At first the ice cream seemed to puzzle Tonino. He ignored his spoon and used one finger to poke the small mound, studied what he had found, and with some reservations, stuck the finger in his mouth. His expression went from neutral to deeply suspicious, his whole face contorting into a frown. With that he looked so much like Rosa that any doubt of his identity was banished.
For the next few minutes he just watched Anna eating her ice cream, his eyes following the spoon from dish to mouth and back again. His own dish remained untouched and so when Anna finished hers, she very deliberately reached for it.
For the first time she saw some emotion move over his face. His hand darted out to pull the dish back, and he bent his arm around it like a fortress.
“There you are,” Anna said. “Very nice to meet you again, Tonino.”
With great solemnity he picked up his spoon and dug into the melting ice cream. He never took his eyes from her or his arm from around the bowl as he shoveled the tremendous spoonful into his mouth. He swallowed with an audible gulp, licked his lips, and dug back in. Table manners were the last thing that worried her, but Anna thought of Margaret, and wondered whether he would adore her, as most little boys seemed to, or resent her instruction.
• • •
FROM INSIDE THE mercantile came the sound of children quarreling. Tonino inched away on the bench, taking both his and Rob Carlisle’s dishes along. Anna watched him and tried to read from his expression what he was feeling. Who had caused him such pain that he would withdraw from the world so completely?
As watchful as he was, she saw his eyelids begin to droop. Anna found herself holding back a yawn, but Tonino just put his head down on the table and fell asleep. He slept like an infant, in a world that Anna could hardly imagine. There would be nightmares, almost certainly, and behaviors more typical of a much younger child. Mothers came to her often in despair over bed-wetting and thumb sucking, expecting solutions when she had less experience with such things than they did. Along with Sophie she had had long discussions with Aunt Quinlan and Mrs. Lee, who between them had raised ten children and dealt with every challenge imaginable.
Anna would do her best, but she would depend on the two women who had raised her to lead the way, and on Margaret. There would need to be a very frank discussion at the start, where all the adults in the two households worked out some ground rules. As they should have thought to do when the girls came. But there were far worse things for this boy than a household full of adults dedicated to his welfare and happiness.
The sound of the rockaway pulling up in front of the store roused her out of a half doze. Anna resisted the urge to jump up for fear of startling Tonino and saw that he was awake, all his attention focused on the carriage.
Jack had seen them, but Lia and Rosa were so wound up in a difference of opinion that they took no note. That meant that Jack hadn’t told them where they were going, or why. Now he made a small movement with his head that Anna understood as a request that she wait. A reasonable course of action, for any number of reasons, and still, perspiration broke out on her throat and face. Suddenly she was sure they had made a mistake, that this wasn’t Tonino, or that this was not the Tonino the girls were looking for. That they would be frightened by the changes they saw in him.
Lia was turning to Jack to engage his support in this newest disagreement with her older sister when she caught sight of Anna. A smile broke out on her face and disappeared almost immediately as she took in the boy. It was the blank look on Lia’s face that made Rosa look around herself.
The girls rose so slowly that they might have been puppets being drawn to a standing position. In a sudden explosion of movement they made to jump from the carriage, but Jack had been prepared for this and he held on to them both, talking rapidly.
Rosa twisted at the waist to look at her brother.
“Tonino!”
The boy, reserved and watchful, studied the girls in the carriage as he might have studied a painting of some creature out of his sphere of experience. His sisters had disappeared once before; maybe he had convinced himself that he would never see them again. Or, it occurred to Anna, he could be angry to have been left behind and alone.
Jack helped the girls down and they came flying toward the table, both of them calling his name and weeping.
Anna thought of encouraging him, of telling him to go to them, but some instinct made her hold back. To intrude now might be disastrous. The boy was so tightly wound, so tense, that she could almost feel him vibrating.
Then the girls came to a skidding stop in front of their brother. Anna moved out of the way, and Lia climbed up on the bench to take her spot while Rosa took the other side. Anna couldn’t see Tonino’s face because they had their arms wrapped around him. They were talking more quietly now, their voices hitching and catching.
There was no sound from Tonino. He was trembling, and his face was wet with tears, but he didn’t seem able to bring forth a single word. Anna walked over to Jack and leaned into him.
“Did you ask the girls about—”
“I asked if he was as good as Lia at telling stories, and they had a discussion that made it clear that he can hear and speak.”
It was almost bad news; if he were deaf, the challenges would be clear-cut. But a boy who simply would not or could not talk was a much more difficult puzzle.
When she thought she could not stand one more second of not knowing, the three children shifted a little on the bench, and a single hand—a little rough, browned by the sun—came around to rest on Lia’s narrow back, and patted.
Anna realized then that she had feared the worst: that he wouldn’t want to see the sisters who had mourned him. And here was proof that she was wrong: whatever he had endured, the boy he had been—the brother he had been—was still there. Torn and fearful and angry, but enough himself to touch his sister gently. He patted Lia’s back to comfort her, and took the comfort the girls offered him in turn.
