The Man from Tuscany
The Man from Tuscany
Catherine Spencer
The Past: It's 1939, and eighteen-year-old Anna meets Marco in Italy.They fall madly in love, a love she knows will last forever. Even though, within months, they're separated by war. Even though she's told that Marco is dead…. The Present: Anna, who'd entered into a marriage of convenience, is widowed, and so is Marco. Long after the war, she discovered that he'd survived.Now she wants to return to Italy, to Marco, for one final visit. The Future: Anna's adored granddaughter, Carly, accompanies her–and when Carly begins to fall for Marco's grandson, she wonders if they can have the life together their grandparents never could.
We met in Italy one summer day…
The menu at the bistro had overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguini covered with herb sauce wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for.
“No, grazie, ” I told the waiter, searching my little phrase book.
“ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”
I looked up and there he was: tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal, but not a salad. Just something small.”
“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale….
“And the next thing, he asked if he could join you,” my granddaughter said dryly.
“Actually, I asked him.”
“So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”
“About five minutes.”
“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”
“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”
Dear Reader,
When I was expecting my second child, my three-year-old daughter wanted to know if I’d still love her as much after the new baby was born. When I assured her I would, she asked, “But what if you don’t have enough?”
The Man from Tuscany is Anna and Marco’s story, and is about always having enough. The human heart has an infinite capacity for love in all its guises. It is not always convenient, often not easy and sometimes demands a terrible price from those who embrace it. But it binds us as wives, mothers, daughters, friends and lovers. It makes us fallible and gives us our humanity. As Anna says, “We don’t choose who or when to love, it chooses us.”
May it choose you.
With love,
Catherine Spencer
The Man from Tuscany
Catherine Spencer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Spencer is a former high school English teacher, and a multi-published author with Harlequin, mostly under the Presents imprint. Her books have been distributed in more than thirty-five countries and translated into over twenty languages. The Man from Tuscany is her first Harlequin Superromance book. She lives on Canada’s west coast with her husband and two adorable yellow Labrador retrievers. She has four children and eight grandchildren—an amazing achievement for a woman who’s still only thirty-nine! She loves to hear from her readers and may be contacted through her Web site at www.catherinespencer.com.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
S OMETHING was definitely amiss. Anna Wexley was a creature of habit, and asking Carly to drop everything and visit her on a weekday morning was a marked departure from the usual. A critical care nurse, Carly knew how precariously balanced her grandmother’s health was, and how little it would take to tip the scales against her. For that reason alone, she wasted no time driving out to Allendale House, the elegant old mansion that was now a retirement residence, where Anna had lived for the past several years.
At first glance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No ambulance waited in the paved forecourt, and the French doors to her grandmother’s suite, directly above the building’s main entrance, stood ajar. A good sign, surely, on this warm June morning, because Anna loved sitting on her balcony, listening to the birds and enjoying the distant view of Block Island Sound.
Better yet, no sympathetic voices greeted Carly when she signed in at the front desk. Nor, when her grandmother answered her door, was there any overt hint of trouble. Anna had obviously visited the residence beauty salon earlier, and wore the pretty pleated skirt and white blouse Carly had given her the previous Christmas. With pearl studs in her ears and, as always, her gold filigree heart pendant, she looked remarkably well put-together for an eighty-three-year-old with a history of congestive heart failure. On closer examination, though, Carly saw that although her face lit up with pleasure at the sight of her granddaughter, Anna’s eyes glowed with a feverish agitation that was anything but normal.
Folding her in a careful hug, Carly said, “You seemed upset on the phone, Gran. Has something happened?”
“I suppose it has,” Anna replied tremulously. “Come sit on the balcony and have a glass of lemonade, while I try to explain.”
Following her outside, Carly urged her onto the wicker love seat, sat down next to her and pressed two fingers to her grandmother’s inner wrist. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Any difficulty breathing?”
“Not at all, darling girl. I’ve decided to go to Italy, that’s all, and I want you to make the travel arrangements.”
“Italy?” Subduing the impulse to blurt out At your age and in your state of health? Carly asked instead, “Why Italy, Gran?”
“There’s someone there I very much want to see.”
Instincts on high alert again, Carly inspected her critically. “Are you talking about a doctor?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Her grandmother indicated a leather-bound scrapbook lying open on the wicker coffee table in front of her. “I want to visit him. ”
Carly scooped the book onto her lap, frowning at the grainy photograph of a man in his twenties. “Who’s he?”
Anna sighed and traced her forefinger over his features. “It would be easy for me to lie and say he’s just an old family friend, but I can’t bring myself to belittle what we’ve always meant to each other, so I’ll tell you the truth. He’s the great love of my life, Carly.”
This time, Carly couldn’t hide her shock. “But he can’t be. He’s not Grandpa!”
“No, precious, he’s not.”
Although she seemed in complete command of her faculties, Carly wondered if her grandmother was losing it. Had the distant and more recent past merged into one gauzy memory in which neither people nor time were clearly defined anymore? “This is an old photograph, Gran,” she pointed out gently. “Do you remember when it was taken?”
“Of course I do. Right before the outbreak of World War Two.”
“Ah! So what you’re really saying is, this man was your first love, but Grandpa was your real love.”
“Your grandfather was my husband and I was devoted to him, but not even he could take Marco’s place in my heart.”
“That name rings a bell. Didn’t he visit you once in England, when Mom was little?”
“Yes. He came all the way from Italy to be with me at a time when I desperately needed him.”
“Italy?”
“Well, yes, dear,” her grandmother said. “Why else do you think I want to go there? Marco lives in Tuscany.”
“Oh, Tuscany!” Carly shrugged disparagingly. “It’s such a cliché. Everyone goes there.”
“Not when I first met him. It hadn’t been discovered then. And we were never a cliché.”
“What were you, then?” She knew she sounded as defiant as a child who’d just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real, but she couldn’t help herself.
“We were…magnificent.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Carly chose the word deliberately, intending it as a belittlement of what her grandmother and this man had shared.
Anna shot her a reproving look. “Yes, I did. And made glorious love with him, too.”
“I thought that sort of behavior was frowned on back then. That girls from good families like yours saved themselves for their husbands. If he was so wonderful, why didn’t he marry you?”
“He would have, if—”
“If he’d loved you as much as you loved him?”
“Oh, he loved me, Carly. He adored me.”
Hating how she felt inside—betrayed somehow, and almost angry with her grandmother for shattering her illusions of one big, happy family—Carly spread her hands helplessly. “Was he already married, then? Was that the problem?”
“No. I was the problem.” Anna’s voice broke. “I didn’t have enough faith in us, and by the time I learned my mistake, it was too late.”
“Oh, Gran! Is he dead? Is it his grave you want to visit?”
Her grandmother shook her head, making her thinning white hair float delicately over her scalp. “No. Not that death changes the things that matter…the eternal things. One day, I’ll be with him forever, and with your grandfather, too. But before that, I want to hold his hand and look in his eyes once more, and tell him again how much I’ve always loved him.”
Carly watched her in silence, then glanced away. “I’ve always sensed there was some deep, dark secret that no one in the family ever talked about,” she said hollowly, “but not in a million years would I have guessed it was something like this.”
“Are you disappointed in me, Carly?”
She shrugged. “In some ways, I guess I am. You and Grandpa always seemed so solid. Mostly, though, I’m confused. Once or twice I’ve thought I was in love, but it didn’t last. But you and this Marco—how many years has it been, Gran?”
“Going on sixty-five.”
“How could you bear to be apart from him?”
“Sometimes I didn’t think I could. But then I’d think of what I’d have to give up in order to be with him—my dear Brian, my daughter and you, my beautiful granddaughter. And I couldn’t bear that, either, because I loved you. You bring me such joy, Carly, and I am so proud to be your grandmother. From the day you were born, we’ve had a special connection, one I treasure beyond price.”
“If he loved you as much as you say, he must have resented me for that.”
“No. Marco understood that, for as long as they needed me, my family had to come first.”
“And he went on loving you anyway?”
“Yes. Neither of us ever had a moment’s doubt about the other.”
“How do you recognize love when it comes along, Gran?”
“When it consumes you,” Anna said.
Intrigued despite herself, Carly took her hand. “Tell me about him, Gran. Make me understand.”
A breeze drifted over the balcony, scented with thyme and oregano from the herb garden. Anna closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. “I met him the summer I turned eighteen….”
“I WISH I WAS COMING with you,” my mother said, layering tissue paper over the clothes in my travel trunk before closing the lid. “But you and Genevieve are such good friends that you won’t miss me too much, and with my sister chaperoning, I know you’ll be in safe hands.”
It was July 6, 1939. My cousin, my aunt and I would take the train to New York the next day, and on the eighth, set sail aboard the Queen Mary for Southampton. Originally my mother had planned to make the trip, as well, but ten days earlier, my father had undergone an emergency appendectomy. So she’d decided to stay home to supervise his recovery.
At first, I’d wanted to beg off traveling, too. Seeing my strong, active father confined to a wheelchair and looking so wan had frightened me. But neither he nor my mother would hear of it.
“Of course you must go,” they said. “It’s expected of girls like you.”
My father, you see, was Hugh Edward Leyden, a respected lawyer; my mother, the former Isabelle Jacqueline Fontaine, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, active on the board of directors of the Rhode Island Junior League and a prominent Newport society hostess.
As I was their only child, they had great hopes for me to marry well and make them proud. In the 1930s, not a great deal else was required of privileged daughters. If they’d attended the right schools, knew which fork to use, were mannerly, had traveled abroad, could speak a little French or Italian and gave of their time to worthy causes, they were considered a credit to their families.
So there I was, poised to leave on a limited version of the grand tour. Normally we’d have visited several countries, among them Germany and Spain, but Europe was in turmoil and it was decided we were safer to confine ourselves to Italy. We were to “do” Florence, Venice, Milan and Rome, and finish with a few days in Paris if the political climate allowed. At the end of August, I would return home, my enduring passion for great art at least partially satisfied, my exposure to the rich and varied culture of Italy an added bonus to my already sterling pedigree.
The morning we left, our good friends and next-door neighbors, John and Elaine Wexley and their son, Brian, joined my parents on the front terrace to wave us on our way. Brian was twenty-four and home from college for the summer, but despite the six-year age difference between us, we’d been as close as brother and sister since childhood.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, giving me a hug. “Have a wonderful trip, Anna, and stay safe.”
Saying goodbye to my family was a tearful business. My mother and I wept unashamedly. My father composed his features into such stern lines that I knew he, too, was struggling to keep his emotions in check.
“Ye gods, Anna!” Genevieve exclaimed, at last managing to pry me away from them and stuff me in the car that was to take us to the railroad station. “Anyone would think you were never coming home again. I hope you’re not going to weep your way across the Atlantic. I’m told life on board the Queen Mary is one long, glamorous party and I shall take great exception if you’re being dreary the whole time.”
I smile in reminiscence….
“And were you?” Carly asked. “Dreary, I mean?”
H ER GRANDMOTHER laughed. “Oh, no! The minute we boarded the ship, excitement replaced homesickness. We’d heard about the kind of comfort the Cunard Line offered its first-class passengers, but nothing could have prepared us for the luxury. It was said that no two staterooms were alike, and I well believe it. Ours was fitted with inlaid wood paneling and the most wonderful art-deco furnishings. Next door, Aunt Patricia was surrounded by such a wealth of elegance that she hardly ever ventured from her quarters except for meals—which fell in perfectly with Genevieve’s plans.”
“Genevieve must’ve been fun. I wish I’d known her.”
“My cousin was a hellion!” Anna said with fond nostalgia. “You won’t remember her, Carly. She died twenty-one years and three husbands ago, when you were only three, but even all these years later, I smile when I think of her on that ship. Half the crew and most of the male passengers were in love with her before we sailed out of New York. Before we reached Southampton, she’d turned down five marriage proposals and broken more hearts than all the other women onboard put together.”
“And what about you, Gran? How many proposals did you receive?”
Anna laughed again. “Oh, Carly, no one noticed me! I was merely the quiet cousin, pleasant enough in my way, but not nearly as vivacious or memorable as Genevieve.”
“How unfair!”
“Not at all. I didn’t lack for escorts by day or for dance partners in the evening. I just didn’t inspire grand passion, that’s all—at least, not until we arrived in Florence and I met Marco.”
“What made him different?” Carly wondered aloud. “Was it that he noticed you and not her?”
“For a start, she wasn’t with me that day. I spent the morning roaming the halls of the Pitti Palace, but she had no interest in art galleries and wanted to go shopping. By then, Aunt Patricia realized that, left to her own devices, Genevieve was likely to run off with the first handsome Italian who caught her eye. I, on the other hand, was comme il faut, and could be relied upon to behave appropriately without being chaperoned every minute of the day. So, as much to preserve her own sanity as to protect her daughter’s reputation, wherever Genevieve went, Aunt Patricia went, too.”
The irony of the situation did not escape Carly, and she couldn’t resist a grin. “Leaving you, the good girl, free to have an illicit affair right under your aunt’s nose. Did she never suspect what you were up to?”
“Never. As far as she knew, I spent my days absorbing the history of the city and improving my Italian. I was always back at the hotel in time to change for dinner and always spent the evening with her and Genevieve.”
“And the nights?”
“Well…” A delicate flush tinted her grandmother’s cheeks.
Amused despite herself, Carly said, “Don’t tell me you snuck out every night as soon as poor old Aunt Patricia hit the sack, and Genevieve covered for you?”
“Not quite every night.”
But often enough for an unprincipled rat to put the moves on her naive and trusting grandmother! “So how did you meet this Marco? Was he trolling the halls of the Pitti Palace, looking for innocent young American girls to seduce?”
“He was doing nothing of the sort,” Anna said sharply. “I met him over lunch at an outdoor trattoria. He was at the table next to mine. I had trouble explaining to the waiter what I wanted to order, Marco overheard and stepped in to translate….”
T HE MENU overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguine covered with herb sauce the waiter set before me wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for. I hadn’t acquired a taste for pasta at that point. We never ate it at home. “No, grazie,” I told him, searching my little phrase book. “Voglio qualcosa…luce.”
“Luce?” He eyed me doubtfully.
“L…i…g…h…t,” I enunciated, slowly and very distinctly, the way English-speaking tourists tend to do when abroad and confronted by a foreign language. “I…want…something…light.”
“Ah, si! Capisco!” He reached into his vest pocket and produced a small box of matches. “Sigarette.”
“No!” I exclaimed, shocked by the very idea. “ Non sigarette. No fumo— I don’t smoke.”
The waiter threw up his hands, completely at a loss.
To my right, a chair scraped over the piazza’s ornately patterned paving stones, and another voice, deep and confident, joined the conversation. “ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”
I looked up and there he was—tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal. But not a salad,” I was quick to add. I’d been warned to avoid any uncooked foods that had been washed in local water. “Just something…small.” I gestured at the linguine. “It’s too hot for a heavy meal like this.”
“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim, but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun, and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale ….
“A ND THE NEXT MOMENT , he asked if he could join you,” Carly observed dryly.
“Actually I asked him. It seemed the mannerly thing to do, considering how helpful he’d been. My Italian was obviously minimal, but his English was excellent. We struck up a conversation and when he discovered my interest in the historical buildings and churches of Florence, he offered to introduce me to his city.”
Carly rolled her eyes. “How original!”
“I thought he was very kind—not to mention knowledgeable. He was an architect, you see, and well qualified to give me a guided tour.”
“Right! And show you his etchings while he was at it.”
“Carly!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for wondering! So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”
“About five minutes.”
“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”
“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Parafulmine, Marco called it. A lightning bolt without the thunder. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”
Unprincipled and smooth-talking, as well. Carly couldn’t repress the cynical thought. “Did he try to kiss you that first day?”
“He did better than that,” her grandmother said, fondling her gold heart pendant. “He proposed.”
“He did not!”
“He did. ‘Will you marry me, Anna?’ he said. And I said I would.”
Carly glanced again at the photograph. “Well, he was definitely attractive. I can see how you might’ve fallen for his good looks.”
“Oh, he was so much more than just a handsome face. He was beautiful on the inside, and he brought out the very best in me. That’s why I need to see him again, Carly. I need to tell him that, despite all the things that went wrong and all the tears we’ve both shed, I have never for a moment regretted loving him.”
“So it wasn’t all moonlight and roses, then?”
Her grandmother gazed off into the distance, seeming pursued by memories. “No,” she said slowly. “Sometimes it was pure hell, and I don’t know how we survived. But nothing could put a dent in my certainty that he was my other half and we would have our happy-ever-after ending.”
“So what happened?”
“The war,” Anna said. “Let’s go for a breath of fresh air in the garden, precious, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
CHAPTER TWO
T HEY WERE HALFWAY to the gazebo near the pond, sufficiently far from the house that no one could overhear their conversation, but close enough that the walk didn’t overtax her grandmother’s strength, when Carly noticed a couple heading toward them.
“You’ve got more company, Gran,” she said. “Mom and Dad are here. Did you ask them to stop by?”
