Secrets (3 page)
Lance’s request to speak with her upon arrival had been denied with no explanation. Not a promising start, but Nonna had been adamant when he verified her intentions before he left. She wanted him to talk to this cousin he’d never heard of for reasons locked in Nonna’s brain. The sweet-faced nun who welcomed him, along with a handful of other pilgrims, invited him to explore the grounds but was unable to tell him when he might see his cousin.
So Lance walked the gardens and released the urgency that had dogged him all the way there. His New York pushiness would get him nowhere, and it was impossible not to experience the timelessness of eternity within the ancient stone walls. It was not forgetfulness, just a realization that even time spun by God’s word alone.
Dinner was simple, but the nun who served them was not old enough to be Nonna’s cousin. He broke the focaccia and savored the herbs that flavored it, plants he had recognized in the gardens surrounding the buildings. Content with the simple meal, he slept deeply on the plain, narrow bed and woke with a fresh expectation of accomplishing his goal.
After finishing breakfast, Lance asked again for his cousin. He waited at the table as the other pilgrims left for their daily activities. The nun who came to him was again too young. “I am sorry. But Sister Anna Conchessa suggests there is no grandson to her cousin Antonia.”
He spread his hands. “She doesn’t know me. I flew in from America. Here.” He handed her the letter from Conchessa to his Nonna dated years back. “Show her that.”
Elbows resting on the long table, Lance held his face in his hands, waiting. He hadn’t supposed Conchessa would refuse to see him. Why would she doubt his word? Why was it impossible for her to believe Antonia had married and borne future generations? At least she could hear him out.
The woman came back and returned the letter. “I’m sorry. She is baking the bread for the Festival of the Annunciation. Bread is given to the faithful who climb the sanctuary path.”
Lance seized the chance. “Maybe I can help.”
The nun’s brows raised, making wrinkles against the edge of her habit. She was obviously unused to pilgrims offering to join in the work.
“Tell her Nonna Antonia taught me to cook. I can bake bread.” He didn’t know if it was a language barrier or pure incredulity that caused her expression as she went once again to be his mouthpiece.
She came back a few minutes later. “If you will follow me.”
He wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. He felt a little like a sideshow in her eyes. She had probably joined the order at eighteen, and her innocence arose as they walked, like the faint scent of soft candles, dispelling darkness. He followed her to the kitchen, where a woman stood who was easily as old as Nonna. Though the years had not bent her, she was no taller than his shoulder, barrel-shaped and hawk-nosed. He immediately knew his place, and when she motioned to the sink without speaking, he washed well with soap and water, then threw himself into the mixing and kneading of dough.
T
he whir of the saw and the beat of the hammer had been a constant melody over the past months; the scent of wood stain and paint wafting up on the Sonoma Valley breezes to the window where Evvy watched. Her new neighbor was industrious; the worn tool belt a fixture on her narrow hips as she worked sometimes into the night, strong and competent for one so young. But she seemed to go about it all as though she had to keep a step ahead of something or someone, even though she worked entirely alone. There was that element of attack, of driving herself, in each action.
Evvy knew the feeling. Every breath she drew through her sodden lungs was a challenge. If they knew how bad it really was, they’d force her into the hospital and she’d miss the resuscitation of Ralph’s house. It didn’t matter, of course. It wasn’t Ralph’s anymore. But she felt responsible anyway. Watchful.
There were so many memories. And not just hers. Ralph’s were muddled now, but he had told stories….
The whine grew to a pained wail that set her teeth on edge in a way it never had before. It passed with a breathy whiff of new maple, mingling brazenly with musty damp and age. Rese breathed the scent that had filled her lungs more comfortably than the purest air. She let go the trigger on the miter saw and examined the fresh cut on the section of molding, then approved it with her fingertips.
Maple, oak, and cherry had been her companions as long as she could remember. The plane had molded her palm; the chisel had developed her eye and fingers. She knew her way around any power tool on the market, had shot nails, routered trim, sanded and carved and finished every wood worth using. She’d also laid pipe and run wires, though it didn’t compare to working the wood. Nothing did.
Rese knew how to bid a job, how to recognize one she didn’t want to tackle, how to see past the damage to a true gem like the one she’d found here in Sonoma. The property’s value was elevated by the community alone—a rural, self-protecting city that recognized the potential for explosive growth and development around the vineyard industry, and chose instead to maintain its identity, unlike its Napa twin.
The place practically shouted, “Keep your glitz and glamour and big money. We’re the old guard, and we like things the way they are.” Only the decrepit condition of the villa, too historical to pull down and too unsafe to live in, had given her a wedge. Even so she’d used every argument she had to break through the no-growth moratorium on lodging—not that different from battles she had waged over permits and regulations. She wasn’t building new lodging here, just resurrecting an existing property and making it earn its keep. She hoped.