• • •
THE THREE CHILDREN sat on the rear carriage bench pressed together and very quiet. Anna had still not heard Tonino say a word, but then the girls had asked him no questions, as far as she could tell. They whispered to him now and then, and twice Lia gave a low giggle, but otherwise they had closed themselves off, cocooned together. She wondered if they had told him about their father, and decided that they had not, and did not know how to share this news.
For a moment Anna felt the same light-headed sense of unreality that overcame her after an important exam. She would have liked a few hours to catch her breath, but another exam was before her. All the calm reserve she had drawn around herself simply leaked away, and she shivered.
Jack took the reins in one hand and with the other he took her forearm. The dress she wore had wide sleeves of a light batiste, secured with a single button at the wrist. With a simple twist Jack opened the cuff. He pulled back her sleeve to run his fingers down the skin of her inner arm to trace the creases on her palm. Every nerve in her body snapped to life, and she pulled her arm away, laughing.
“Do you think I’m so easily distracted?”
“I know exactly how easily distracted you are,” he said. “But this is as much as I dare, under the circumstances. Do you remember the stories about us swimming in the river on the hottest summer days? This is the river. We could follow it to the farm if we were on foot.” Something in his tone aroused her suspicions and Anna turned to study his profile.
“I have no intention of swimming, Jack.”
He raised one eyebrow at her as if this were a challenge. Which, she supposed, it was.
She said, “Tell me how the houses are laid out. Give me a picture.”
He told her in his usual spare way: there were five houses in a rough half circle, set far enough apart and with fruit trees planted between them to provide some privacy. The biggest house, the one in the middle, belonged to his p
arents. They would eat all together at a long table under the pergola, with a view of the orchards and greenhouses. And they would sleep in the room he had had as a boy.
He shifted a little, and Anna poked him. “You’ve never had a girl in that room before, have you?”
“Define what you mean by had.” He closed his free hand around hers before she could poke him again. “Of course not. The only females who have ever stepped foot in that room are my mother and aunts when they helped with the housework.”
“Your sisters?”
“Only upon pain of death,” he said grimly.
“You had a room to yourself?”
He shrugged. “It’s a big house. When we had family parties I had to share with cousins. You won’t mind sharing the bed with Pasquale and Pietro, will you?”
“Very funny.”
He bowed from the shoulders. “You haven’t met them yet, so you don’t know how funny.”
He was in a good mood. They had done the impossible in finding Tonino, and fulfilled at least half of the promises made to Rosa. And he was proud to be bringing Anna home to his family.
If only there weren’t so many of them. Anna had devoted a good amount of time to learning names: his brothers, their wives and children. Between Chiara and Jack she had learned enough about each of them to give her a firm footing.
She said, “I’m ready to do battle to establish my place in the pecking order. It will be a bit of a challenge, but then my Italian isn’t very good, so I won’t know if I’ve succeeded or not.”
• • •
JACK HAD GIVEN strict orders to everybody—sisters-in-laws included—about how to greet Anna.
“You make her sound like a timid rabbit,” said his aunt Philomena. “I know your Anna, there is nothing timid about her. She is a strong woman and can hold her own.”
“That is true,” his mother said. “But we still don’t want to overwhelm her on her first visit.” And his mother’s word was final. There would be no mob to greet them. Anna’s aunt Quinlan and the Lees had been welcomed with all the good cheer and respect Jack expected, and would serve as a bit of a buffer between his wife and his female relatives.
From ahead came the sound of children caught up in some game, and the cousins had gotten out their instruments. Fiddles, a clarinet, a trumpet, an accordion in comfortable harmony. Women called to each other in Italian and English about bowls and dishes and children who needed attention, dogs in the way, the need to wipe a table. Jack only heard this in some corner of his mind. The bulk of his attention was focused on Anna and the children sitting behind them.
Rosa and Lia were talking to Tonino in a galloping whisper. If they never heard Tonino’s voice again, Jack thought, it might be a simple matter of never having the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the boy wasn’t overwhelmed, and saw with some relief that he looked content, if a little glassy-eyed. As anyone would be, with such a sudden change in fortune.
As Jack brought the Rockaway to a halt everyone turned toward them.
Anna’s aunt Quinlan laughed out loud at the sight of them.
“Tonino?”
Rosa jumped up and threw out her arms. “Yes, this is our brother Tonino. Aunt Anna and Uncle Jack found him for us.”
• • •
FOR SOMEONE WHO could name every bone and muscle, every gland and nerve in the human body, Anna told herself, it shouldn’t be difficult to attach the names she had already memorized to the faces around her. Especially as the women were all sitting together, and she could look from face to face without apology.
Chiara’s mother, Mariangela, was very tall, while Carmela, married to the second oldest son, was very slight and hardly taller than her nine-year-old son. Susanna, daughter of the famous band director, had lost an eyetooth, but her smile was wide and genuine. The two youngest of the sisters-in-law—Benedetta and Lucetta—were more of a challenge; they looked so much alike that they might have been sisters. For the moment Anna would have to depend on the color of their skirts to distinguish them. How that would work at the dinner table she had no idea, but that was a problem for another time.