Dismayed, Anna said, “Gracious, no! This isn’t a story Grace would understand, nor would she appreciate my sharing it with you.”
And she wouldn’t appreciate finding them together now, Carly thought, aware that her mother had always resented her closeness with Anna.
“Why are you here, Carly?” Grace demanded the second she arrived within hailing distance. “You don’t usually stop by during the week.”
“It was kind of spur-of-the-moment, Mom. Gran had a little business she wanted me to take care of, and she’s in a bit of a hurry.”
“What sort of business, Mother? If it’s your heart, you shouldn’t be wandering around so far from the house.”
“It’s not my heart, dear,” Anna said placidly.
Grace flicked a glance from her mother to Carly, and when neither offered any further explanation, motioned impatiently with her hand. “Then what? Are we allowed to hear or is it a big dark secret between the two of you?”
Carly’s father dropped a kiss on Anna’s head and urged her to a nearby garden bench. “It’s a big dark secret,” he teased, attempting to lighten the moment. “Some silver-haired admirer living on the third floor has swept you off your feet, and you’re getting married again. Admit it, Anna. You want Carly to help you elope.”
Oh, Dad! Carly stifled a horrified giggle. You have no idea how close to the truth you’ve come!
Unruffled, her grandmother said, “Not quite, Taylor. I want to go to Florence, that’s all, and I’ve asked Carly to make the travel arrangements.”
“Florence, as in Italy?” Grace fairly choked on the question.
“The very same, dear. It’s always been one of my favorite cities.”
If she’d hoped to fool anyone into believing she hadn’t dropped news on par with a minor earthquake, Grace soon disabused her of that notion. “And Carly, of course, has explained it’s absolutely out of the question.”
“That was my first reaction,” Carly admitted, “but now that I’ve had chance a to think about it, it doesn’t strike me as such a bad idea, after all.”
Her mother stared at her, slack-jawed. “Why in the world would you encourage such a foolish request?”
“Why is it foolish, Mom? What’s to stop Gran from going to Italy if she wants to?”
“Well, her age, for one thing. And if that’s not enough, how about the fact that she can barely make it from her suite to the dining room without a blast of oxygen to get her there? A journey like this will kill her.”
“Rubbish, Grace!” Anna declared. “I’m a lot tougher than you give me credit for. Provided I take my medication and travel first-class, both of which I intend to do, I’ll be just fine.”
“I swear you get dottier by the day!” Frustrated, Grace appealed to her husband. “Taylor, talk some sense into your mother-in-law.”
“It is a fair distance for a woman your age to travel alone, Anna, especially considering your health problems,” he pointed out mildly.
“I’ll hardly be alone, dear. I’m sure Carly will take me to Boston, check me in at Logan, and see to it that I have a wheelchair. And the flight attendants are very kind. They’ll keep an eye on me.”
But she wasn’t winning them over, Carly saw. Her mother’s face registered growing outrage. Her father, ever the voice of calm reason when the unexpected or unusual occurred, looked distinctly perturbed. And in truth, Carly herself was beginning to have doubts. Her grandmother’s secret might have struck a romantic chord in the telling, but when put to the test, grand passion wasn’t stacking up so well against the practicalities.
Her father cleared his throat. “Look, we came by because it’s such a lovely day we decided to take you for lunch at that place on the beach you like. Why don’t we do that and talk about this some more?”
“That’s very considerate of you, Taylor,” Anna replied, “but there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve made up my mind, and that’s that.”
“Why are you being so difficult?” Grace snapped. “Can’t you see we’re worried about you?”
“I know that, and if joining you for lunch will make you happy…”
“I’m not happy, Mother, but when did that ever keep you from doing what you wanted? And the subject is far from closed. Now, you’re going to need a sweater—it’s always breezy down by the water. We’ll have to hurry, or we’ll end up waiting for a table.”
Annoyed, Carly said in an aside, “You know she can’t keep up with you, Mom. If you’re worried about having to stand in line, you and Dad go ahead, and I’ll bring Gran in my car when she’s ready.”
Anna waited until they were alone again, then smiled gratefully at Carly. “Convincing your mother I don’t have one foot in the grave tends to sap my energy,” she said. “Thank you for buying me a reprieve, precious.”
“I figured we need it. We have to decide how we’re going to handle this, Gran. If Mom gets an inkling of what’s really going on here—”
Anna nodded. “I’ve stirred up quite the hornet’s nest as it is.”
“Exactly. Let’s not make matters any worse.” Carly sent her a glance. “Does she have any idea that you’ve been in love for years with a man who wasn’t your husband?”
“Good heavens, no! Marco and I maintained the utmost discretion. I doubt she even remembers who he is.”
But that wasn’t necessarily accurate, as Carly discovered when they reached the restaurant and Anna stopped to chat with a friend at another table, leaving Carly a few minutes alone with her parents.
“I checked with our travel agent,” her father began as soon as she joined them. “It’s just as we thought. There are no direct flights from Boston to Florence. At the very least, your grandmother would have to fly to Washington, then change planes again in Munich or Milan, and I’m afraid your mom might be right, Carly. That’s more than Anna can handle. Is there any chance you can talk her into settling for somewhere closer, like Bermuda or the Bahamas?”
“I doubt it, Dad. She’s pretty set on Italy.”
“I’ll bet she is,” Grace said with some bitterness. “She probably hopes that if she returns to the scene of her youth, it’ll give her a new lease on life.”
Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “Nostalgia can be a powerful thing for someone your mother’s age, honey.”
“Some memories are better left untouched, Taylor. If she goes ahead with this, we’ll never see her again.”
“I don’t agree. Despite everything she’s gone through, Anna’s never once cracked under pressure. And realistically, if she’s determined to take this trip, you can’t very well forbid her to go. The best we can do is insist one of us goes with her.”
Appalled at what that might lead to, Carly said, “She’ll never agree to that.”
“She might, if you were to volunteer,” her father said reasonably. “After all, you’re her beloved only grandchild. You’re a nurse, so you’re qualified to monitor her health. You recently resigned your hospital position, which means you have the summer free before going back to university in the fall. And as far as I know, you’re unattached.” He held up five fingers. “Have I missed anything?”
“Yes, Dad,” she said, seeing her grandmother coming toward them, and fully aware that where this proposed trip was concerned, three would definitely be a crowd. “Gran might not want me along for the ride.”
“Now that is something I’ll talk her into. In fact, I’ll insist on it,” Grace announced. She barely waited until her mother was seated before wading in. “This whole idea of traipsing halfway around the world all by yourself simply isn’t feasible, Mother. Travel is confusing at the best of times, especially for someone your age.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet, dear,” Anna replied. “I’m able to ask for help, if I need it.”
“What Grace is saying,” Taylor explained, “is that she— we— would feel a lot more comfortable if you didn’t go alone. So we’re wondering how you’d feel about Carly joining you.”
“Carly?” Her face lit up with pleasure. “I’d be delighted to have her as my traveling companion, provided she doesn’t mind being saddled with me.”
“I don’t mind, if you don’t,” Carly said, sliding her a conspiratorial glance. “I’ve never been to Italy.”
“That settles it, then.” Taylor lifted his water glass in a toast. “Here’s to a safe, successful trip!”
They all seconded that, Carly’s mother with markedly less enthusiasm than the rest of them.
“Cheer up, dear,” Anna urged. “Think of it as an adventure, one last glorious fling before I reconcile myself to terminal old age and day trips to Newport.”
She would’ve been wiser to keep quiet, because Grace rounded on her fretfully. “Day trips I can understand. But Italy, Mother? And why now, for heaven’s sake?”
Carly the nurse understood why, whether or not Carly the granddaughter wanted to acknowledge it. Her grandmother rightly sensed her time was running out but realized that to say so would’ve been as cruel as revealing the part Marco had played in her life.
“Because I’d like to go to Florence and see the Duomo and Michelangelo’s David one more time. And because I’d love to be the one to introduce them to my granddaughter,” she said instead.
“But where will you stay?” Grace asked. “You’ve never liked big hotels, Mother.”
“With the son of an old friend who lives not far from the city. He has plenty of room and I have a standing invitation to visit anytime. Carly, I know, will be welcome, too.”
Defeated, Grace sighed. “And when is this visit to take place?”
“As soon as possible, dear,” Anna said.
C ARLY SECURED reservations for the following Tuesday, flying via Boston to Washington, and from there to England, where they’d spend the night before embarking on the last leg of the journey to Florence. In the five days before their departure, she took care of all the details, and worried that her grandmother had taken on more than she’d bargained for.
“Even with a night in London, you’re going to find the journey tiring,” she warned, as they boarded the Boeing 777 for the transatlantic flight. “This part alone lasts nearly seven and a half hours.”
But nothing could diminish Anna’s enthusiasm. Adding a thick folder to the items to be included in her carry-on bag, she said blithely, “The good news is, I can spend it telling you the rest of my story.”
Which would have been fine, Carly reflected morosely—except she was no longer sure she wanted to hear it.
CHAPTER THREE
F INALLY , we’re on our way. The seat belt sign is off, the aircraft is headed east, and it’s time for me to pick up my story from where I left it last week. I only have until tomorrow to convince Carly that I’m not some foolish old woman pinning all her hopes on yesterday, and Marco wasn’t a home-wrecker who came between me and her beloved grandpa.
“I phoned Marco again on Sunday, to tell him you’re coming with me,” I begin. “He’s a little concerned that you might not understand the part he’s played in my life.”
“I’m not sure I do, Gran,” she says.
“I know, darling.” I pat her hand. “But you will by the time we get to Florence.”
“And how does he feel about having me underfoot all summer?”
“He can’t wait for us to arrive.” In fact, his last words before we hung up were, Please hurry. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.
“I wonder if he remembers saying almost the exact same words to me, the first time we said goodbye,” I murmur. “Probably not. Men don’t usually recall such things, and so much has happened since then. But I remember the moment so vividly that I’m breaking out in goose bumps.”
“Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Gran,” Carly says.
“But I do,” I tell her. “How else can I make you understand?”
She shrugs, and I know she won’t easily forgive what she sees as a betrayal of her family. Steeling myself, I begin….
O N MY LAST NIGHT in Florence, he was waiting for me at our usual place, near the main door to Santa Maria Novella. A high summer moon glimmered over the black-and-white marble facade of the old church, and laid patterns of light on the deserted flagstones of the piazza.
Hearing my footsteps, he stepped out of the shadows and without a word took me in his arms. I sank against him, imprinting in my mind the solid feel of his body, the scent of his skin, the taste of his mouth on mine, because they were all I’d have to sustain me during the months we’d be apart.
In the morning, my aunt, cousin and I would board the train for Paris, on the first part of the long trip to Southampton, where the Queen Mary was scheduled to cross the Atlantic on August 30. “And not a moment too soon,” my aunt had fussed as she supervised the packing of our travel trunks. “The sooner we’re away from this benighted continent and all its troubles, the better.”
“How do I let you go, amore mio? ” Marco murmured, burying his face in my hair.
The tears I’d sworn I wouldn’t let fall clogged my voice. “It’s only for a little while.” For as long as it takes me to overcome my parents’ objections, I added silently, knowing they’d resist any idea of my marrying a foreigner, let alone one I’d known so briefly, but resolved that nothing would dissuade me from returning to Florence before year’s end. “I’ll write to you every day.”
“And I to you,” he promised. “Not an hour will pass that I won’t be thinking of you and preparing for our life together.”
After that, we wasted no more time talking. Clasping hands, we hurried along the darkened streets to our special place, the room he’d taken above a bookshop not far from the Ponte Vecchio. Although I’d done my best to brighten it with fresh flowers and candles, I suppose, to anyone else’s eyes, it didn’t have much to recommend it. But to us, living as we did for the hours when we could close the door on the rest of the world, it had the only things that really mattered—privacy and a bed intended for one, but shared by two.
I was not so naive that I hadn’t learned how babies were made and what children were called if their parents weren’t married. I knew the stigma such children bore throughout their lives. Yet even armed with all this information, I had given myself to Marco within a week of meeting him, so certain was I that our lives would be forever intertwined. Abandonment, deceit, acts of God or nature or mankind, lay so far outside our realm of possibility that they had no bearing on us.
As I explain that, Carly shakes her head incredulously. “And you never doubted him? It never occurred to you that once you’d left, he’d find someone else?”
“Never.”
We were touched with a special magic that lifted us above the rest. Convinced that ours was a love so powerful that nothing could destroy it, I had ventured so far beyond the boundaries of propriety that, had I been discovered, I’d have been ruined. A social outcast, ostracized by “nice” girls and their families.
That’s what we were in those days, I tell her. “Girls,” paraded before suitable young men and taken by the highest bidder. And our chastity, along with our bloodlines, determined how much we were worth. Not until we sent out engraved cards announcing that Mrs. Charles So-and-So is at home, followed by the date and a prestigious address, were we entitled to call ourselves “women.”
No pedestrian Mrs. for me, though. I would be Signora Marco Paretti, wife of the well-known, well-respected architect. I would live in Fiesole, the hilltop town north of Florence, in a house my husband had designed especially for us and our children.
All this and more comprised my future. For now, though, we had just this one night together in our secret hideaway, and then we’d have to say goodbye.
As soon as I stepped into the room, I saw that Marco had been there earlier. Freesias were arranged in the vase which, previously, had held daisies. Rose petals lay scattered over the bed. A bottle of Chianti and two glasses stood on the small table under the window.
“Tonight we make memories which will carry us through the coming weeks,” Marco whispered, content for the moment to hold my hands and look into my eyes.
I started to cry, the beauty of the moment, of his love for me, colliding horribly with the desolation filling my soul. He pulled me close. I realized then that he was crying, too. Great, silent, helpless shudders racked his body.
We clung to each other blindly, and the heat of desire fed on our emotions and burned away everything but the need to fuse our bodies, our hearts, our minds, to give to each other everything we were, everything we had.
We held back nothing. We simply loved each other, deeply, intimately. I heard myself moan and beg in ways that, before, would have left me too embarrassed ever to face him again.
But not that night. That night, I was shameless in my greed. Nothing lay beyond the pale for either of us. Touching, tasting, scrutinizing inch by inch, using words never uttered in polite society—such were the means by which we stitched together the love that had to be strong enough to survive separation.
Not that I share such intimate details with my granddaughter, of course. They belong to Marco and me.
Too soon, first light filtered through the open window. We dressed, fumbling with our clothes as if we could delay the inevitable. But there was no postponing time. A nearby church sounded five o’clock. In four hours, the taxi would come to take my aunt, my cousin and me to the train station. By the next afternoon, I would be in England; a week from then, in America, with over three thousand miles separating me from him.
At the door, I turned for one last glimpse of our hideaway. At the crushed rose petals and the tangle of sheets on the bed. At the half-empty bottle of Chianti. At the freesias perfuming the room with their scent. I knew then that I would never again smell roses or freesias, never again taste the red wine of Tuscany, and not be assailed by the poignant sadness of that moment.
When I returned to our pensione, Genevieve snuck down to let me in. “You’re cutting it fine,” she scolded. “Momma’s up already. You’re lucky she didn’t knock on our door to make sure we’re awake.” Then, seeing that I’d been crying, she hugged me and said, “Don’t mind me, Anna. You’re back now, and she’s none the wiser. Come and wash your face with cold water, or she’ll wonder why your eyes are so red.”
Her kindness started my tears flowing again. “It nearly killed me to leave him, Genevieve.”
“Don’t dwell on that,” she said briskly. “Instead concentrate on when you’ll see him again.”
“Months from now,” I wailed, stumbling over our luggage.
In fact, I saw him just a few hours later, at the railroad station. I was about to board our train when I felt a hand at my elbow. “ Posso aiutarla, signorina? May I help you?”
For a moment, I closed my eyes, afraid I was hallucinating. But the warmth in his voice, in his touch, were all too real and left me trembling. “Thank you,” I stammered. “Grazie.”
“Prego.” Marco squeezed my arm in secret intimacy, smiled into my eyes, and in a low voice added, “ Ti amo, la mia bella. Hurry back. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.”
“Thank you, young man. We can manage quite well,” my aunt declared, regarding him suspiciously from the top step into the train.
“Si, signora. Buon viaggio.”
“What was that about?” she sniffed, when we’d found our seats.
“He wished us a safe journey, that’s all,” Genevieve replied for me, because I couldn’t speak. I was too busy pressing my nose to the window and watching him fade into the distance as the train pulled out of the station.
Aunt Patricia hoisted her bosom into place. “Foreigners! I don’t trust them one iota. You girls might be sorry to leave Europe behind, but I can’t wait to set foot on American soil again.”
The grand tour had come to an end, and so had my idyll. As the train thundered north through Switzerland and into France, rumblings of war brought me back to a reality unlike anything I’d experienced before. Suddenly Marco’s political leanings, which he’d hinted at in passing and then casually, as if they were of no great consequence, assumed a frightening dimension.
