***
The missing shutter was noticeable as soon as Nick pulled his car to the curb in front of the brown-shingled Cape Cod house Saturday morning. Four windows flanked the front door, two on each side. Each window was framed by a pair of white shutters except for one missing shutter that made the house look lopsided. The front yard was small and early-spring scruffy, tufts of grayish-brown grass poking through the soil, resembling a bad haircut. The shrubs flanking the cement front porch looked pruned, though. Someone had made an effort with them.
Nick stood on the front walk, staring at the house as if it contained a dragon he had to slay. Diana could see a muscle ticking in his clenched jaw. His hands were curled into fists. His posture was rigid.
She rubbed the small of his back, a massage she hoped would soothe him. “It’s going to be fine,” she assured him, even though she had no way of knowing whether Nick or the dragon would win. “You’re going to be fine.”
His jaw tightened even more, but he squared his shoulders and strode up the slate front walk.
“Is she expecting us?” Diana asked, following him to the porch.
“I phoned and said I was coming.”
I, not we. Did his mother know Diana would be standing beside Nick when he showed up? Did Mrs. Fiore know that Diana and Nick had been all but inseparable every minute they weren’t working?
He’d had a full day yesterday at his office, and Diana had spent the day at the warehouse, sorting the items from Lenore’s grandmother’s house with James Sawyer and trying not to suffocate beneath all the praise he’d heaped upon her. He’d been bowled over by the estate, even more excited about the price she’d paid once he’d had a chance to see what that price had purchased. “Whatever you’re doing,” James had said to her, “just keep doing it.”
What she was doing was taking chances, being adventurous and daring.
What she was doing was loving Nick.
Today, after he fixed his mother’s shutter, she would love him even more. Not just because the repair would be a kind thing to do—she already knew Nick was considerate—but because by fixing his mother’s shutter, he would prove that he’d changed. They both had to change, according to the song. Diana was a pragmatic person, not into weird woo-woo superstitions, but she knew this: they both had to turn and face the strange changes if the jukebox’s magic was to be trusted.
Nick pressed the doorbell button, and Diana heard its muffled chime through the closed door. The door swung inward and a small, dark-haired woman of late middle age stood before them, smiling so brightly Diana’s heart broke a little. Nick’s mother looked like him—dark hair, although hers was generously laced with gray, and dark, intense eyes, a firm chin and a smile that could illuminate the world.
She was petite, though, small-boned, several inches shorter than Diana. Nick must have inherited his height from his father. The thought of such a tall man slapping around such a small, fragile-looking woman caused Diana to wince inwardly. Nick’s fear that his father might kill his mother all those years ago would have been reasonable.
“Come in!” She beckoned them inside but fell back a step as they crossed the threshold. Diana wondered whether she wanted to hug her son. If so, she opted not to. His face wasn’t exactly welcoming.
“This is Diana Simms,” he said curtly, gesturing toward her. “Diana, my mother.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Fiore.” Diana extended her hand and Nick’s mother gathered it in both of hers, clasping tight, as if desperate for human contact. “You’ll both stay for lunch, right? I’m making lasagna. Nicky loves my lasagna.” She sent him a smile that broke Diana’s heart a little more. It was loving and pleading and tinged with a vague hopelessness.
That hopelessness was well placed. Nick didn’t return her smile. At least he didn’t say they wouldn’t have lunch with her. “Let me get to work. Where’s the shutter?”
“In the garage. Everything’s in the garage—the ladder, the tools, whatever you need. I’m so grateful you’re doing this, Nicky. The house looks—well, you can see how it looks. Like it’s falling apart. It isn’t. I take good care of it. I always have. But I’m too short to fix that shutter.”
Nick touched Diana’s shoulder. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”
With that, he was gone.
“Take off your jacket,” Mrs. Fiore said. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ve got things to do in the kitchen.”
Diana slid off her blazer, draped it over the newel post of the stairway and followed Nick’s mother through the cozy, obsessively tidy living room into the equally cozy, tidy kitchen. The appliances were old, the sink white porcelain, the floor linoleum tiles. But everything was immaculate. Even the twin cat dishes that sat on a rectangular plastic mat near the back door, one filled with water and one with dry cat food, were clean and neat.
