t know, Tony. How did you do it?”

  He stared at her. Had she said what he thought she had?

  Pressing her fingers to her lips, she shook her head.

  But he’d heard her. He shut his eyes, turning her accusation over in his mind. Was she right? Had he deserted Maggie just like his father had deserted him?

  Chapter Six

  Maggie’s heart beat so hard she could scarcely breathe. She hadn’t meant to blurt her feelings out loud. But there they were. And the shock on Tony’s face did nothing to make her feel better.

  “I need to get that sauce on the stove if we’re going to eat tonight,” he said brusquely.

  He wanted to get out of Dodge ASAP. Nothing new there. But she couldn’t let him go. Not with her accusation hanging between them. “Tony, I think we need to talk about this. Please stay.”

  He closed his eyes again as if he wanted to shut himself away. “I should never have made love to you that day. I’d promised your dad I’d take care of you.”

  “You always took care of me.”

  Shaking his head, he met her gaze. “You were too young.”

  “You were only two years older than me. We could have talked about it, couldn’t we?”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “Talked about it?”

  “If you’d stayed.”

  “I figured if I didn’t leave that night, I would be stuck in Noah’s Crossing for a very long time. Maybe in jail if the sheriff had his way.”

  Stuck in Noah’s Crossing…with her. She did her best to push away the hurt. “You could have written.”

  “I let Nonna know I was okay. I figured she’d tell you or your parents.”

  She shook her head, wanting to stamp her foot in frustration. “You didn’t tell her where you were, and it took you five years to write again. A lot can happen in five years, Tony.” She dragged in a shaky breath. “A lot can happen in a year.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know about your parents’ car accident. I’m sure you had a rough time losing them so suddenly.” He ran his hand over her face. “I don’t want to make excuses, Maggie, but I just couldn’t let Nonna know how bad things were going for me.”

  “You could have written to me.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me. I didn’t know what to say.” He lifted his gaze. “Okay, I didn’t want you to know how bad things were either.”

  Finally, the truth? “How did you survive?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d saved some money working for Doc Tilbert. I used that to buy food, slept under bridges, headed south before winter… When I ran out of money, I hired out to do odd jobs.”

  “What kind of jobs?”

  “Almost anything. At least, people usually trusted me. I met runaways who had to steal or worse to keep body and soul together.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “All the time.”

 
“Did you miss home at all?” Did you miss me?

  “A lot…surprisingly.”

  “Then why didn’t you come home?” She squinted at him, waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t know.” He frowned as if rethinking. “Nobody needed me here. Maybe I had to figure out I was worth something before I could come back.”

  “You were always worth something, Tony.”

  He gave her a doubtful little smile. “Thanks, but that’s not what I felt inside.”

  How could she argue with him about something as personal as his own self-worth? “How did you figure it all out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t want to tell me.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “In Memphis, I started hanging out with some guys who’d been on the streets for a while…you know, to learn the ropes. And I figured safety in numbers, right?”

  She nodded.

  “It worked for a while, but in the end, they beat me up and threatened to kill me. But while they argued over my stash of food and meager belongings, I managed to get away. I hid under a bridge all night, afraid to fall asleep in case they hunted me down.”

  Tears stung her eyes. Her heart feeling as if it might break, she grasped his hand. “What did you do?”

  “Moved on to Atlanta the next morning, kept my guard up and relied only on myself. I learned when soup kitchens and shelters were open and made sure I was first in line. Somehow, I got through.”

  “Thank God.” Maggie swiped at her tears.

  “I didn’t see a lot of Him on the streets.”

  “Who ran the soup kitchens and shelters?”

  “I get your point.”

  “Do you remember that Bible verse…‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’?”

  “Sure. But it’s pretty hard to rest when survival is your main concern.”

  “After my parents died, I learned surviving isn’t just up to us, Tony. Sometimes, resting in Him was the only way I could survive.”

  “Also hard to remember on the streets.”

  As difficult as it was to know how bad it had been for him, she was grateful he had opened up to her. Like he used to. “Thank you for telling me.”