I recalled that he and his father were outspoken critics of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator and that sometimes, on those evenings when he wasn’t with me, Marco attended partisan rallies. I might have been shielded from much of the news, but even I recognized that although the sun shone on Florence and turned the River Arno into a swath of blue silk flowing smoothly under the city’s bridges, a dark underbelly existed beneath the ancient calm of the Uffizi and Pitti Palace.
“Well, no need to make yourself sick over that,” Genevieve told me, as the boat train approached Southampton. “If you must find something to keep you awake at night, worry about Hitler.”
But optimist though she was, Genevieve couldn’t help noticing the subdued atmosphere aboard the Queen Mary any more than I could. The luxury remained intact, but the laughter flowed less freely, and the young men who’d previously flirted with us on the dance floor now assumed a more solemn bearing.
“It’s not very promising over there,” they said, referring to the way events were shaping up in Germany. “They’ll be up to their necks in it before much longer.”
Over there. Synonymous with Europe and war, the term was on everyone’s lips, echoing along the Promenade Deck and infiltrating such exclusive retreats as the Verandah Grill. She tried to hide it, but Genevieve wasn’t immune to its aura of foreboding. “Not that we have anything to worry about,” she insisted when the Statue of Liberty rose up against the skyline and the tugs towed our ship to its berth in New York harbor. “Regardless of what happens over there, America won’t be involved.”
But Italy might be, I thought fearfully.
My parents were waiting at the dock. “We’re so relieved to have you home,” my mother cried, enveloping me in a hug that squeezed the breath from my lungs. “Your father and I have been frantic these past few days. We were so afraid you’d be stranded in England.”
“That wouldn’t have happened,” Aunt Patricia said. “I kept our passports and tickets on my person at all times.”
“But you must have heard,” my father told us gravely. “This was likely the Queen Mary’ s final run as a commercial passenger ship. On September first, just a day after you set sail from Southampton, Germany invaded Poland. On the third, Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany.”
The news had reached us, but we hadn’t wanted to believe it. Unutterably dismayed, I asked, “How long before it’s over?”
He shook his head. “Who’s to say? It could be months—or years. It all depends on that madman, Hitler, and how soon they’re able to put a stop to him over there.”
Over there… Marco was over there, and I was here.
“You look faint, darling,” my mother said, stroking my face lovingly. “Were you seasick?”
“No,” I managed to say. “It’s the shock of hearing that countries we just visited are at war—except for Italy. It’s not involved, is it?”
“Not yet,” my father said. “But I suspect it will be, before long. Thank God you’re home safe is all I can say. For your mother and me, the worst is over.”
But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Although I couldn’t begin to guess its extent, the worst was yet to come….
“If talking about it upset you, Gran, you don’t have to go on,” Carly says urgently, but I shake my head, knowing I must because I’m caught up in a web of memories that won’t let me go.
“You have a letter from Italy, Anna,” my mother announced, one morning when I came down to breakfast. She flipped over the envelope, checking for a return address. “From an M. Paretti. Someone you met over there, obviously.”
“Yes,” I said, studiously avoiding her gaze. “A friend. We promised we’d keep in touch.”
I’d been home nearly two weeks. Although the skies remained clear, the days were growing shorter, the nights cooler and the maples turning color. Fall had always been my favorite season, until this year when each hour was a purgatory to be endured.
Every day, the news from Europe grew more ominous. On September 10, Canada had joined the Allies. The war had reached North American shores, after all. But Italy was still uninvolved, and the sight of that flimsy blue envelope with its foreign stamp, the first from Marco, sent such a wash of relief over me that I thought I might be sick.
My mother watched me, smiling. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Later.” I moved away, busying myself with the dishes our housekeeper had set on the sideboard in the breakfast room. “After I’ve eaten.”
But the bacon and hotcakes turned my stomach. “I hardly call that eating,” my father remarked, eyeing my slice of toast and cup of coffee as he rose from the table. “What happened to your appetite?”
“I’m not very hungry lately.”
“That’s not normal for a girl your age.” He paused long enough to drop a kiss on my head and another on my mother’s cheek. “Perhaps you should take her to see Dr. Grant, Isabelle. Could be she needs a tonic.”
“Your father’s right,” my mother observed after he’d gone. “Lately you’re not yourself at all, Anna. You’re pale and listless. I hope you didn’t pick up some sort of disease when you were away.”
For a moment, I was tempted to tell her that I had, and it was fatal—that I’d fallen desperately in love with a handsome Italian and was heartsick at being separated from him.
“Travel can be exhausting,” she continued sympathetically. “Your aunt Patricia remarked just yesterday that she’s still not back to normal. She mentioned, too, that you tired easily when you were away, even though you and Genevieve were never late getting to bed. I suppose, if the truth be known, the pair of you spent half the night talking when you should’ve been sleeping, and now it’s catching up with you.”
“That’s probably it,” I mumbled, ashamed not that I’d spent so many nights in Marco’s arms, but that I was lying about it and perhaps hiding an even bigger secret, one that would devastate her should my suspicions prove correct. “Don’t worry, Momma. There really isn’t anything wrong with me that time won’t cure.” In a fever of impatience to read my letter, I added with false cheer, “I’m sure you have a million things to do besides watching me eat toast, so don’t feel you have to keep me company.”
“Then I won’t, because you’re right. I do have a full day ahead. Will you be home for lunch?”
“No. I’m meeting Genevieve at the yacht club.”
“I’ll see you at dinner then. Have fun, honey, and give her a kiss for me.”
The door had barely closed behind her when I used my butter spreader to slit open the pale blue envelope. My pulse hammered erratically as I extracted the folded sheets of paper and smoothed them flat. Did he still love me? Had distance made his heart grow fonder, or was I fading in his mind now that I was out of sight?
I OPEN THE FOLDER on the table in front of me, extract the first page of the letter and show it to Carly. Then I begin to read:
Firenze
September 4, 1939
Anna, my love,
It has only been a few days since I watched the train to Paris take you away from me, but even in so short a time, the world as we knew it is forever changed. The war people have talked about for months has finally come to pass and I, who should fear for the future of my own country more than ever before, care only about you.
How glad I am, tesoro, that you are safe in America. Yet how lonely I am without you. I consider myself a brave enough man, prepared to fight for what I believe is right and just, but courage is no match for the desolation I feel at knowing we shall be apart much longer than we expected.
Adolf Hitler has changed the face of Europe. Even if it was possible, you must not think of returning to Italy until he and his Nazi thugs have been crushed. The danger is too great. To live without you a few months more than I expected will be difficult. To risk living without you forever, impossible. You have become my life, and I ask nothing more of God than for the day to come when I wake up beside you every morning, and hold you close in my arms each night.
The news here is disturbing, amore mio. Only the most naive among us believe that Mussolini has our country’s best interests at heart. He is corrupt and evil. If he can further his own ambitions by allying himself with Adolf Hitler, he will do so without a moment’s thought for the ultimate cost to Italy. Those opposed to his regime no longer have the right to voice their opinions openly. In the last week alone, one of our group here in Firenze was “interrogated” by government officials for eight hours. He is recovering in hospital. A second has been thrown in prison. Two others have disappeared. Consequently our partisan rallies now take place in secret.
I am desolate at what all this implies, but as long as you are safe, my memories of you will help me survive whatever restrictions or hardships I must face. If my English were more fluent, I might find it easier to express the depth of emotion you inspire in me. But it is not, and so all I can say is I love you, my Anna. I miss you. And I count the hours until we can be together again. Until then, know that I carry you deep in my heart. You are with me always.
Forever yours,
Marco
“I devoured every word that day, Carly,” I tell her, tracing my finger over each letter, as if, by doing so, I could touch him. “I realized I was crying when my tears blurred the ink and left great wet spots on the paper. Look, Carly.” I point at several places. “All these years later, you can see how faded some words are.”
She bends her head close to look. Nods. Touches the paper, ever so softly.
“I was so afraid for him,” I continue, “but I believed in him. He was brave and strong, he was alive, and most of all, he loved me still. I told myself that as long as those things remained constant, it would be enough.”
Carly covers my hand with hers. “But it wasn’t, was it, Gran?”
“No, it wasn’t, because nothing remains constant in war except death and destruction, not merely of cities and innocent men, women and children, but of the hopes and dreams of those who somehow manage to survive.”
CHAPTER FOUR
A S S EPTEMBER of 1939 progressed, mellow with sunshine during the day and sharp with a hint of frost at night, Marco and I wrote daily, without waiting for each other’s replies. But where I hid my fears, especially the one I had increasing reason to think was the legacy of our weeks together, and filled my letters with plans for our future, his took an increasingly dark turn.
Sifting through my letters, I choose one to illustrate my point.
There is a stillness here in Firenze, he wrote toward the end of the fourth week. A sort of calm before the storm. Mussolini’s Blackshirts are on every street corner, watchful for any hint of insurrection. Their motto, Me ne frego, means I do not give a damn, and its message begins to make itself felt in every quarter. As a result, neighbors keep to themselves and are careful in what they say. Doors open cautiously after dark to admit a stealthy visitor, and close quickly again, before he can be recognized. Shutters are drawn across windows.
Hitler’s influence is felt ever more keenly in our country. The fellow who lives on the floor above mine, a Jewish scholar and a gentle, harmless man, was taken by the Blackshirts two days ago. There has been no word of him since and when a friend went to inquire for him at militia headquarters, he was warned not to interfere in matters of the state unless he, too, wished to jeopardize his liberty. Once upon a time, I believed that all a man needed to direct the course of his own destiny was honor, integrity and the courage to stand by his ideals. I no longer believe these are enough. We are learning to keep our heads down and confide only in trusted friends—although, sadly, they, too, sometimes betray us for sins either real or imagined. Even to you, my dearest love, I dare not speak too freely of my activities, for fear that my letter might fall into the wrong hands. All I can say without reservation is that I love you with my whole heart and that will never change, no matter what comes next.
…no matter what comes next… These words filled me with a festering dread made worse by the fact that, as October dragged by with its blasts of cold rain, his letters grew less frequent and ever more somber. They almost prepared me for the shocking news that his father, an influential Florentine businessman and outspoken critic of Mussolini’s repressive Fascist regime, had been executed on September 30.
Knowing how close he and his father had been, I ached for Marco and longed to hold him in my arms and comfort him with my love. Instead I had to be content with written words which, however much I tried, never adequately conveyed all that lay in my heart. I tried to hide how afraid I was for him, but the possibility that he might follow his father’s fate was never far from my mind.
“What happened to Signor Paretti is horrible, but Marco will see it for the warning it is, and not take any chances with his own safety,” Genevieve said, when I confided my fears to her. “He’s got too much to live for. After all, he’s got you.”
Brian, the one other person who knew of my love affair, also did his best to comfort me. Although he was attending Rhode Island College in Kingston during the week, working on his graduate degree in mathematics, he came home most weekends and always made a point of calling on me and inviting me to take long walks with him.
Loyal friend that he was, he let me unburden myself without fear of being overheard. Our parents, though, misinterpreting his motives, exchanged pleased glances and smiled in tacit approval of what they perceived to be his courtship.
“This war won’t last forever, Anna. Everything’ll return to normal once it’s over, you’ll see,” he consoled me one brisk, windy day toward the end of the month.
I wished I could believe him, but my life was spinning out of control, and for me “normal” was as much a part of my past as my innocence. Marco’s infrequent letters were my anchor during those dark days, the one tenuous link that saved me from absolute despair.
When they suddenly ceased and my last letter to him was returned, with No longer at this address scrawled in Italian across the envelope, I was in despair. Despite the risk of arousing my parents’ curiosity, if not their outright suspicion, I sent a telegram to Rudolfo Nesta, Marco’s good friend and colleague whom I’d met once or twice in Florence, begging him for news.
His reply came two days later, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.
When the telegram boy arrived on his bike, Brian and I were at the foot of the long driveway leading from my home to the road, so we were able to intercept him before he reached the front door. Hands shaking, I tore at the yellow envelope, desperate to get at what lay inside. Praying it was good news, perhaps even a message from Marco himself telling me not to worry and that all was well. And if neither of those things, then at least a sliver of hope—anything except what it took me seconds to read. To this day, I remember every word.
Two weeks ago Blackshirts invaded house where Marco spent evening with companions STOP None seen or heard from since STOP Fear the worst STOP Regret being bearer of bad news STOP Rudolfo STOP
I remember crying out and my legs giving way, then knew nothing until I found myself sitting on a fallen log, several yards along a tree-shaded path that led to the greenhouses at the rear of our property. A seagull’s forlorn cry broke the silence. The air smelled of damp and dying things. Overhead, the leaves on the maples gleamed red as blood.
“Your grandfather crouched beside me, Carly, one arm around my shoulders, the telegram in his other hand. I looked at him, wanting reassurance, wanting him to tell me, in that calm, rational manner of his, that I shouldn’t assume the worst. I wanted him to give me the hope I couldn’t find for myself.”
He had none to offer. His blue eyes bruised with pain, he said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Anna.”
“Oh, Gran!” Carly’s voice quavers with genuine sympathy. “You must’ve been heartbroken.”
“Yes. But some grief, I learned that day, defies outward expression,” I tell her. It simply consumes, orchestrating a person to its own merciless rhythm of silent, roaring blackness. Tears might have offered a blessed, albeit temporary, relief but my eyes remained dry. My mind flash-froze, emblazoned with Rudolfo’s message. For a while, I felt neither the chill fall air on my face, nor the warm clasp of Brian’s hand. The only part of me unaffected was my damnable heart which continued to function, denying the release I craved from this living hell.
I have no idea how long we sat there. An hour or more, I suspect, because the light had started to dim under the trees when Brian stirred and, chafing my hands between his palms, murmured, “Tell me what can I do, Anna.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Go home. Let me be.”
I didn’t add, I want to die, but he read my mind all too accurately.
“Anything but that,” he said, and drew me to my feet. “Let’s walk for a while. You can’t face your parents in your present state.”
Back then, we lived close by Easton’s Pond where swans and mallards drifted serenely, untouched by human tragedy. A ten-minute stroll along its banks led to The Cliff Walk, with its magnificent views of the Atlantic. Dangerous in places, with sheer drops to the rocks below, it was not a place for the unwary—or the hopelessly bereft. Mindful of that, Brian stationed himself between me and the edge and kept my arm firmly tucked beneath his.
Clouds had rolled in, leaving the sky a sullen gunmetal-gray except for a streak of gold where the sun had set. The wind was strong, whipping the waves to an angry froth as they hurtled toward shore. It made the breath snag in my throat and stung the tears suddenly dripping down my face.
Noticing, Brian stopped and, without a word, turned me toward him and buried my face in his shoulder. The rough tweed of his jacket muffled my sobs and soaked up my tears. I didn’t care if other people passed by and recognized us in the fading light. The world Marco and I had created was no more, and nothing else mattered.
Brian stood there patiently until the worst had passed, then took a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped my face. “Do you want me to take you home, honey?”
“No,” I said, on an exhausted hiccup. “I can’t, not yet. I have to think about…”
About what to do next.
“To Genevieve’s, then?”
I clutched at the idea as if it were a life preserver. Genevieve was my soul sister, and I’d never needed her more than I did at that moment. She’d met Marco, had seen how he cherished me. He was more than just a name to her. He had a face, a smile, a voice, a laugh. She’d understand. But…“What if she’s not home and Aunt Patricia sees us? She’ll guess I’ve been crying. What do I tell her?”
“Good point. We’ll go to that small hotel on Bridge Street. I’ll phone her, and if she’s home, get her to meet us there.”
We left Cliff Walk at Narragansett Avenue and went into the town proper, entering the hotel lobby to call Genevieve. She arrived a short while later in the family’s chauffeur-driven Packard. Flinging her arms around me in a tight hug, she said, “I stopped by to tell your parents we decided to meet for dinner and not to expect you home until later.”
We were shown to a quiet table in the corner of the dimly lit dining room. A blessing, because seeing each other had us both in tears, and Brian’s hands were full coping with us. He ordered a meal only he tackled with any appetite. Genevieve picked at her chicken breast, and I barely touched my poached fish.
“You have to eat, Anna,” she scolded, when I pushed aside my plate. “You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t, and Marco would never want that.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s what you said at lunch, the other day. Remember?”
How could I forget, when I’d been sick to my stomach for days? But I’d tried hard to deny the reason for my nausea in the hope that, if my suspicions were correct, Marco and I would deal with it together. I knew now that that would never happen.
My despair must have shown on my face because Genevieve leaned across the table and pinned me with a probing gaze. “There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?”
I couldn’t carry the burden alone a moment longer. “I think I’m pregnant,” I blurted out, finally giving words to the misgivings that had haunted me for weeks.
Brian sat as if he’d been turned to stone. But Genevieve closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “I was afraid that was it. Oh, Anna, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever you decide, you can count on us.” She fixed a fierce hazel glare on Brian. “Can’t she?”
“Every step of the way.” Slowly he rubbed his jaw, a habit that meant his mind was sorting through the facts and establishing priorities. “Had you told Marco?”