Mrs. Fiore must have noticed Diana’s gaze. “You’re not allergic, are you? Some people are, I know. But Missy is skittish. She’ll hide in the basement until you leave. She’s scared of most people.”
“No allergies,” Diana said, wondering if Missy, like her mistress, had ever been abused. Mrs. Fiore didn’t seem at all skittish. Indeed, she seemed starved for company. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Diana asked, nodding toward the simmering saucepan on the stove, the pot of boiling pasta beside it, the Pyrex baking tray and the bowl of ricotta cheese.
“Just sit. Please. You’re a guest.” Mrs. Fiore pushed up the sleeves of her knit cardigan and gave the sauce a stir.
Diana took a seat at the square table pressed up against the wall, which featured patterned wallpaper in a cheerful yellow shade. The café curtains at the window above the sink were the same sunshine yellow, and the table was covered with a yellow and white checked cloth. “Nick uses tomato sauce out of a jar,” she said.
“I’ve tried to teach him how to make real gravy,” his mother said with a laugh. “He doesn’t want to learn. But that’s okay. I keep thinking, if he wants pasta with real gravy, I’ll make it for him. He’ll come here to eat.” Diana was touched by the poignant undertone of her words. She was obviously eager to lure her son home for visits. “I don’t cook like this all the time,” she went on. “I work, you know. Customer service at the Wal-Mart down on Route One. It’s not much, but I didn’t go to college like you young people. And I never worked while Nicky was growing up. I wanted to be here with a snack for him when he got home from school. But now…” She shrugged and overturned the large pot into a colander in the sink, draining the hot water from the wide, ridged strips of pasta. “I’ve got to earn my keep, right? They’re good to me at Wal-Mart. It’s a nice job. Nicky said something about you work in antiques?”
So Nick had told his mother about her. Diana was enormously pleased. “That’s right.”
“This whole house is full of antiques,” Mrs. Fiore said. “Not that any of them are worth anything. Just old stuff. When you can’t afford new, you call the old ‘antiques’ and it sounds a lot better.”
Diana dutifully chuckled.
Nick’s mother was quite pleasant. Of course she would be—she’d raised a wonderful son. Yet this same woman, so friendly and full of chatter, had betrayed that son in the worst possible way. When he’d defended her, when he’d protected her, when he’d stood before a judge, fighting for his future, his mother had forsaken him.
Mrs. Fiore prattled as she layered the lasagna into the pan, and Diana added an appropriate comment whenever the woman paused for a breath. Once the lasagna was constructed, Mrs. Fiore popped it into the oven. Within minutes the small kitchen steamed with mouth-watering aromas of tomato sauce, oregano, and garlic.
By the time Nick joined them in the kitchen, the lasagna was done baking, a salad had been tossed, and Mrs. Fiore had told Diana about a pregnant young associate she worked with at Wal-Mart, the tulip and daffodil bulbs she’d planted—“I was hoping they’d sprout by now, but I guess it’s still a little early”
—and her recent trip to a casino, where she actually came home fifty dollars ahead. “Those slot machines are rigged to make you lose, you know? But I got lucky. I got lemons, I got cherries. I love fruit, especially when I get three across on the screen.”
Nick removed his leather jacket and rolled up his sleeves, and Diana stifled a lustful sigh at the sight of his lean, sinewy forearms as he washed his hands at the sink. He dried them on a paper towel, which he scrunched into a wad and lofted into the trash can near the cat’s dishes. His gaze intersected with Diana’s, and he arched an eyebrow. She gave him a discreet nod, signaling him that her conversation with his mother had gone well.
“So, sit.” Mrs. Fiore pointed to one of the empty chairs at the table. “The lasagna is done. What do you want to drink? I’ve got a nice red vino, soda, iced-tea…”
“Just water, thank you,” Diana said, then informed Nick, “Your mother wouldn’t let me help at all. She did all the cooking.” She wasn’t sure if she was telling him this to improve his opinion of his mother or to justify her own lack of contribution to the meal.
He didn’t respond, just pulled two tumblers from a high cabinet and filled them with water.
“Do you like it?” his mother asked, once they were all seated and digging into their food.
“It’s delicious.” Diana wasn’t used to eating such a heavy meal for lunch. But the lasagna was marvelous. She’d eaten lasagna at countless restaurants in the North End, Boston’s “Little Italy” neighborhood, and Mrs. Fiore’s lasagna could easily hold its own with what those restaurants served.