The structure had been built to last, and once she finished the facelift, it would be as stately as at its birth. Not gaudy or ornamental, the villa had a simple grace that reflected an understanding of line and form, and she stayed true to those elements now, in her renovation. A master had to know the heart of a place to do it justice. That’s what she’d been taught, but she’d always had the eye, and since this was the very last time, she had chosen carefully.
Rese swallowed at tightness in her throat as she climbed the frame of the scaffolding and fitted the cornice piece against the wall along the ceiling. The fit was good, the cut sharply aligning with the last section. A wave of satisfaction buoyed her as she stepped out onto the boards and tapped in a few anchoring nails to hold the molding in place. Such a little thing to matter so much. She caressed the wood, admiring its grain, absorbing the beauty.
Each board had its own fingerprint in the pattern of the grain formed by years growing in the sun and rain. She did not take for granted what had gone into each piece of wood she used, what made it strong, what made it supple, all the elements that made it beautiful, useful, and enduring. A California girl, she’d heard all the anti-tree-cutting arguments, but nothing compared to wood when it came down to it.
She did keep all the scraps, however, and many became the corner-piece carvings that were her trademark. Not many people were known by the work of their hands anymore, but she had determined from the start to be more than a nameless nail driver like the rest of the crew.
Years back, she had gathered the ends and spare pieces and practiced with the different chisels until the rounded handles felt more at home in her palm than a pen or a book or a jump rope. She could draw well enough to pencil her designs, but it was when she dug into the wood that the magic happened.
Rese climbed back down, slid the next board into place in the miter box and found her pencil mark. She aligned the blade with the edge of the wood, checked the degree of its angle and reached for the trigger. Before she could squeeze, the image struck her mind. Thick, callused fingers with blunt, chipped nails, the silver blur of the blade.
She pressed her eyes shut and drew long breaths through her nostrils, then seized the trigger and put the saw in motion, edging it into the wood. Another clean cut. She eased the molding out from the miter table, climbed the scaffolding and tacked it to the adjoining wall and ceiling. Focus and perform; don’t think, don’t remember, don’t imagine what-ifs. Just find the rhythm in the wood.
The moment Lance stepped inside the neglected yard of the Sonoma villa, the very ground reached up and embraced him. Grapevines along the squat, iron fence beckoned like gnarled hands. Ancient blood stirred in his veins. It must be the place, or the ground would not cry out to him. The breeze ruffled his hair with spring-scented fingers. New sprouts and blooms awakened in the yard, but the house seemed still.
Its creamy stucco was flawless; no gutter sagged; no shutter listed. The porch posts were freshly painted white, though the narrow porch that framed the door drew no more attention than the long paned windows of the first floor or the arch-covered windows of the second. There was a pleasing symmetry that blended it all together, and yet… that feeling of pause, as though a great sleep had settled over its walls, and now it waited … and watched.
The construction pickup in the driveway read Barrett Renovation and explained the pristine condition of a structure more than a hundred years old. But none of that work had penetrated the silence. As his gaze traveled the plastered face before him, Lance realized how deeply the need had settled inside … the right—yes, the right.
The slate walk was somber as he covered its length to the worn, solid stairs beneath the arched portico and climbed. Before he rapped the door, Lance laid his hand to the wood.
What will you show me, old house?
He closed his eyes and pressed his other hand to the inner pocket of his jacket; a second letter entrusted to him by the old woman he had come to love after three weeks in her convent kitchen, a letter with a return address matching the property he now inspected.
“Use it wisely, Lance,”
she had instructed.
I will, cogino mio
.
But would he? He always started out with good intentions, even when they got him into trouble—as they had more often than he liked to think. He began with brilliance. It was seeing it through to the end that somehow eluded him.
This would be different. This wasn’t about him. It was for Nonna. A vise squeezed his chest, releasing only when he drew a slow breath and knocked. The whine of a saw blade came from inside, and his second knock went unnoticed. He would have called ahead, but he’d only just seen his opportunity for introduction in the front window.
Lance tried the knob and opened the front door. The sense of purpose crept through his hand and up his arm as he peered inside at the broad staircase rising up before him. He almost pictured a young, graceful Antonia descending to welcome him with open arms and a kiss to each cheek. He’d never seen her that way, only softly wrinkled, like crepe, but she was beautiful still.
His gaze slid over the spacious front room; walls patched and awaiting paint, but seemingly sound and promising elegance. Muted gray and beige stone in the entry floor, wood for the rest. Tall ceilings and long narrow windows. The place was old, though not the hoary age of the Italian structures he’d seen in Italy. Age without infirmity; wisdom, not senility. Watchful, expectant maturity. He swallowed. He hadn’t expected to react so powerfully to the house.
Drawing himself up, Lance called, “Hello.” Or maybe he thought it only. “I’m home,” he breathed, though he’d never set foot in the place. He shook his head. Way too quixotic. He stepped inside and sought the sound of industry.