I shook my head, enough to send yet more tears splashing down my face. “I wanted to be sure before I said anything. He was already dealing with so much….”
“Don’t cry, sweetie.” Drawing her chair closer to mine, Genevieve gripped my hand. “There are things we can do. A girl at school—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start assuming the worst,” Brian interrupted. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, Anna. What you think are symptoms of a baby on the way might be nothing more than stress. Have you seen a doctor?”
“No,” I wailed.
“Then that’s the logical next step.”
“I can’t go to Dr. Grant. He’s known me all my life.” I gulped, the enormity of my plight hitting home with a vengeance. “I’m still a minor. He’d have to tell my parents.”
Their treasured only child pregnant out of wedlock? It would kill them!
“We’ll find another doctor,” Genevieve said, doing her best to shore up my spirits. “We’ll go to another town where no one will recognize us.”
But the news from Italy, coupled with my certainty that I hadn’t mistaken my symptoms, left me past all hope. “Where?” I whimpered.
“Wakefield,” Brian announced. “It’s just a few miles down the road from Kingston. We have a Visitors’ Day at the college on Tuesday, and I was going to ask if the two of you wanted to come.”
Genevieve frowned. “But won’t your mother and father be there?”
“No. This is mostly for younger people—a chance for us to show off what we’re up to and for future students to have a look around and see what the place has to offer. The instructors make themselves available in the morning, and we’re expected to direct visitors to the lecture halls, but there’s a football game in the afternoon. No one’s going to miss me if I don’t show up for that.”
“And a doctor?”
“There’s bound to be one in Wakefield. Let me set up an appointment and you concentrate on getting there. You shouldn’t have any problem, now that regular bus service runs from Newport. Tell me when you’ll be getting in and I’ll meet you.”
Genevieve eyed me apprehensively. “Three more days. Think you can hold on that long, Anna?”
What she meant was, could I go through the motions and continue fooling my parents into believing all was well with me when, in fact, my heart was breaking and my future loomed blacker than night.
“I have to,” I said. “They don’t deserve this.”
But if the doctor confirmed what I instinctively knew to be the case, I was merely postponing the inevitable. Eventually, either I’d have to tell them the truth or my body would do it for me.
T OO IMMERSED in grief and worry to care about practicalities, I followed blindly as Genevieve and Brian steered me through the ordeal of the medical appointment on Tuesday afternoon. A borrowed wedding ring and a bogus husband was all it took.
“Wexley,” Brian stated firmly when the nurse at the desk asked our name. “Mr. and Mrs. Brian Wexley. My wife has a three-o’clock appointment with Dr. Reese.”
I cringed at yet another lie designed to shield me from the consequences of my rash behavior. Genevieve had “borrowed” her late grandmother’s plain gold ring from her mother’s jewelry case, and it hung around the third finger of my left hand like a lead weight. My cousin’s last words, before Brian and I entered the small clinic, had been, “Stop looking so furtive. They’ll think you’re Rhode Island’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde!”
But that infamous pair had been killed in 1934. A vastly preferable state, I thought morosely, to the one in which I now found myself. A kind of numbness had carried me through the last couple of days, but it was wearing thin as the moment of truth approached.
Within minutes, the nurse beckoned to me. “Dr. Reese will see you first, Mrs. Wexley. Your husband may join you later.”
The indignity of what came next—me stripped naked and covered by a white sheet, my feet nesting in cold metal stirrups, my legs spread wide, and a man I’d never seen before probing at my body—mortified me, but what couldn’t be avoided had to be endured, and all too soon the verdict was in.
“About nine weeks along, I’d say,” the doctor informed me, restoring my modesty by pulling the sheet over me before turning to the door. “Get dressed, my dear, then we’ll pass the good news to your husband and discuss the regimen I’d like you to follow over the next several months.”
An hour later, as I sat in a tearoom, flanked by my friends, it struck me how seriously they’d compromised their own reputations in order to preserve mine. Brian, especially, had taken a huge risk. “You gave them your real name,” I gasped, horrified.
The hint of a smile touched his mouth. “I felt ‘Smith’ didn’t possess quite enough cachet.”
“But they’ll assume you’re the baby’s father!”
“Yes.”
“What about you?” Genevieve asked me. “How do you feel, now that the pregnancy’s confirmed, I mean?”
“Torn. Overwhelmed.” I dreaded what lay ahead. I could no longer put off the inevitable. My parents would have to be told. If they didn’t disown me, they’d send me away to give birth in secret, then insist I have the baby adopted. But this was all I had left of Marco. How could I ever part with this child?
“You don’t have to go through with the pregnancy, you know,” Genevieve said in a low voice. “There are certain…clinics in New York or Boston where people in your situation can be helped. It’s a matter of finding the right name—”
“No,” Brian interrupted flatly. “They’re illegal and unsafe. Women die in those places.”
She rounded on him, concern for me making her shrill. “You have a better idea, do you?”
“Yes. Anna and I will get married.”
Dumbfounded, I stared at him. “You can’t be serious!”
“Why not? We’re both single and unattached. My prospects are good. I’m twenty-four and ready to settle down, and you need a husband. No doubt people will talk and add up dates when your condition becomes obvious, but they’ll assume the baby’s mine and that’s what matters. Based on our lifelong friendship and the fondness we have for each other, I’d say that all adds up to a pretty compelling reason to plan a wedding as soon as possible.”
I pause in my story, turning to Carly. “He was offering me an easy solution, and the temptation to take him up on it was huge. Although he was nothing like Marco, your grandfather, Carly, was the sort of man any woman would be proud to call her husband, and believe me when I say I was well aware of that fact. He was tall, strong and good-looking. An avid sailor, crack golfer and former high school basketball star. More than that, he was kind and generous and intelligent.”
She nods mutely and I go on.
We shared a similar background, Brian and I, and if I’d never spent a summer in Italy, I might very well have married him anyway. But “I can’t let you do this,” I protested. “You don’t deserve to be smeared with my scandal.”
“Does your baby deserve to be labeled a bastard, Anna? Consider that before you turn me down.”
His observation brought home the wider implications of my situation. Those other options—an illegal abortion, or adoption—were out of the question. How could I deny my baby, when his father had taught me that nothing is shameful or forbidden in the expression of true love? Yet to subject a child to the shame of illegitimacy was equally unacceptable.
Still, I made one last stab at resistance. “What about our parents? Won’t they be suspicious?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Brian said with a laugh. “They’ve already got us halfway down the aisle. They’ll be happy to push us the rest of the way.”
“It would be the ideal solution,” Genevieve murmured.
Brian squeezed my hand. “And definitely best for the baby.”
Suddenly, from the ashes of my dreams, a tiny miracle presented itself. Part of Marco was growing inside me. I owed it to him to give his child the best possible life, and because of Brian’s generosity and decency, I was in a position to do so.
“You don’t have to decide right away,” he said, taking my silence for uncertainty. “Think it over, and let me know when I come home on the weekend.”
But making up my mind on the spot, I said, “I don’t need to wait that long. I’ll marry you, Brian, and I promise you now that you’ll never regret it. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”
His smile suggested I’d done him the world’s biggest favor. No one watching would have guessed that ours would be a marriage of convenience. “Then start making plans. I’ll speak to your father on Saturday.”
I never learned exactly what transpired between my father and Brian that next weekend. They remained in the library quite a while, their voices an indistinct rumble beyond the thick oak door. But by Sunday, I was wearing an engagement ring and that night, our two families celebrated our upcoming wedding with dinner at the yacht club.
Thankfully my nausea wasn’t too severe, and I wasn’t showing yet. My clothes, though, didn’t fit as easily as they once had and if I didn’t want to be escorted down the aisle with my burgeoning midriff half-hidden behind a massive bouquet, we had little time to lose.
“We thought two weeks from now, on the seventh of November,” Brian said, when asked about a wedding date.
“But that’s far too soon!” my mother objected. “Why, I’m not sure we can even get a decent wedding dress by then, let alone a place to hold a reception. What’s the rush?”
“The holiday season’s coming up, and that’s always busy,” he explained. Then, with charming diffidence added, “And I’m an impatient groom. I don’t want to wait until the new year. Anna might change her mind about taking me on as a husband.”
“We’d prefer something quiet and intimate anyway,” I said, playing my part as eager bride. “With the situation in Europe as bad as it is, a big, splashy wedding seems rather tasteless.”
I’d effectively shifted attention away from us and back to the ever-present topic of the war. “You’ve got a point,” my future father-in-law agreed. “It’s just a matter of time before America’s in the thick of it, so you might as well enjoy yourselves while you still can.”
I substituted an aquamarine silk suit with a matching hat for the long white gown and bridal veil I’d always imagined I’d wear on my wedding day. Genevieve, in dove-gray, was my only attendant.
Brian and I were married in my parents’ drawing room, in front of a handful of guests, with a pale November sun shining through the windows. After a champagne lunch, he and I slipped away for a two-day honeymoon in Connecticut.
Ironically I was able to continue as Dr. Reese’s patient because, for a wedding present, our parents bought us the house in Wakefield. We were very lucky. If they had questions about the haste with which Brian and I had rushed into marriage, they chose not to say them aloud. We were, to all intents and purposes, a blissfully happy couple, beginning a long life together. No one but Brian knew how often I cried myself to sleep at night.
CHAPTER FIVE
A FLIGHT ATTENDANT came by to spread linen place mats over their tables and offer drinks. “They’re getting ready to serve dinner, Gran, and you’re losing your voice,” Carly said, glad of an excuse to halt the story before she said something she’d regret.
Her earlier resentment had come flooding back, burying any fledgling sympathy she’d felt for Anna’s blighted love affair. Her grandpa Brian was a hero in his own right and deserved better than to be another man’s stand-in. As for Marco Paretti, he had a lot to answer for, seducing an innocent girl and leaving her pregnant. Anna might have been a virgin when they met, but Carly would bet her last dollar the same couldn’t be said about him. He was smooth, though; she’d grant him that.
“A glass of white wine, please,” she told the flight attendant. The mood she was in right then, she could have downed a whole bottle and it wouldn’t have numbed her indignation. How she was going to stomach a whole summer with the man who’d stolen her grandmother’s heart and served her grandfather the leftovers, she couldn’t imagine.
But the in-flight meal couldn’t last forever, and before long Anna was rooting through her stack of letters, clearly impatient to pick up where she’d left off.
Resigned, Carly settled in for the next installment.
I HIDE A SMILE , aware that I haven’t made a fan of my granddaughter quite yet. The mutinous set of her mouth reminds me of her mother when she was a teenager.
“I’d discovered a gem in Brian,” I begin.
Although unfailingly tender with me, not once during those first few weeks did he press me to consummate our marriage. My health and the well-being of my baby were his primary concerns. Gradually, though, acceptance of what I couldn’t change softened the raw edges of my grief a little, and by Christmas I was prompted by both guilt and gratitude to become in fact the wife I was in name. Difficult though it might be, I knew I’d have to make the first overtures.
Our house looked very festive, with a large wreath on the front door, a Norfolk pine in the living room and evergreen swags along the mantelpieces. On Christmas Eve, after we’d placed our gifts under the tree, we went upstairs and, as was our habit, prepared for bed separately in the privacy of the bathroom. Neither of us had ever seen the other naked. That night, though, instead of putting on my usual flannel nightgown with the long sleeves and high neck, I appeared in the bedroom wearing the silky, rather naughty gown Genevieve had given me as part of my trousseau. By then I was well into my sixteenth week, and despite the tragedy that had marked its beginning, pregnancy agreed with me. My skin glowed and my hair fell thick and lustrous to my shoulders. Genevieve’s gift was made for a woman with the kind of lush curves I now possessed.
Brian was already in bed, reading with the pillows propped at his back, but when he glanced up and saw me, the book fell from his hands and slid to the floor.
Climbing in beside him, I placed my hand on his chest. “You seem surprised,” I said—a vast understatement, considering he was almost glassy-eyed with shock, “but it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”
A somewhat ambiguous invitation, no doubt, but he understood what I was really saying. “Are you sure, Anna?”
Just briefly, the last time I’d made love nibbled at my mind before I managed to shut out the memory. “Very,” I said, and slowly undid the buttons on his pajama jacket. “You are my husband, Brian.”
Our lovemaking was slow and very sweet. He was nervous, and endearingly clumsy because of it. “I’ve never done this before,” he muttered, lifting the hem of my gown with trembling fingers.
I couldn’t say the same, but I wasn’t any sort of expert, either, so we stumbled on together, discovering each other in the dark because we were too bashful to leave the light on. And for the first time in my marriage—perhaps even in my entire life—I gave of myself unselfishly, caring more about pleasing someone else than my own needs.
After, we lay with our hands joined. “Merry Christmas,” I whispered.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Wexley,” he said. Then, after a pause, “How are you doing really? ”
For a moment I was tempted to take the question at face value and tell him I felt wonderful. But he wasn’t asking about our lovemaking, and if I had to identify the greatest strength in our marriage, it was that we never lied to each other. Now was not the time to start.
“Some days are better than others,” I admitted, “but it’s becoming easier, and I have you to thank for that. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll never have to find out, honey,” he said. “I want you to be happy again, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and it was true. That it wasn’t the same sort of love I’d known with Marco didn’t make it any less real.
He reached down and boldly stroked the slightly convex dome of my abdomen. “When are we going to come clean with our folks about this?”
We were spending Christmas Day with both families at his parents’ house. “Perhaps tomorrow would be appropriate—a sort of bonus gift. Apart from anything else, we can’t put off telling them much longer.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t already noticed,” Brian remarked.
But I’d been wearing concealing clothes, and also I wasn’t very big for four months, which had been a concern until Dr. Reese assured me there was no cause for alarm. Our parents probably attributed the reason I was blooming to our wedded bliss.
“Marriage must suit you,” my mother had commented just a few days before. “You lost so much weight and seemed so listless after you came back from Europe, and it’s good to see you looking more like your old self again. For a while, we were worried that you’d picked up some sort of ailment while you were in Europe.”
Would they immediately jump to a different conclusion when we shared the news? I wondered.
Echoing my question, Brian said, “The first thing they’ll ask is when the baby’s due.”
“I know.”
Approximately May 31, Dr. Reese had predicted. A scant six months after the wedding, which in itself could lead to unfortunate speculation about who the father might be, since I’d been on the other side of the world when I’d conceived.
“We don’t have to be too exact,” he suggested. “Let’s tell them you’re due in the summer and leave it at that. From all I’ve read, first babies especially don’t adhere to a rigid timetable. Just because we happen to know this one’s going to be born ahead of schedule doesn’t obligate us to share the news with anyone else. Once he puts in an appearance, the excitement of having a grandchild will be all our parents care about.”
“But they can count,” I said. “Sooner or later, they’ll figure out I was pregnant when we got married.”
“They’re probably already wondering, Anna, considering how we rushed the wedding, but I doubt they’ll be so crass as to make an issue of something they can do absolutely nothing about. If they do, though, I’m perfectly prepared to tell them it’s none of their business.”
One reason I loved my husband was that he took problems I tended to blow out of all proportion and put them in perspective. “This is one lucky baby, that he has you to look out for him,” I murmured sleepily.
He pulled me closer and tucked the covers more snugly around us. “It’s not a matter of luck. It’s about doing whatever you can for the people you care about.”
A S HE PREDICTED , our parents were thrilled at the idea of a grandchild, and if they were indeed suspicious about the timing, they chose to ignore it.
Once the news was out, the baby became the favorite topic of conversation, almost overshadowing the worsening situation in Europe. Our mothers vied to see who could knit faster, then joined forces on shopping sprees to Boston, coming home loaded with parcels. By February, I had enough infant clothes to outfit an orphanage. My parents bought the crib; Brian’s, the baby carriage. My father rescued from the attic the antique cradle I’d slept in as a newborn and applied a fresh coat of varnish.
Brian put in long days at the college during the early part of the new year, hoping to complete his studies by the end of the spring session. During the hours he was gone, I kept busy setting up the nursery and fulfilling my social obligations as a married woman.
Helped by my mother’s housekeeper, I learned to cook, and tried to have the evening meal prepared when Brian came home. We ate by candlelight, in the dining room, using our everyday china and silver-plate cutlery. On weekends, when we often entertained, I brought out the fine china and the sterling.
“Were you really happy during those early months, Gran?” Carly asks hopefully.
“In all honesty, darling girl, no, I was not. Too often at night, Marco stole in while I slept. My dreams—sometimes painful, sometimes glorious but always vivid—took me hostage. I relived those precious weeks we’d shared, hearing his voice, seeing his face. Some days, I’d wake up smiling and happy—until reality intruded and made me cry.”
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Catherine Spencer
The Past: It's 1939, and eighteen-year-old Anna meets Marco in Italy.They fall madly in love, a love she knows will last forever. Even though, within months, they're separated by war. Even though she's told that Marco is dead…. The Present: Anna, who'd entered into a marriage of convenience, is widowed, and so is Marco. Long after the war, she discovered that he'd survived.Now she wants to return to Italy, to Marco, for one final visit. The Future: Anna's adored granddaughter, Carly, accompanies her–and when Carly begins to fall for Marco's grandson, she wonders if they can have the life together their grandparents never could.