“Nicky, you like it?”
“It’s fine,” he said tersely.
“I made the gravy with extra basil. I know how you love basil.”
“It’s good.”
“The pasta, it’s not too soft? I know you like it al dente—”
“Mom.” He lowered his fork and stared at her. “You don’t have to knock yourself out for me, okay?”
His tone, quiet but firm, pierced Diana’s brain like a laser. Suddenly she understood Mrs. Fiore, her ingratiating personality, her need to talk, to entertain, to please. How many times, Diana wondered, had the woman’s lasagna failed to satisfy her husband? How many times had he slapped her or punched her because of that failure?
Mrs. Fiore appeared flustered, as if Nick’s quiet reproach was itself evidence that she had failed. Her face went pale and she lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nicky.”
“No need to apologize.”
“Of course there is. There always is.”
They were no longer discussing the lasagna. Nick stared at his mother again, and she stared at her plate, her fork resting against the edge, her hands folded in her lap. The tension in the room was thicker than the tangy fragrance of the food.
Diana pushed her chair back, realizing that they had wandered into personal territory, into their wounded past. “Perhaps I should excuse myself,” she murmured to Nick.
He pressed his hand to her wrist, holding her in her seat. “No, stay. You want me to change? I’m doing my best, but…I need you by my side for this.”
Diana’s breath caught in her throat. She knew she loved Nick, although he’d never uttered the word love. Yet asking her to remain with him as he wrestled his demons to the ground was as just as significant.
His statement seemed to startle his mother, too. She lifted her gaze to Nick and then Diana. Then Nick again.
“I’m trying to forgive you, Mom.” The words emerged in a dark rumble, his voice gruff as he struggled to express himself. “I don’t know why you did what you did. I don’t know why you sold me out that way. But I’ve been angry for too long. I don’t want to be angry anymore.”
Tears filled his mother’s eyes. “Nicky. I never meant to sell you out. As God is my witness, that was never what I wanted.”
“It’s what happened.”
“I know it looks that way to you. But Nicky…” His mother emitted a sob, and she wiped her cheeks with her napkin. “He scared me so much, Nicky. He healed, and he got out of the hospital, and he threatened me.”
“He was always threatening you.”
“This was after, though. You were in that foster home, out on bail, awaiting trial. Your father got out of the hospital and he came here, and he held a knife to my throat and told me that if I told anyone he hit me, he’d come back and kill me. And he would have, Nicky. I was sure of it.”
“So you figured your life was more important than mine?”
“I would have died for you if I had to,” his mother said, her voice wobbling as more sobs undermined it. “But I knew I wouldn’t have to. You would be okay. You were strong. He couldn’t hurt you.”
“Are you kidding?”
“You stood up to him, Nicky. You beat him. You took him down. He was as scared of you as I was of him. I knew you were safe.”
“Safe? I was convicted of a crime!”
“But you escaped from this house. You freed yourself from this family. You had that wonderful cop looking after you. Officer Nolan. And me… If I went into court and said your father had beaten me, I’d be dead. If I didn’t say anything, he would leave and I wouldn’t have to get beaten by him anymore. I didn’t want to die, Nicky. I was scared, I was a coward, but I didn’t want to die.”
She broke down, freely weeping. Diana watched as Nick rose, circled the table and pulled his mother to her feet. He wrapped her in a hug—a tentative, awkward embrace, but a protective one. A forgiving one. “All right,” he said.
“I’m a terrible mother,” she murmured into his chest. “You had a terrible father. And you turned into such a good man, Nicky. Maybe it was best that we set you free.”
A dry laugh escaped him. “I was hardly free. I was in the criminal justice system. In detention.”
“Free from us. Free from all the hate and fear in this house. I’m so sorry, Nicky, so sorry.”
“All right,” he said again. “It’s done. It can’t be changed. Time to move on.”
They held each other for a long while. Diana felt like a trespasser on the scene, witnessing such a private moment—until, over his mother’s head, Nick directed his gaze back to her. He looked resigned, and relieved. Younger. His eyes glistened, not with tears but with an inner light she’d never seen before. The light of forgiveness. The light of letting go.
Yes, he had changed.
And she loved him even more.