They sat in the fragrant shade of a grape arbor with the low buzz of honeybees not very far off, and together they made a study of Anna. They weren’t mean spirited about it; they spoke English, asked straightforward questions, and listened to her answers. And still Anna was reminded of the way a group of women passed a newborn back and forth to admire it. They saw everything, she knew very well: her posture, her features, the way she held her head, the tone of her voice, the dimples that she used to such good advantage. They watched her talking to the older women and to their children, and judged each for herself how well Anna met the challenges.
She didn’t have to pretend to like children. She didn’t even have to pretend to admire these particular children; they were all healthy, well mannered—at least under the watchful gazes of mothers and aunts—and curious. Like children everywhere they ran the full gamut, from the painfully shy to the very bold.
As her aunt was leaving to rest before dinner Mrs. Lee leaned down to talk into Anna’s ear. “And not one of them asked could they see my tail. Good, hardworking people. Kind at heart.”
• • •
THE CHILDREN TOOK her on as a project. The little ones climbed into her lap to show her their battle scars. She examined and exclaimed over skinned knees and scabby knuckles, admired the muscles the boys put on display, and declared herself very much interested in a tour of the best trees for climbing, the wild blueberry bushes, the rabbit hutches, the prize sow, the two foals in the pasture, a collection of pennies, a map of Italy, or their grandfather’s photograph of Garibaldi, signed by the man himself.
Before they got very far with this long list of chores, it was time to get dinner on the table. Anna offered to help, but was refused quite firmly. Instead while the sisters-in-law went off Jack appeared and spirited her away.
“Intermission,” she said in a mock whisper.
“That bad? You need rescuing?”
“Oh, no. It was very pleasant. And informative. Where are we going?”
“Grand tour.”
As soon as they were out of earshot she asked, “How am I doing, do you think?”
“I told you you’d win them all over, and you did.”
“Women with children are easily charmed,” she said. “Admire their offspring and you’ve won most of the battle. And they are healthy, your nieces and nephews. Healthy and full of life.”
“My mother will be pleased to hear that.”
Anna thought of Carmela, one of the two sisters-in-law who had emigrated from Italy, and whose English was least fluent. But she was also very bright, it seemed to Anna, and somewhat unexpectedly, the kindest and most friendly of them all. And she wasn’t well. There was nothing specific Anna could tell Jack, but she did voice her concern.
“I wondered if you’d notice about Carmela,” Jack said. “Mama worries about her.”
“My guess is that she’s anemic,” Anna said. “That can be addressed with diet, for the most part. If she asks me I’ll examine her, but I have to wait for her to ask.”
One brow lifted. “That’s not likely.”
“It might be easier than you think,” Anna said. “She has struck up a friendship with Elise, and Elise can be quietly persuasive. I’ll talk to her about it later this evening.”
Jack said, “I noticed that too, about Elise. I wouldn’t have imagined them as especially suited.”
“Female friendships are sometimes very mysterious,” Anna said. “But a true friendship between women is the strongest bond of all. Where is Elise, have you seen her recently?”
Jack made a low rumbling sound in his throat. “I saw her walking down toward the orchard with Ned.”
“Oh.” Anna considered this. ?
??Just the two of them?”
He nodded. “Bambina was standing just there—” He pointed. “Watching them go.”
Bambina, who never hesitated to find something about Ned to criticize. Anna said, “There’s a line from Shakespeare that comes to mind, something Aunt Quinlan says now and then. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jack said. “But here’s an idea. Let’s forget about all that for an hour. No talk of Bambina or Ned or anybody else. Just for an hour, while I introduce you to my favorite places.”
But then he started, he admitted readily, in the biggest of the greenhouses, which was not his favorite place. Rows of pots stretched out, as carefully ordered as a regiment of soldiers.
“There must be five hundred of them,” Anna said.
“Closer to seven hundred fifty,” Jack said. “And I’ve had my hands on every one of them.”
At her surprised look he said, “In March when it’s time to sow the seeds we’re all pressed into service. While you were on your way to the island with the girls to see their father buried, I was here, up to my elbows in loam and manure. Next year you’ll be here too, right next to me.”
“Will I?” She lifted a shoulder. “There are worse ways to spend a day.”
“And better ones,” he said, and pulled her into the shade of a shed, where he pressed her up against the wall and kissed her breathless.
• • •
THEY ENDED THE tour by collapsing to the ground under a pear tree. In a month’s time, given rain and sunshine, the small hard fruits would be ready to fall, gravid with juice, into a cupped palm. Things changed so rapidly, sometimes it took her breath away.
“That was a deep sigh,” he said. “Exhausted? Unhappy? Both?”
“Not unhappy. Not at all. I was just thinking how quickly things change, but sometimes for the better. Not always for the better, of course.” An image of Janine Campbell came to her, unbidden. She hoped that Janine’s boys were healthy and learning how to be happy.