We met in Italy one summer day…
The menu at the bistro had overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguini covered with herb sauce wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for.
“No, grazie, ” I told the waiter, searching my little phrase book.
“ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”
I looked up and there he was: tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal, but not a salad. Just something small.”
“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale….
“And the next thing, he asked if he could join you,” my granddaughter said dryly.
“Actually, I asked him.”
“So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”
“About five minutes.”
“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”
“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”
Dear Reader,
When I was expecting my second child, my three-year-old daughter wanted to know if I’d still love her as much after the new baby was born. When I assured her I would, she asked, “But what if you don’t have enough?”
The Man from Tuscany is Anna and Marco’s story, and is about always having enough. The human heart has an infinite capacity for love in all its guises. It is not always convenient, often not easy and sometimes demands a terrible price from those who embrace it. But it binds us as wives, mothers, daughters, friends and lovers. It makes us fallible and gives us our humanity. As Anna says, “We don’t choose who or when to love, it chooses us.”
May it choose you.
With love,
Catherine Spencer
The Man from Tuscany
Catherine Spencer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Spencer is a former high school English teacher, and a multi-published author with Harlequin, mostly under the Presents imprint. Her books have been distributed in more than thirty-five countries and translated into over twenty languages. The Man from Tuscany is her first Harlequin Superromance book. She lives on Canada’s west coast with her husband and two adorable yellow Labrador retrievers. She has four children and eight grandchildren—an amazing achievement for a woman who’s still only thirty-nine! She loves to hear from her readers and may be contacted through her Web site at www.catherinespencer.com.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
S OMETHING was definitely amiss. Anna Wexley was a creature of habit, and asking Carly to drop everything and visit her on a weekday morning was a marked departure from the usual. A critical care nurse, Carly knew how precariously balanced her grandmother’s health was, and how little it would take to tip the scales against her. For that reason alone, she wasted no time driving out to Allendale House, the elegant old mansion that was now a retirement residence, where Anna had lived for the past several years.
At first glance, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No ambulance waited in the paved forecourt, and the French doors to her grandmother’s suite, directly above the building’s main entrance, stood ajar. A good sign, surely, on this warm June morning, because Anna loved sitting on her balcony, listening to the birds and enjoying the distant view of Block Island Sound.
Better yet, no sympathetic voices greeted Carly when she signed in at the front desk. Nor, when her grandmother answered her door, was there any overt hint of trouble. Anna had obviously visited the residence beauty salon earlier, and wore the pretty pleated skirt and white blouse Carly had given her the previous Christmas. With pearl studs in her ears and, as always, her gold filigree heart pendant, she looked remarkably well put-together for an eighty-three-year-old with a history of congestive heart failure. On closer examination, though, Carly saw that although her face lit up with pleasure at the sight of her granddaughter, Anna’s eyes glowed with a feverish agitation that was anything but normal.
Folding her in a careful hug, Carly said, “You seemed upset on the phone, Gran. Has something happened?”
“I suppose it has,” Anna replied tremulously. “Come sit on the balcony and have a glass of lemonade, while I try to explain.”
Following her outside, Carly urged her onto the wicker love seat, sat down next to her and pressed two fingers to her grandmother’s inner wrist. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Any difficulty breathing?”
“Not at all, darling girl. I’ve decided to go to Italy, that’s all, and I want you to make the travel arrangements.”
“Italy?” Subduing the impulse to blurt out At your age and in your state of health? Carly asked instead, “Why Italy, Gran?”
“There’s someone there I very much want to see.”
Instincts on high alert again, Carly inspected her critically. “Are you talking about a doctor?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” Her grandmother indicated a leather-bound scrapbook lying open on the wicker coffee table in front of her. “I want to visit him. ”
Carly scooped the book onto her lap, frowning at the grainy photograph of a man in his twenties. “Who’s he?”
Anna sighed and traced her forefinger over his features. “It would be easy for me to lie and say he’s just an old family friend, but I can’t bring myself to belittle what we’ve always meant to each other, so I’ll tell you the truth. He’s the great love of my life, Carly.”
This time, Carly couldn’t hide her shock. “But he can’t be. He’s not Grandpa!”
“No, precious, he’s not.”
Although she seemed in complete command of her faculties, Carly wondered if her grandmother was losing it. Had the distant and more recent past merged into one gauzy memory in which neither people nor time were clearly defined anymore? “This is an old photograph, Gran,” she pointed out gently. “Do you remember when it was taken?”
“Of course I do. Right before the outbreak of World War Two.”
“Ah! So what you’re really saying is, this man was your first love, but Grandpa was your real love.”
“Your grandfather was my husband and I was devoted to him, but not even he could take Marco’s place in my heart.”
“That name rings a bell. Didn’t he visit you once in England, when Mom was little?”
“Yes. He came all the way from Italy to be with me at a time when I desperately needed him.”
“Italy?”
“Well, yes, dear,” her grandmother said. “Why else do you think I want to go there? Marco lives in Tuscany.”
“Oh, Tuscany!” Carly shrugged disparagingly. “It’s such a cliché. Everyone goes there.”
“Not when I first met him. It hadn’t been discovered then. And we were never a cliché.”
“What were you, then?” She knew she sounded as defiant as a child who’d just learned Santa Claus wasn’t real, but she couldn’t help herself.
“We were…magnificent.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Carly chose the word deliberately, intending it as a belittlement of what her grandmother and this man had shared.
Anna shot her a reproving look. “Yes, I did. And made glorious love with him, too.”
“I thought that sort of behavior was frowned on back then. That girls from good families like yours saved themselves for their husbands. If he was so wonderful, why didn’t he marry you?”
“He would have, if—”
“If he’d loved you as much as you loved him?”
“Oh, he loved me, Carly. He adored me.”
Hating how she felt inside—betrayed somehow, and almost angry with her grandmother for shattering her illusions of one big, happy family—Carly spread her hands helplessly. “Was he already married, then? Was that the problem?”
“No. I was the problem.” Anna’s voice broke. “I didn’t have enough faith in us, and by the time I learned my mistake, it was too late.”
“Oh, Gran! Is he dead? Is it his grave you want to visit?”
Her grandmother shook her head, making her thinning white hair float delicately over her scalp. “No. Not that death changes the things that matter…the eternal things. One day, I’ll be with him forever, and with your grandfather, too. But before that, I want to hold his hand and look in his eyes once more, and tell him again how much I’ve always loved him.”
Carly watched her in silence, then glanced away. “I’ve always sensed there was some deep, dark secret that no one in the family ever talked about,” she said hollowly, “but not in a million years would I have guessed it was something like this.”
“Are you disappointed in me, Carly?”
She shrugged. “In some ways, I guess I am. You and Grandpa always seemed so solid. Mostly, though, I’m confused. Once or twice I’ve thought I was in love, but it didn’t last. But you and this Marco—how many years has it been, Gran?”
“Going on sixty-five.”
“How could you bear to be apart from him?”
“Sometimes I didn’t think I could. But then I’d think of what I’d have to give up in order to be with him—my dear Brian, my daughter and you, my beautiful granddaughter. And I couldn’t bear that, either, because I loved you. You bring me such joy, Carly, and I am so proud to be your grandmother. From the day you were born, we’ve had a special connection, one I treasure beyond price.”
“If he loved you as much as you say, he must have resented me for that.”
“No. Marco understood that, for as long as they needed me, my family had to come first.”
“And he went on loving you anyway?”
“Yes. Neither of us ever had a moment’s doubt about the other.”
“How do you recognize love when it comes along, Gran?”
“When it consumes you,” Anna said.
Intrigued despite herself, Carly took her hand. “Tell me about him, Gran. Make me understand.”
A breeze drifted over the balcony, scented with thyme and oregano from the herb garden. Anna closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. “I met him the summer I turned eighteen….”
“I WISH I WAS COMING with you,” my mother said, layering tissue paper over the clothes in my travel trunk before closing the lid. “But you and Genevieve are such good friends that you won’t miss me too much, and with my sister chaperoning, I know you’ll be in safe hands.”
It was July 6, 1939. My cousin, my aunt and I would take the train to New York the next day, and on the eighth, set sail aboard the Queen Mary for Southampton. Originally my mother had planned to make the trip, as well, but ten days earlier, my father had undergone an emergency appendectomy. So she’d decided to stay home to supervise his recovery.
At first, I’d wanted to beg off traveling, too. Seeing my strong, active father confined to a wheelchair and looking so wan had frightened me. But neither he nor my mother would hear of it.
“Of course you must go,” they said. “It’s expected of girls like you.”
My father, you see, was Hugh Edward Leyden, a respected lawyer; my mother, the former Isabelle Jacqueline Fontaine, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, active on the board of directors of the Rhode Island Junior League and a prominent Newport society hostess.
As I was their only child, they had great hopes for me to marry well and make them proud. In the 1930s, not a great deal else was required of privileged daughters. If they’d attended the right schools, knew which fork to use, were mannerly, had traveled abroad, could speak a little French or Italian and gave of their time to worthy causes, they were considered a credit to their families.
So there I was, poised to leave on a limited version of the grand tour. Normally we’d have visited several countries, among them Germany and Spain, but Europe was in turmoil and it was decided we were safer to confine ourselves to Italy. We were to “do” Florence, Venice, Milan and Rome, and finish with a few days in Paris if the political climate allowed. At the end of August, I would return home, my enduring passion for great art at least partially satisfied, my exposure to the rich and varied culture of Italy an added bonus to my already sterling pedigree.
The morning we left, our good friends and next-door neighbors, John and Elaine Wexley and their son, Brian, joined my parents on the front terrace to wave us on our way. Brian was twenty-four and home from college for the summer, but despite the six-year age difference between us, we’d been as close as brother and sister since childhood.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said, giving me a hug. “Have a wonderful trip, Anna, and stay safe.”
Saying goodbye to my family was a tearful business. My mother and I wept unashamedly. My father composed his features into such stern lines that I knew he, too, was struggling to keep his emotions in check.
“Ye gods, Anna!” Genevieve exclaimed, at last managing to pry me away from them and stuff me in the car that was to take us to the railroad station. “Anyone would think you were never coming home again. I hope you’re not going to weep your way across the Atlantic. I’m told life on board the Queen Mary is one long, glamorous party and I shall take great exception if you’re being dreary the whole time.”
I smile in reminiscence….
“And were you?” Carly asked. “Dreary, I mean?”
H ER GRANDMOTHER laughed. “Oh, no! The minute we boarded the ship, excitement replaced homesickness. We’d heard about the kind of comfort the Cunard Line offered its first-class passengers, but nothing could have prepared us for the luxury. It was said that no two staterooms were alike, and I well believe it. Ours was fitted with inlaid wood paneling and the most wonderful art-deco furnishings. Next door, Aunt Patricia was surrounded by such a wealth of elegance that she hardly ever ventured from her quarters except for meals—which fell in perfectly with Genevieve’s plans.”
“Genevieve must’ve been fun. I wish I’d known her.”
“My cousin was a hellion!” Anna said with fond nostalgia. “You won’t remember her, Carly. She died twenty-one years and three husbands ago, when you were only three, but even all these years later, I smile when I think of her on that ship. Half the crew and most of the male passengers were in love with her before we sailed out of New York. Before we reached Southampton, she’d turned down five marriage proposals and broken more hearts than all the other women onboard put together.”
“And what about you, Gran? How many proposals did you receive?”
Anna laughed again. “Oh, Carly, no one noticed me! I was merely the quiet cousin, pleasant enough in my way, but not nearly as vivacious or memorable as Genevieve.”
“How unfair!”
“Not at all. I didn’t lack for escorts by day or for dance partners in the evening. I just didn’t inspire grand passion, that’s all—at least, not until we arrived in Florence and I met Marco.”
“What made him different?” Carly wondered aloud. “Was it that he noticed you and not her?”
“For a start, she wasn’t with me that day. I spent the morning roaming the halls of the Pitti Palace, but she had no interest in art galleries and wanted to go shopping. By then, Aunt Patricia realized that, left to her own devices, Genevieve was likely to run off with the first handsome Italian who caught her eye. I, on the other hand, was comme il faut, and could be relied upon to behave appropriately without being chaperoned every minute of the day. So, as much to preserve her own sanity as to protect her daughter’s reputation, wherever Genevieve went, Aunt Patricia went, too.”
The irony of the situation did not escape Carly, and she couldn’t resist a grin. “Leaving you, the good girl, free to have an illicit affair right under your aunt’s nose. Did she never suspect what you were up to?”
“Never. As far as she knew, I spent my days absorbing the history of the city and improving my Italian. I was always back at the hotel in time to change for dinner and always spent the evening with her and Genevieve.”
“And the nights?”
“Well…” A delicate flush tinted her grandmother’s cheeks.
Amused despite herself, Carly said, “Don’t tell me you snuck out every night as soon as poor old Aunt Patricia hit the sack, and Genevieve covered for you?”
“Not quite every night.”
But often enough for an unprincipled rat to put the moves on her naive and trusting grandmother! “So how did you meet this Marco? Was he trolling the halls of the Pitti Palace, looking for innocent young American girls to seduce?”
“He was doing nothing of the sort,” Anna said sharply. “I met him over lunch at an outdoor trattoria. He was at the table next to mine. I had trouble explaining to the waiter what I wanted to order, Marco overheard and stepped in to translate….”
T HE MENU overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguine covered with herb sauce the waiter set before me wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for. I hadn’t acquired a taste for pasta at that point. We never ate it at home. “No, grazie,” I told him, searching my little phrase book. “Voglio qualcosa…luce.”
“Luce?” He eyed me doubtfully.
“L…i…g…h…t,” I enunciated, slowly and very distinctly, the way English-speaking tourists tend to do when abroad and confronted by a foreign language. “I…want…something…light.”
“Ah, si! Capisco!” He reached into his vest pocket and produced a small box of matches. “Sigarette.”
“No!” I exclaimed, shocked by the very idea. “ Non sigarette. No fumo— I don’t smoke.”
The waiter threw up his hands, completely at a loss.
To my right, a chair scraped over the piazza’s ornately patterned paving stones, and another voice, deep and confident, joined the conversation. “ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”
I looked up and there he was—tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal. But not a salad,” I was quick to add. I’d been warned to avoid any uncooked foods that had been washed in local water. “Just something…small.” I gestured at the linguine. “It’s too hot for a heavy meal like this.”
“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim, but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun, and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale ….
“A ND THE NEXT MOMENT , he asked if he could join you,” Carly observed dryly.
“Actually I asked him. It seemed the mannerly thing to do, considering how helpful he’d been. My Italian was obviously minimal, but his English was excellent. We struck up a conversation and when he discovered my interest in the historical buildings and churches of Florence, he offered to introduce me to his city.”
Carly rolled her eyes. “How original!”
“I thought he was very kind—not to mention knowledgeable. He was an architect, you see, and well qualified to give me a guided tour.”
“Right! And show you his etchings while he was at it.”
“Carly!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for wondering! So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”
“About five minutes.”
“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”
“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Parafulmine, Marco called it. A lightning bolt without the thunder. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”
Unprincipled and smooth-talking, as well. Carly couldn’t repress the cynical thought. “Did he try to kiss you that first day?”
“He did better than that,” her grandmother said, fondling her gold heart pendant. “He proposed.”
“He did not!”
“He did. ‘Will you marry me, Anna?’ he said. And I said I would.”
Carly glanced again at the photograph. “Well, he was definitely attractive. I can see how you might’ve fallen for his good looks.”
“Oh, he was so much more than just a handsome face. He was beautiful on the inside, and he brought out the very best in me. That’s why I need to see him again, Carly. I need to tell him that, despite all the things that went wrong and all the tears we’ve both shed, I have never for a moment regretted loving him.”
“So it wasn’t all moonlight and roses, then?”
Her grandmother gazed off into the distance, seeming pursued by memories. “No,” she said slowly. “Sometimes it was pure hell, and I don’t know how we survived. But nothing could put a dent in my certainty that he was my other half and we would have our happy-ever-after ending.”
“So what happened?”
“The war,” Anna said. “Let’s go for a breath of fresh air in the garden, precious, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
CHAPTER TWO
T HEY WERE HALFWAY to the gazebo near the pond, sufficiently far from the house that no one could overhear their conversation, but close enough that the walk didn’t overtax her grandmother’s strength, when Carly noticed a couple heading toward them.
“You’ve got more company, Gran,” she said. “Mom and Dad are here. Did you ask them to stop by?”
Dismayed, Anna said, “Gracious, no! This isn’t a story Grace would understand, nor would she appreciate my sharing it with you.”
And she wouldn’t appreciate finding them together now, Carly thought, aware that her mother had always resented her closeness with Anna.
“Why are you here, Carly?” Grace demanded the second she arrived within hailing distance. “You don’t usually stop by during the week.”
“It was kind of spur-of-the-moment, Mom. Gran had a little business she wanted me to take care of, and she’s in a bit of a hurry.”
“What sort of business, Mother? If it’s your heart, you shouldn’t be wandering around so far from the house.”
“It’s not my heart, dear,” Anna said placidly.
Grace flicked a glance from her mother to Carly, and when neither offered any further explanation, motioned impatiently with her hand. “Then what? Are we allowed to hear or is it a big dark secret between the two of you?”
Carly’s father dropped a kiss on Anna’s head and urged her to a nearby garden bench. “It’s a big dark secret,” he teased, attempting to lighten the moment. “Some silver-haired admirer living on the third floor has swept you off your feet, and you’re getting married again. Admit it, Anna. You want Carly to help you elope.”
Oh, Dad! Carly stifled a horrified giggle. You have no idea how close to the truth you’ve come!
Unruffled, her grandmother said, “Not quite, Taylor. I want to go to Florence, that’s all, and I’ve asked Carly to make the travel arrangements.”
“Florence, as in Italy?” Grace fairly choked on the question.
“The very same, dear. It’s always been one of my favorite cities.”
If she’d hoped to fool anyone into believing she hadn’t dropped news on par with a minor earthquake, Grace soon disabused her of that notion. “And Carly, of course, has explained it’s absolutely out of the question.”
“That was my first reaction,” Carly admitted, “but now that I’ve had chance a to think about it, it doesn’t strike me as such a bad idea, after all.”
Her mother stared at her, slack-jawed. “Why in the world would you encourage such a foolish request?”
“Why is it foolish, Mom? What’s to stop Gran from going to Italy if she wants to?”
“Well, her age, for one thing. And if that’s not enough, how about the fact that she can barely make it from her suite to the dining room without a blast of oxygen to get her there? A journey like this will kill her.”
“Rubbish, Grace!” Anna declared. “I’m a lot tougher than you give me credit for. Provided I take my medication and travel first-class, both of which I intend to do, I’ll be just fine.”
“I swear you get dottier by the day!” Frustrated, Grace appealed to her husband. “Taylor, talk some sense into your mother-in-law.”
“It is a fair distance for a woman your age to travel alone, Anna, especially considering your health problems,” he pointed out mildly.
“I’ll hardly be alone, dear. I’m sure Carly will take me to Boston, check me in at Logan, and see to it that I have a wheelchair. And the flight attendants are very kind. They’ll keep an eye on me.”
But she wasn’t winning them over, Carly saw. Her mother’s face registered growing outrage. Her father, ever the voice of calm reason when the unexpected or unusual occurred, looked distinctly perturbed. And in truth, Carly herself was beginning to have doubts. Her grandmother’s secret might have struck a romantic chord in the telling, but when put to the test, grand passion wasn’t stacking up so well against the practicalities.
Her father cleared his throat. “Look, we came by because it’s such a lovely day we decided to take you for lunch at that place on the beach you like. Why don’t we do that and talk about this some more?”
“That’s very considerate of you, Taylor,” Anna replied, “but there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve made up my mind, and that’s that.”
“Why are you being so difficult?” Grace snapped. “Can’t you see we’re worried about you?”
“I know that, and if joining you for lunch will make you happy…”
“I’m not happy, Mother, but when did that ever keep you from doing what you wanted? And the subject is far from closed. Now, you’re going to need a sweater—it’s always breezy down by the water. We’ll have to hurry, or we’ll end up waiting for a table.”
Annoyed, Carly said in an aside, “You know she can’t keep up with you, Mom. If you’re worried about having to stand in line, you and Dad go ahead, and I’ll bring Gran in my car when she’s ready.”
Anna waited until they were alone again, then smiled gratefully at Carly. “Convincing your mother I don’t have one foot in the grave tends to sap my energy,” she said. “Thank you for buying me a reprieve, precious.”
“I figured we need it. We have to decide how we’re going to handle this, Gran. If Mom gets an inkling of what’s really going on here—”
Anna nodded. “I’ve stirred up quite the hornet’s nest as it is.”
“Exactly. Let’s not make matters any worse.” Carly sent her a glance. “Does she have any idea that you’ve been in love for years with a man who wasn’t your husband?”
“Good heavens, no! Marco and I maintained the utmost discretion. I doubt she even remembers who he is.”
But that wasn’t necessarily accurate, as Carly discovered when they reached the restaurant and Anna stopped to chat with a friend at another table, leaving Carly a few minutes alone with her parents.
“I checked with our travel agent,” her father began as soon as she joined them. “It’s just as we thought. There are no direct flights from Boston to Florence. At the very least, your grandmother would have to fly to Washington, then change planes again in Munich or Milan, and I’m afraid your mom might be right, Carly. That’s more than Anna can handle. Is there any chance you can talk her into settling for somewhere closer, like Bermuda or the Bahamas?”
“I doubt it, Dad. She’s pretty set on Italy.”
“I’ll bet she is,” Grace said with some bitterness. “She probably hopes that if she returns to the scene of her youth, it’ll give her a new lease on life.”
Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “Nostalgia can be a powerful thing for someone your mother’s age, honey.”
“Some memories are better left untouched, Taylor. If she goes ahead with this, we’ll never see her again.”
“I don’t agree. Despite everything she’s gone through, Anna’s never once cracked under pressure. And realistically, if she’s determined to take this trip, you can’t very well forbid her to go. The best we can do is insist one of us goes with her.”
Appalled at what that might lead to, Carly said, “She’ll never agree to that.”
“She might, if you were to volunteer,” her father said reasonably. “After all, you’re her beloved only grandchild. You’re a nurse, so you’re qualified to monitor her health. You recently resigned your hospital position, which means you have the summer free before going back to university in the fall. And as far as I know, you’re unattached.” He held up five fingers. “Have I missed anything?”
“Yes, Dad,” she said, seeing her grandmother coming toward them, and fully aware that where this proposed trip was concerned, three would definitely be a crowd. “Gran might not want me along for the ride.”
“Now that is something I’ll talk her into. In fact, I’ll insist on it,” Grace announced. She barely waited until her mother was seated before wading in. “This whole idea of traipsing halfway around the world all by yourself simply isn’t feasible, Mother. Travel is confusing at the best of times, especially for someone your age.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet, dear,” Anna replied. “I’m able to ask for help, if I need it.”
“What Grace is saying,” Taylor explained, “is that she— we— would feel a lot more comfortable if you didn’t go alone. So we’re wondering how you’d feel about Carly joining you.”
“Carly?” Her face lit up with pleasure. “I’d be delighted to have her as my traveling companion, provided she doesn’t mind being saddled with me.”
“I don’t mind, if you don’t,” Carly said, sliding her a conspiratorial glance. “I’ve never been to Italy.”
“That settles it, then.” Taylor lifted his water glass in a toast. “Here’s to a safe, successful trip!”
They all seconded that, Carly’s mother with markedly less enthusiasm than the rest of them.
“Cheer up, dear,” Anna urged. “Think of it as an adventure, one last glorious fling before I reconcile myself to terminal old age and day trips to Newport.”
She would’ve been wiser to keep quiet, because Grace rounded on her fretfully. “Day trips I can understand. But Italy, Mother? And why now, for heaven’s sake?”
Carly the nurse understood why, whether or not Carly the granddaughter wanted to acknowledge it. Her grandmother rightly sensed her time was running out but realized that to say so would’ve been as cruel as revealing the part Marco had played in her life.
“Because I’d like to go to Florence and see the Duomo and Michelangelo’s David one more time. And because I’d love to be the one to introduce them to my granddaughter,” she said instead.
“But where will you stay?” Grace asked. “You’ve never liked big hotels, Mother.”
“With the son of an old friend who lives not far from the city. He has plenty of room and I have a standing invitation to visit anytime. Carly, I know, will be welcome, too.”
Defeated, Grace sighed. “And when is this visit to take place?”
“As soon as possible, dear,” Anna said.
C ARLY SECURED reservations for the following Tuesday, flying via Boston to Washington, and from there to England, where they’d spend the night before embarking on the last leg of the journey to Florence. In the five days before their departure, she took care of all the details, and worried that her grandmother had taken on more than she’d bargained for.
“Even with a night in London, you’re going to find the journey tiring,” she warned, as they boarded the Boeing 777 for the transatlantic flight. “This part alone lasts nearly seven and a half hours.”
But nothing could diminish Anna’s enthusiasm. Adding a thick folder to the items to be included in her carry-on bag, she said blithely, “The good news is, I can spend it telling you the rest of my story.”
Which would have been fine, Carly reflected morosely—except she was no longer sure she wanted to hear it.
CHAPTER THREE
F INALLY , we’re on our way. The seat belt sign is off, the aircraft is headed east, and it’s time for me to pick up my story from where I left it last week. I only have until tomorrow to convince Carly that I’m not some foolish old woman pinning all her hopes on yesterday, and Marco wasn’t a home-wrecker who came between me and her beloved grandpa.
“I phoned Marco again on Sunday, to tell him you’re coming with me,” I begin. “He’s a little concerned that you might not understand the part he’s played in my life.”
“I’m not sure I do, Gran,” she says.
“I know, darling.” I pat her hand. “But you will by the time we get to Florence.”
“And how does he feel about having me underfoot all summer?”
“He can’t wait for us to arrive.” In fact, his last words before we hung up were, Please hurry. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.
“I wonder if he remembers saying almost the exact same words to me, the first time we said goodbye,” I murmur. “Probably not. Men don’t usually recall such things, and so much has happened since then. But I remember the moment so vividly that I’m breaking out in goose bumps.”
“Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Gran,” Carly says.
“But I do,” I tell her. “How else can I make you understand?”
She shrugs, and I know she won’t easily forgive what she sees as a betrayal of her family. Steeling myself, I begin….
O N MY LAST NIGHT in Florence, he was waiting for me at our usual place, near the main door to Santa Maria Novella. A high summer moon glimmered over the black-and-white marble facade of the old church, and laid patterns of light on the deserted flagstones of the piazza.
Hearing my footsteps, he stepped out of the shadows and without a word took me in his arms. I sank against him, imprinting in my mind the solid feel of his body, the scent of his skin, the taste of his mouth on mine, because they were all I’d have to sustain me during the months we’d be apart.
In the morning, my aunt, cousin and I would board the train for Paris, on the first part of the long trip to Southampton, where the Queen Mary was scheduled to cross the Atlantic on August 30. “And not a moment too soon,” my aunt had fussed as she supervised the packing of our travel trunks. “The sooner we’re away from this benighted continent and all its troubles, the better.”
“How do I let you go, amore mio? ” Marco murmured, burying his face in my hair.
The tears I’d sworn I wouldn’t let fall clogged my voice. “It’s only for a little while.” For as long as it takes me to overcome my parents’ objections, I added silently, knowing they’d resist any idea of my marrying a foreigner, let alone one I’d known so briefly, but resolved that nothing would dissuade me from returning to Florence before year’s end. “I’ll write to you every day.”
“And I to you,” he promised. “Not an hour will pass that I won’t be thinking of you and preparing for our life together.”
After that, we wasted no more time talking. Clasping hands, we hurried along the darkened streets to our special place, the room he’d taken above a bookshop not far from the Ponte Vecchio. Although I’d done my best to brighten it with fresh flowers and candles, I suppose, to anyone else’s eyes, it didn’t have much to recommend it. But to us, living as we did for the hours when we could close the door on the rest of the world, it had the only things that really mattered—privacy and a bed intended for one, but shared by two.
I was not so naive that I hadn’t learned how babies were made and what children were called if their parents weren’t married. I knew the stigma such children bore throughout their lives. Yet even armed with all this information, I had given myself to Marco within a week of meeting him, so certain was I that our lives would be forever intertwined. Abandonment, deceit, acts of God or nature or mankind, lay so far outside our realm of possibility that they had no bearing on us.
As I explain that, Carly shakes her head incredulously. “And you never doubted him? It never occurred to you that once you’d left, he’d find someone else?”
“Never.”
We were touched with a special magic that lifted us above the rest. Convinced that ours was a love so powerful that nothing could destroy it, I had ventured so far beyond the boundaries of propriety that, had I been discovered, I’d have been ruined. A social outcast, ostracized by “nice” girls and their families.
That’s what we were in those days, I tell her. “Girls,” paraded before suitable young men and taken by the highest bidder. And our chastity, along with our bloodlines, determined how much we were worth. Not until we sent out engraved cards announcing that Mrs. Charles So-and-So is at home, followed by the date and a prestigious address, were we entitled to call ourselves “women.”
No pedestrian Mrs. for me, though. I would be Signora Marco Paretti, wife of the well-known, well-respected architect. I would live in Fiesole, the hilltop town north of Florence, in a house my husband had designed especially for us and our children.
All this and more comprised my future. For now, though, we had just this one night together in our secret hideaway, and then we’d have to say goodbye.
As soon as I stepped into the room, I saw that Marco had been there earlier. Freesias were arranged in the vase which, previously, had held daisies. Rose petals lay scattered over the bed. A bottle of Chianti and two glasses stood on the small table under the window.
“Tonight we make memories which will carry us through the coming weeks,” Marco whispered, content for the moment to hold my hands and look into my eyes.
I started to cry, the beauty of the moment, of his love for me, colliding horribly with the desolation filling my soul. He pulled me close. I realized then that he was crying, too. Great, silent, helpless shudders racked his body.
We clung to each other blindly, and the heat of desire fed on our emotions and burned away everything but the need to fuse our bodies, our hearts, our minds, to give to each other everything we were, everything we had.
We held back nothing. We simply loved each other, deeply, intimately. I heard myself moan and beg in ways that, before, would have left me too embarrassed ever to face him again.
But not that night. That night, I was shameless in my greed. Nothing lay beyond the pale for either of us. Touching, tasting, scrutinizing inch by inch, using words never uttered in polite society—such were the means by which we stitched together the love that had to be strong enough to survive separation.
Not that I share such intimate details with my granddaughter, of course. They belong to Marco and me.
Too soon, first light filtered through the open window. We dressed, fumbling with our clothes as if we could delay the inevitable. But there was no postponing time. A nearby church sounded five o’clock. In four hours, the taxi would come to take my aunt, my cousin and me to the train station. By the next afternoon, I would be in England; a week from then, in America, with over three thousand miles separating me from him.
At the door, I turned for one last glimpse of our hideaway. At the crushed rose petals and the tangle of sheets on the bed. At the half-empty bottle of Chianti. At the freesias perfuming the room with their scent. I knew then that I would never again smell roses or freesias, never again taste the red wine of Tuscany, and not be assailed by the poignant sadness of that moment.
When I returned to our pensione, Genevieve snuck down to let me in. “You’re cutting it fine,” she scolded. “Momma’s up already. You’re lucky she didn’t knock on our door to make sure we’re awake.” Then, seeing that I’d been crying, she hugged me and said, “Don’t mind me, Anna. You’re back now, and she’s none the wiser. Come and wash your face with cold water, or she’ll wonder why your eyes are so red.”
Her kindness started my tears flowing again. “It nearly killed me to leave him, Genevieve.”
“Don’t dwell on that,” she said briskly. “Instead concentrate on when you’ll see him again.”
“Months from now,” I wailed, stumbling over our luggage.
In fact, I saw him just a few hours later, at the railroad station. I was about to board our train when I felt a hand at my elbow. “ Posso aiutarla, signorina? May I help you?”
For a moment, I closed my eyes, afraid I was hallucinating. But the warmth in his voice, in his touch, were all too real and left me trembling. “Thank you,” I stammered. “Grazie.”
“Prego.” Marco squeezed my arm in secret intimacy, smiled into my eyes, and in a low voice added, “ Ti amo, la mia bella. Hurry back. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.”
“Thank you, young man. We can manage quite well,” my aunt declared, regarding him suspiciously from the top step into the train.
“Si, signora. Buon viaggio.”
“What was that about?” she sniffed, when we’d found our seats.
“He wished us a safe journey, that’s all,” Genevieve replied for me, because I couldn’t speak. I was too busy pressing my nose to the window and watching him fade into the distance as the train pulled out of the station.
Aunt Patricia hoisted her bosom into place. “Foreigners! I don’t trust them one iota. You girls might be sorry to leave Europe behind, but I can’t wait to set foot on American soil again.”
The grand tour had come to an end, and so had my idyll. As the train thundered north through Switzerland and into France, rumblings of war brought me back to a reality unlike anything I’d experienced before. Suddenly Marco’s political leanings, which he’d hinted at in passing and then casually, as if they were of no great consequence, assumed a frightening dimension.
I recalled that he and his father were outspoken critics of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator and that sometimes, on those evenings when he wasn’t with me, Marco attended partisan rallies. I might have been shielded from much of the news, but even I recognized that although the sun shone on Florence and turned the River Arno into a swath of blue silk flowing smoothly under the city’s bridges, a dark underbelly existed beneath the ancient calm of the Uffizi and Pitti Palace.
“Well, no need to make yourself sick over that,” Genevieve told me, as the boat train approached Southampton. “If you must find something to keep you awake at night, worry about Hitler.”
But optimist though she was, Genevieve couldn’t help noticing the subdued atmosphere aboard the Queen Mary any more than I could. The luxury remained intact, but the laughter flowed less freely, and the young men who’d previously flirted with us on the dance floor now assumed a more solemn bearing.
“It’s not very promising over there,” they said, referring to the way events were shaping up in Germany. “They’ll be up to their necks in it before much longer.”
Over there. Synonymous with Europe and war, the term was on everyone’s lips, echoing along the Promenade Deck and infiltrating such exclusive retreats as the Verandah Grill. She tried to hide it, but Genevieve wasn’t immune to its aura of foreboding. “Not that we have anything to worry about,” she insisted when the Statue of Liberty rose up against the skyline and the tugs towed our ship to its berth in New York harbor. “Regardless of what happens over there, America won’t be involved.”
But Italy might be, I thought fearfully.
My parents were waiting at the dock. “We’re so relieved to have you home,” my mother cried, enveloping me in a hug that squeezed the breath from my lungs. “Your father and I have been frantic these past few days. We were so afraid you’d be stranded in England.”
“That wouldn’t have happened,” Aunt Patricia said. “I kept our passports and tickets on my person at all times.”
“But you must have heard,” my father told us gravely. “This was likely the Queen Mary’ s final run as a commercial passenger ship. On September first, just a day after you set sail from Southampton, Germany invaded Poland. On the third, Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany.”
The news had reached us, but we hadn’t wanted to believe it. Unutterably dismayed, I asked, “How long before it’s over?”
He shook his head. “Who’s to say? It could be months—or years. It all depends on that madman, Hitler, and how soon they’re able to put a stop to him over there.”
Over there… Marco was over there, and I was here.
“You look faint, darling,” my mother said, stroking my face lovingly. “Were you seasick?”
“No,” I managed to say. “It’s the shock of hearing that countries we just visited are at war—except for Italy. It’s not involved, is it?”
“Not yet,” my father said. “But I suspect it will be, before long. Thank God you’re home safe is all I can say. For your mother and me, the worst is over.”
But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Although I couldn’t begin to guess its extent, the worst was yet to come….
“If talking about it upset you, Gran, you don’t have to go on,” Carly says urgently, but I shake my head, knowing I must because I’m caught up in a web of memories that won’t let me go.
“You have a letter from Italy, Anna,” my mother announced, one morning when I came down to breakfast. She flipped over the envelope, checking for a return address. “From an M. Paretti. Someone you met over there, obviously.”
“Yes,” I said, studiously avoiding her gaze. “A friend. We promised we’d keep in touch.”
I’d been home nearly two weeks. Although the skies remained clear, the days were growing shorter, the nights cooler and the maples turning color. Fall had always been my favorite season, until this year when each hour was a purgatory to be endured.
Every day, the news from Europe grew more ominous. On September 10, Canada had joined the Allies. The war had reached North American shores, after all. But Italy was still uninvolved, and the sight of that flimsy blue envelope with its foreign stamp, the first from Marco, sent such a wash of relief over me that I thought I might be sick.
My mother watched me, smiling. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Later.” I moved away, busying myself with the dishes our housekeeper had set on the sideboard in the breakfast room. “After I’ve eaten.”
But the bacon and hotcakes turned my stomach. “I hardly call that eating,” my father remarked, eyeing my slice of toast and cup of coffee as he rose from the table. “What happened to your appetite?”
“I’m not very hungry lately.”
“That’s not normal for a girl your age.” He paused long enough to drop a kiss on my head and another on my mother’s cheek. “Perhaps you should take her to see Dr. Grant, Isabelle. Could be she needs a tonic.”
“Your father’s right,” my mother observed after he’d gone. “Lately you’re not yourself at all, Anna. You’re pale and listless. I hope you didn’t pick up some sort of disease when you were away.”
For a moment, I was tempted to tell her that I had, and it was fatal—that I’d fallen desperately in love with a handsome Italian and was heartsick at being separated from him.
“Travel can be exhausting,” she continued sympathetically. “Your aunt Patricia remarked just yesterday that she’s still not back to normal. She mentioned, too, that you tired easily when you were away, even though you and Genevieve were never late getting to bed. I suppose, if the truth be known, the pair of you spent half the night talking when you should’ve been sleeping, and now it’s catching up with you.”
“That’s probably it,” I mumbled, ashamed not that I’d spent so many nights in Marco’s arms, but that I was lying about it and perhaps hiding an even bigger secret, one that would devastate her should my suspicions prove correct. “Don’t worry, Momma. There really isn’t anything wrong with me that time won’t cure.” In a fever of impatience to read my letter, I added with false cheer, “I’m sure you have a million things to do besides watching me eat toast, so don’t feel you have to keep me company.”
“Then I won’t, because you’re right. I do have a full day ahead. Will you be home for lunch?”
“No. I’m meeting Genevieve at the yacht club.”
“I’ll see you at dinner then. Have fun, honey, and give her a kiss for me.”
The door had barely closed behind her when I used my butter spreader to slit open the pale blue envelope. My pulse hammered erratically as I extracted the folded sheets of paper and smoothed them flat. Did he still love me? Had distance made his heart grow fonder, or was I fading in his mind now that I was out of sight?
I OPEN THE FOLDER on the table in front of me, extract the first page of the letter and show it to Carly. Then I begin to read:
Firenze
September 4, 1939
Anna, my love,
It has only been a few days since I watched the train to Paris take you away from me, but even in so short a time, the world as we knew it is forever changed. The war people have talked about for months has finally come to pass and I, who should fear for the future of my own country more than ever before, care only about you.
How glad I am, tesoro, that you are safe in America. Yet how lonely I am without you. I consider myself a brave enough man, prepared to fight for what I believe is right and just, but courage is no match for the desolation I feel at knowing we shall be apart much longer than we expected.
Adolf Hitler has changed the face of Europe. Even if it was possible, you must not think of returning to Italy until he and his Nazi thugs have been crushed. The danger is too great. To live without you a few months more than I expected will be difficult. To risk living without you forever, impossible. You have become my life, and I ask nothing more of God than for the day to come when I wake up beside you every morning, and hold you close in my arms each night.
The news here is disturbing, amore mio. Only the most naive among us believe that Mussolini has our country’s best interests at heart. He is corrupt and evil. If he can further his own ambitions by allying himself with Adolf Hitler, he will do so without a moment’s thought for the ultimate cost to Italy. Those opposed to his regime no longer have the right to voice their opinions openly. In the last week alone, one of our group here in Firenze was “interrogated” by government officials for eight hours. He is recovering in hospital. A second has been thrown in prison. Two others have disappeared. Consequently our partisan rallies now take place in secret.
I am desolate at what all this implies, but as long as you are safe, my memories of you will help me survive whatever restrictions or hardships I must face. If my English were more fluent, I might find it easier to express the depth of emotion you inspire in me. But it is not, and so all I can say is I love you, my Anna. I miss you. And I count the hours until we can be together again. Until then, know that I carry you deep in my heart. You are with me always.
Forever yours,
Marco
“I devoured every word that day, Carly,” I tell her, tracing my finger over each letter, as if, by doing so, I could touch him. “I realized I was crying when my tears blurred the ink and left great wet spots on the paper. Look, Carly.” I point at several places. “All these years later, you can see how faded some words are.”
She bends her head close to look. Nods. Touches the paper, ever so softly.
“I was so afraid for him,” I continue, “but I believed in him. He was brave and strong, he was alive, and most of all, he loved me still. I told myself that as long as those things remained constant, it would be enough.”
Carly covers my hand with hers. “But it wasn’t, was it, Gran?”
“No, it wasn’t, because nothing remains constant in war except death and destruction, not merely of cities and innocent men, women and children, but of the hopes and dreams of those who somehow manage to survive.”
CHAPTER FOUR
A S S EPTEMBER of 1939 progressed, mellow with sunshine during the day and sharp with a hint of frost at night, Marco and I wrote daily, without waiting for each other’s replies. But where I hid my fears, especially the one I had increasing reason to think was the legacy of our weeks together, and filled my letters with plans for our future, his took an increasingly dark turn.
Sifting through my letters, I choose one to illustrate my point.
There is a stillness here in Firenze, he wrote toward the end of the fourth week. A sort of calm before the storm. Mussolini’s Blackshirts are on every street corner, watchful for any hint of insurrection. Their motto, Me ne frego, means I do not give a damn, and its message begins to make itself felt in every quarter. As a result, neighbors keep to themselves and are careful in what they say. Doors open cautiously after dark to admit a stealthy visitor, and close quickly again, before he can be recognized. Shutters are drawn across windows.
Hitler’s influence is felt ever more keenly in our country. The fellow who lives on the floor above mine, a Jewish scholar and a gentle, harmless man, was taken by the Blackshirts two days ago. There has been no word of him since and when a friend went to inquire for him at militia headquarters, he was warned not to interfere in matters of the state unless he, too, wished to jeopardize his liberty. Once upon a time, I believed that all a man needed to direct the course of his own destiny was honor, integrity and the courage to stand by his ideals. I no longer believe these are enough. We are learning to keep our heads down and confide only in trusted friends—although, sadly, they, too, sometimes betray us for sins either real or imagined. Even to you, my dearest love, I dare not speak too freely of my activities, for fear that my letter might fall into the wrong hands. All I can say without reservation is that I love you with my whole heart and that will never change, no matter what comes next.
…no matter what comes next… These words filled me with a festering dread made worse by the fact that, as October dragged by with its blasts of cold rain, his letters grew less frequent and ever more somber. They almost prepared me for the shocking news that his father, an influential Florentine businessman and outspoken critic of Mussolini’s repressive Fascist regime, had been executed on September 30.
Knowing how close he and his father had been, I ached for Marco and longed to hold him in my arms and comfort him with my love. Instead I had to be content with written words which, however much I tried, never adequately conveyed all that lay in my heart. I tried to hide how afraid I was for him, but the possibility that he might follow his father’s fate was never far from my mind.
“What happened to Signor Paretti is horrible, but Marco will see it for the warning it is, and not take any chances with his own safety,” Genevieve said, when I confided my fears to her. “He’s got too much to live for. After all, he’s got you.”
Brian, the one other person who knew of my love affair, also did his best to comfort me. Although he was attending Rhode Island College in Kingston during the week, working on his graduate degree in mathematics, he came home most weekends and always made a point of calling on me and inviting me to take long walks with him.
Loyal friend that he was, he let me unburden myself without fear of being overheard. Our parents, though, misinterpreting his motives, exchanged pleased glances and smiled in tacit approval of what they perceived to be his courtship.
“This war won’t last forever, Anna. Everything’ll return to normal once it’s over, you’ll see,” he consoled me one brisk, windy day toward the end of the month.
I wished I could believe him, but my life was spinning out of control, and for me “normal” was as much a part of my past as my innocence. Marco’s infrequent letters were my anchor during those dark days, the one tenuous link that saved me from absolute despair.
When they suddenly ceased and my last letter to him was returned, with No longer at this address scrawled in Italian across the envelope, I was in despair. Despite the risk of arousing my parents’ curiosity, if not their outright suspicion, I sent a telegram to Rudolfo Nesta, Marco’s good friend and colleague whom I’d met once or twice in Florence, begging him for news.
His reply came two days later, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.
When the telegram boy arrived on his bike, Brian and I were at the foot of the long driveway leading from my home to the road, so we were able to intercept him before he reached the front door. Hands shaking, I tore at the yellow envelope, desperate to get at what lay inside. Praying it was good news, perhaps even a message from Marco himself telling me not to worry and that all was well. And if neither of those things, then at least a sliver of hope—anything except what it took me seconds to read. To this day, I remember every word.
Two weeks ago Blackshirts invaded house where Marco spent evening with companions STOP None seen or heard from since STOP Fear the worst STOP Regret being bearer of bad news STOP Rudolfo STOP
I remember crying out and my legs giving way, then knew nothing until I found myself sitting on a fallen log, several yards along a tree-shaded path that led to the greenhouses at the rear of our property. A seagull’s forlorn cry broke the silence. The air smelled of damp and dying things. Overhead, the leaves on the maples gleamed red as blood.
“Your grandfather crouched beside me, Carly, one arm around my shoulders, the telegram in his other hand. I looked at him, wanting reassurance, wanting him to tell me, in that calm, rational manner of his, that I shouldn’t assume the worst. I wanted him to give me the hope I couldn’t find for myself.”
He had none to offer. His blue eyes bruised with pain, he said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Anna.”
“Oh, Gran!” Carly’s voice quavers with genuine sympathy. “You must’ve been heartbroken.”
“Yes. But some grief, I learned that day, defies outward expression,” I tell her. It simply consumes, orchestrating a person to its own merciless rhythm of silent, roaring blackness. Tears might have offered a blessed, albeit temporary, relief but my eyes remained dry. My mind flash-froze, emblazoned with Rudolfo’s message. For a while, I felt neither the chill fall air on my face, nor the warm clasp of Brian’s hand. The only part of me unaffected was my damnable heart which continued to function, denying the release I craved from this living hell.
I have no idea how long we sat there. An hour or more, I suspect, because the light had started to dim under the trees when Brian stirred and, chafing my hands between his palms, murmured, “Tell me what can I do, Anna.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Go home. Let me be.”
I didn’t add, I want to die, but he read my mind all too accurately.
“Anything but that,” he said, and drew me to my feet. “Let’s walk for a while. You can’t face your parents in your present state.”
Back then, we lived close by Easton’s Pond where swans and mallards drifted serenely, untouched by human tragedy. A ten-minute stroll along its banks led to The Cliff Walk, with its magnificent views of the Atlantic. Dangerous in places, with sheer drops to the rocks below, it was not a place for the unwary—or the hopelessly bereft. Mindful of that, Brian stationed himself between me and the edge and kept my arm firmly tucked beneath his.
Clouds had rolled in, leaving the sky a sullen gunmetal-gray except for a streak of gold where the sun had set. The wind was strong, whipping the waves to an angry froth as they hurtled toward shore. It made the breath snag in my throat and stung the tears suddenly dripping down my face.
Noticing, Brian stopped and, without a word, turned me toward him and buried my face in his shoulder. The rough tweed of his jacket muffled my sobs and soaked up my tears. I didn’t care if other people passed by and recognized us in the fading light. The world Marco and I had created was no more, and nothing else mattered.
Brian stood there patiently until the worst had passed, then took a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped my face. “Do you want me to take you home, honey?”
“No,” I said, on an exhausted hiccup. “I can’t, not yet. I have to think about…”
About what to do next.
“To Genevieve’s, then?”
I clutched at the idea as if it were a life preserver. Genevieve was my soul sister, and I’d never needed her more than I did at that moment. She’d met Marco, had seen how he cherished me. He was more than just a name to her. He had a face, a smile, a voice, a laugh. She’d understand. But…“What if she’s not home and Aunt Patricia sees us? She’ll guess I’ve been crying. What do I tell her?”
“Good point. We’ll go to that small hotel on Bridge Street. I’ll phone her, and if she’s home, get her to meet us there.”
We left Cliff Walk at Narragansett Avenue and went into the town proper, entering the hotel lobby to call Genevieve. She arrived a short while later in the family’s chauffeur-driven Packard. Flinging her arms around me in a tight hug, she said, “I stopped by to tell your parents we decided to meet for dinner and not to expect you home until later.”
We were shown to a quiet table in the corner of the dimly lit dining room. A blessing, because seeing each other had us both in tears, and Brian’s hands were full coping with us. He ordered a meal only he tackled with any appetite. Genevieve picked at her chicken breast, and I barely touched my poached fish.
“You have to eat, Anna,” she scolded, when I pushed aside my plate. “You’ll make yourself ill if you don’t, and Marco would never want that.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s what you said at lunch, the other day. Remember?”
How could I forget, when I’d been sick to my stomach for days? But I’d tried hard to deny the reason for my nausea in the hope that, if my suspicions were correct, Marco and I would deal with it together. I knew now that that would never happen.
My despair must have shown on my face because Genevieve leaned across the table and pinned me with a probing gaze. “There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?”
I couldn’t carry the burden alone a moment longer. “I think I’m pregnant,” I blurted out, finally giving words to the misgivings that had haunted me for weeks.
Brian sat as if he’d been turned to stone. But Genevieve closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “I was afraid that was it. Oh, Anna, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever you decide, you can count on us.” She fixed a fierce hazel glare on Brian. “Can’t she?”
“Every step of the way.” Slowly he rubbed his jaw, a habit that meant his mind was sorting through the facts and establishing priorities. “Had you told Marco?”
I shook my head, enough to send yet more tears splashing down my face. “I wanted to be sure before I said anything. He was already dealing with so much….”
“Don’t cry, sweetie.” Drawing her chair closer to mine, Genevieve gripped my hand. “There are things we can do. A girl at school—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start assuming the worst,” Brian interrupted. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, Anna. What you think are symptoms of a baby on the way might be nothing more than stress. Have you seen a doctor?”
“No,” I wailed.
“Then that’s the logical next step.”
“I can’t go to Dr. Grant. He’s known me all my life.” I gulped, the enormity of my plight hitting home with a vengeance. “I’m still a minor. He’d have to tell my parents.”
Their treasured only child pregnant out of wedlock? It would kill them!
“We’ll find another doctor,” Genevieve said, doing her best to shore up my spirits. “We’ll go to another town where no one will recognize us.”
But the news from Italy, coupled with my certainty that I hadn’t mistaken my symptoms, left me past all hope. “Where?” I whimpered.
“Wakefield,” Brian announced. “It’s just a few miles down the road from Kingston. We have a Visitors’ Day at the college on Tuesday, and I was going to ask if the two of you wanted to come.”
Genevieve frowned. “But won’t your mother and father be there?”
“No. This is mostly for younger people—a chance for us to show off what we’re up to and for future students to have a look around and see what the place has to offer. The instructors make themselves available in the morning, and we’re expected to direct visitors to the lecture halls, but there’s a football game in the afternoon. No one’s going to miss me if I don’t show up for that.”
“And a doctor?”
“There’s bound to be one in Wakefield. Let me set up an appointment and you concentrate on getting there. You shouldn’t have any problem, now that regular bus service runs from Newport. Tell me when you’ll be getting in and I’ll meet you.”
Genevieve eyed me apprehensively. “Three more days. Think you can hold on that long, Anna?”
What she meant was, could I go through the motions and continue fooling my parents into believing all was well with me when, in fact, my heart was breaking and my future loomed blacker than night.
“I have to,” I said. “They don’t deserve this.”
But if the doctor confirmed what I instinctively knew to be the case, I was merely postponing the inevitable. Eventually, either I’d have to tell them the truth or my body would do it for me.
T OO IMMERSED in grief and worry to care about practicalities, I followed blindly as Genevieve and Brian steered me through the ordeal of the medical appointment on Tuesday afternoon. A borrowed wedding ring and a bogus husband was all it took.
“Wexley,” Brian stated firmly when the nurse at the desk asked our name. “Mr. and Mrs. Brian Wexley. My wife has a three-o’clock appointment with Dr. Reese.”
I cringed at yet another lie designed to shield me from the consequences of my rash behavior. Genevieve had “borrowed” her late grandmother’s plain gold ring from her mother’s jewelry case, and it hung around the third finger of my left hand like a lead weight. My cousin’s last words, before Brian and I entered the small clinic, had been, “Stop looking so furtive. They’ll think you’re Rhode Island’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde!”
But that infamous pair had been killed in 1934. A vastly preferable state, I thought morosely, to the one in which I now found myself. A kind of numbness had carried me through the last couple of days, but it was wearing thin as the moment of truth approached.
Within minutes, the nurse beckoned to me. “Dr. Reese will see you first, Mrs. Wexley. Your husband may join you later.”
The indignity of what came next—me stripped naked and covered by a white sheet, my feet nesting in cold metal stirrups, my legs spread wide, and a man I’d never seen before probing at my body—mortified me, but what couldn’t be avoided had to be endured, and all too soon the verdict was in.
“About nine weeks along, I’d say,” the doctor informed me, restoring my modesty by pulling the sheet over me before turning to the door. “Get dressed, my dear, then we’ll pass the good news to your husband and discuss the regimen I’d like you to follow over the next several months.”
An hour later, as I sat in a tearoom, flanked by my friends, it struck me how seriously they’d compromised their own reputations in order to preserve mine. Brian, especially, had taken a huge risk. “You gave them your real name,” I gasped, horrified.
The hint of a smile touched his mouth. “I felt ‘Smith’ didn’t possess quite enough cachet.”
“But they’ll assume you’re the baby’s father!”
“Yes.”
“What about you?” Genevieve asked me. “How do you feel, now that the pregnancy’s confirmed, I mean?”
“Torn. Overwhelmed.” I dreaded what lay ahead. I could no longer put off the inevitable. My parents would have to be told. If they didn’t disown me, they’d send me away to give birth in secret, then insist I have the baby adopted. But this was all I had left of Marco. How could I ever part with this child?
“You don’t have to go through with the pregnancy, you know,” Genevieve said in a low voice. “There are certain…clinics in New York or Boston where people in your situation can be helped. It’s a matter of finding the right name—”
“No,” Brian interrupted flatly. “They’re illegal and unsafe. Women die in those places.”
She rounded on him, concern for me making her shrill. “You have a better idea, do you?”
“Yes. Anna and I will get married.”
Dumbfounded, I stared at him. “You can’t be serious!”
“Why not? We’re both single and unattached. My prospects are good. I’m twenty-four and ready to settle down, and you need a husband. No doubt people will talk and add up dates when your condition becomes obvious, but they’ll assume the baby’s mine and that’s what matters. Based on our lifelong friendship and the fondness we have for each other, I’d say that all adds up to a pretty compelling reason to plan a wedding as soon as possible.”
I pause in my story, turning to Carly. “He was offering me an easy solution, and the temptation to take him up on it was huge. Although he was nothing like Marco, your grandfather, Carly, was the sort of man any woman would be proud to call her husband, and believe me when I say I was well aware of that fact. He was tall, strong and good-looking. An avid sailor, crack golfer and former high school basketball star. More than that, he was kind and generous and intelligent.”
She nods mutely and I go on.
We shared a similar background, Brian and I, and if I’d never spent a summer in Italy, I might very well have married him anyway. But “I can’t let you do this,” I protested. “You don’t deserve to be smeared with my scandal.”
“Does your baby deserve to be labeled a bastard, Anna? Consider that before you turn me down.”
His observation brought home the wider implications of my situation. Those other options—an illegal abortion, or adoption—were out of the question. How could I deny my baby, when his father had taught me that nothing is shameful or forbidden in the expression of true love? Yet to subject a child to the shame of illegitimacy was equally unacceptable.
Still, I made one last stab at resistance. “What about our parents? Won’t they be suspicious?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Brian said with a laugh. “They’ve already got us halfway down the aisle. They’ll be happy to push us the rest of the way.”
“It would be the ideal solution,” Genevieve murmured.
Brian squeezed my hand. “And definitely best for the baby.”
Suddenly, from the ashes of my dreams, a tiny miracle presented itself. Part of Marco was growing inside me. I owed it to him to give his child the best possible life, and because of Brian’s generosity and decency, I was in a position to do so.
“You don’t have to decide right away,” he said, taking my silence for uncertainty. “Think it over, and let me know when I come home on the weekend.”
But making up my mind on the spot, I said, “I don’t need to wait that long. I’ll marry you, Brian, and I promise you now that you’ll never regret it. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”
His smile suggested I’d done him the world’s biggest favor. No one watching would have guessed that ours would be a marriage of convenience. “Then start making plans. I’ll speak to your father on Saturday.”
I never learned exactly what transpired between my father and Brian that next weekend. They remained in the library quite a while, their voices an indistinct rumble beyond the thick oak door. But by Sunday, I was wearing an engagement ring and that night, our two families celebrated our upcoming wedding with dinner at the yacht club.
Thankfully my nausea wasn’t too severe, and I wasn’t showing yet. My clothes, though, didn’t fit as easily as they once had and if I didn’t want to be escorted down the aisle with my burgeoning midriff half-hidden behind a massive bouquet, we had little time to lose.
“We thought two weeks from now, on the seventh of November,” Brian said, when asked about a wedding date.
“But that’s far too soon!” my mother objected. “Why, I’m not sure we can even get a decent wedding dress by then, let alone a place to hold a reception. What’s the rush?”
“The holiday season’s coming up, and that’s always busy,” he explained. Then, with charming diffidence added, “And I’m an impatient groom. I don’t want to wait until the new year. Anna might change her mind about taking me on as a husband.”
“We’d prefer something quiet and intimate anyway,” I said, playing my part as eager bride. “With the situation in Europe as bad as it is, a big, splashy wedding seems rather tasteless.”
I’d effectively shifted attention away from us and back to the ever-present topic of the war. “You’ve got a point,” my future father-in-law agreed. “It’s just a matter of time before America’s in the thick of it, so you might as well enjoy yourselves while you still can.”
I substituted an aquamarine silk suit with a matching hat for the long white gown and bridal veil I’d always imagined I’d wear on my wedding day. Genevieve, in dove-gray, was my only attendant.
Brian and I were married in my parents’ drawing room, in front of a handful of guests, with a pale November sun shining through the windows. After a champagne lunch, he and I slipped away for a two-day honeymoon in Connecticut.
Ironically I was able to continue as Dr. Reese’s patient because, for a wedding present, our parents bought us the house in Wakefield. We were very lucky. If they had questions about the haste with which Brian and I had rushed into marriage, they chose not to say them aloud. We were, to all intents and purposes, a blissfully happy couple, beginning a long life together. No one but Brian knew how often I cried myself to sleep at night.
CHAPTER FIVE
A FLIGHT ATTENDANT came by to spread linen place mats over their tables and offer drinks. “They’re getting ready to serve dinner, Gran, and you’re losing your voice,” Carly said, glad of an excuse to halt the story before she said something she’d regret.
Her earlier resentment had come flooding back, burying any fledgling sympathy she’d felt for Anna’s blighted love affair. Her grandpa Brian was a hero in his own right and deserved better than to be another man’s stand-in. As for Marco Paretti, he had a lot to answer for, seducing an innocent girl and leaving her pregnant. Anna might have been a virgin when they met, but Carly would bet her last dollar the same couldn’t be said about him. He was smooth, though; she’d grant him that.
“A glass of white wine, please,” she told the flight attendant. The mood she was in right then, she could have downed a whole bottle and it wouldn’t have numbed her indignation. How she was going to stomach a whole summer with the man who’d stolen her grandmother’s heart and served her grandfather the leftovers, she couldn’t imagine.
But the in-flight meal couldn’t last forever, and before long Anna was rooting through her stack of letters, clearly impatient to pick up where she’d left off.
Resigned, Carly settled in for the next installment.
I HIDE A SMILE , aware that I haven’t made a fan of my granddaughter quite yet. The mutinous set of her mouth reminds me of her mother when she was a teenager.
“I’d discovered a gem in Brian,” I begin.
Although unfailingly tender with me, not once during those first few weeks did he press me to consummate our marriage. My health and the well-being of my baby were his primary concerns. Gradually, though, acceptance of what I couldn’t change softened the raw edges of my grief a little, and by Christmas I was prompted by both guilt and gratitude to become in fact the wife I was in name. Difficult though it might be, I knew I’d have to make the first overtures.
Our house looked very festive, with a large wreath on the front door, a Norfolk pine in the living room and evergreen swags along the mantelpieces. On Christmas Eve, after we’d placed our gifts under the tree, we went upstairs and, as was our habit, prepared for bed separately in the privacy of the bathroom. Neither of us had ever seen the other naked. That night, though, instead of putting on my usual flannel nightgown with the long sleeves and high neck, I appeared in the bedroom wearing the silky, rather naughty gown Genevieve had given me as part of my trousseau. By then I was well into my sixteenth week, and despite the tragedy that had marked its beginning, pregnancy agreed with me. My skin glowed and my hair fell thick and lustrous to my shoulders. Genevieve’s gift was made for a woman with the kind of lush curves I now possessed.
Brian was already in bed, reading with the pillows propped at his back, but when he glanced up and saw me, the book fell from his hands and slid to the floor.
Climbing in beside him, I placed my hand on his chest. “You seem surprised,” I said—a vast understatement, considering he was almost glassy-eyed with shock, “but it’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”
A somewhat ambiguous invitation, no doubt, but he understood what I was really saying. “Are you sure, Anna?”
Just briefly, the last time I’d made love nibbled at my mind before I managed to shut out the memory. “Very,” I said, and slowly undid the buttons on his pajama jacket. “You are my husband, Brian.”
Our lovemaking was slow and very sweet. He was nervous, and endearingly clumsy because of it. “I’ve never done this before,” he muttered, lifting the hem of my gown with trembling fingers.
I couldn’t say the same, but I wasn’t any sort of expert, either, so we stumbled on together, discovering each other in the dark because we were too bashful to leave the light on. And for the first time in my marriage—perhaps even in my entire life—I gave of myself unselfishly, caring more about pleasing someone else than my own needs.
After, we lay with our hands joined. “Merry Christmas,” I whispered.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Wexley,” he said. Then, after a pause, “How are you doing really? ”
For a moment I was tempted to take the question at face value and tell him I felt wonderful. But he wasn’t asking about our lovemaking, and if I had to identify the greatest strength in our marriage, it was that we never lied to each other. Now was not the time to start.
“Some days are better than others,” I admitted, “but it’s becoming easier, and I have you to thank for that. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll never have to find out, honey,” he said. “I want you to be happy again, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said, and it was true. That it wasn’t the same sort of love I’d known with Marco didn’t make it any less real.
He reached down and boldly stroked the slightly convex dome of my abdomen. “When are we going to come clean with our folks about this?”
We were spending Christmas Day with both families at his parents’ house. “Perhaps tomorrow would be appropriate—a sort of bonus gift. Apart from anything else, we can’t put off telling them much longer.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t already noticed,” Brian remarked.
But I’d been wearing concealing clothes, and also I wasn’t very big for four months, which had been a concern until Dr. Reese assured me there was no cause for alarm. Our parents probably attributed the reason I was blooming to our wedded bliss.
“Marriage must suit you,” my mother had commented just a few days before. “You lost so much weight and seemed so listless after you came back from Europe, and it’s good to see you looking more like your old self again. For a while, we were worried that you’d picked up some sort of ailment while you were in Europe.”
Would they immediately jump to a different conclusion when we shared the news? I wondered.
Echoing my question, Brian said, “The first thing they’ll ask is when the baby’s due.”
“I know.”
Approximately May 31, Dr. Reese had predicted. A scant six months after the wedding, which in itself could lead to unfortunate speculation about who the father might be, since I’d been on the other side of the world when I’d conceived.
“We don’t have to be too exact,” he suggested. “Let’s tell them you’re due in the summer and leave it at that. From all I’ve read, first babies especially don’t adhere to a rigid timetable. Just because we happen to know this one’s going to be born ahead of schedule doesn’t obligate us to share the news with anyone else. Once he puts in an appearance, the excitement of having a grandchild will be all our parents care about.”
“But they can count,” I said. “Sooner or later, they’ll figure out I was pregnant when we got married.”
“They’re probably already wondering, Anna, considering how we rushed the wedding, but I doubt they’ll be so crass as to make an issue of something they can do absolutely nothing about. If they do, though, I’m perfectly prepared to tell them it’s none of their business.”
One reason I loved my husband was that he took problems I tended to blow out of all proportion and put them in perspective. “This is one lucky baby, that he has you to look out for him,” I murmured sleepily.
He pulled me closer and tucked the covers more snugly around us. “It’s not a matter of luck. It’s about doing whatever you can for the people you care about.”
A S HE PREDICTED , our parents were thrilled at the idea of a grandchild, and if they were indeed suspicious about the timing, they chose to ignore it.
Once the news was out, the baby became the favorite topic of conversation, almost overshadowing the worsening situation in Europe. Our mothers vied to see who could knit faster, then joined forces on shopping sprees to Boston, coming home loaded with parcels. By February, I had enough infant clothes to outfit an orphanage. My parents bought the crib; Brian’s, the baby carriage. My father rescued from the attic the antique cradle I’d slept in as a newborn and applied a fresh coat of varnish.
Brian put in long days at the college during the early part of the new year, hoping to complete his studies by the end of the spring session. During the hours he was gone, I kept busy setting up the nursery and fulfilling my social obligations as a married woman.
Helped by my mother’s housekeeper, I learned to cook, and tried to have the evening meal prepared when Brian came home. We ate by candlelight, in the dining room, using our everyday china and silver-plate cutlery. On weekends, when we often entertained, I brought out the fine china and the sterling.
“Were you really happy during those early months, Gran?” Carly asks hopefully.
“In all honesty, darling girl, no, I was not. Too often at night, Marco stole in while I slept. My dreams—sometimes painful, sometimes glorious but always vivid—took me hostage. I relived those precious weeks we’d shared, hearing his voice, seeing his face. Some days, I’d wake up smiling and happy—until reality intruded and made me cry.”
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Catherine Spencer
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The Past: It′s 1939, and eighteen-year-old Anna meets Marco in Italy.They fall madly in love, a love she knows will last forever. Even though, within months, they′re separated by war. Even though she′s told that Marco is dead…. The Present: Anna, who′d entered into a marriage of convenience, is widowed, and so is Marco. Long after the war, she discovered that he′d survived.Now she wants to return to Italy, to Marco, for one final visit. The Future: Anna′s adored granddaughter, Carly, accompanies her–and when Carly begins to fall for Marco′s grandson, she wonders if they can have the life together their grandparents never could.