Unforgotten (48 page)

Antonia’s condition had obviously improved, but with both his leather jacket and his jeans hanging loose, Lance looked as though he’d been eaten out from the inside, and maybe that was what kept her from heaving the chisels at his head. But she stalked over, leaving him no question how she felt about his surprise appearance.

A poignant expression had taken over Antonia’s features as she stared up at the house, but Lance turned with a look she couldn’t begin to contemplate. “What are you doing here?” Because she would relinquish the Harley and good riddance, but Baxter was leaving over her cold, dead body.

“I should have called.”

She was beyond response.

The slight, chill wind lifted the front of his hair as he raised a hand toward the house. “Nonna wanted to see the place, to …” He swayed. “Can she just …” His legs buckled, and he went down.

Baxter darted back, nudged and licked his head, but Lance didn’t move. Rese stared at him lying face down in the white gravel driveway, his hand outstretched, as though he’d crawled through a desert to get there. Torn between concern and fury, she looked from him to Antonia.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Antonia pulled her eyes from the house, seeming only then to realize he’d collapsed.

Rese crouched and gripped his shoulder. “Lance?” Nothing. “Is he sick? He looks wasted.”

“N … ot sick.” Antonia shook her head. “Used up by God.”

What? Rese glared, then rubbed a hand over her face, feeling used up herself. Life didn’t have to be as complicated as Lance made it. She shook him again, but he didn’t respond even when another puff of wind lifted the hair from the back of his neck.

Since she could hardly leave him lying in the driveway, she put down her load, reached under his arms and rolled him to his back. No return to consciousness. She considered slapping him, but as on that day at the shore, she couldn’t quite do it. Clenching her teeth, she hoisted him up against her thighs and dragged him to the porch, amazed at how light he seemed. Maybe he
had
been used up.

“O mischief!” Star hurried down and caught his ankles, but Rese noted the glance that darted to Antonia and past her to the empty driveway, looking … for Rico? Rese huffed. One delinquent appearing was quite enough.

With Star’s help, Rese got Lance through the door and into her own bed, which was the only one that didn’t require hauling him upstairs. He didn’t move, not even to blink his eyes, but he breathed, so she left him there and went back out for Antonia.

The old woman’s eyes had grown misty, and Rese wanted to gather her in and reassure her that whatever insanity Lance was perpetrating on her, she would make it right. What was he thinking dragging her all the way out here? But then, it was Lance. He didn’t think.

She scooped her things up from the driveway and helped Nonna climb the steps of the porch while Star came behind with her walker. Lance had been light, but Antonia was almost weightless. At the top, Antonia searched the porch as though missing something, maybe a swing or piece of furniture that must have held memories. Rese had sensed a lot of history in this old place when she bought it. She had never guessed she would get to know so much of it, or the people who had lived it.

Star placed the walker in front, and Rese helped her get hold of it; then Antonia focused her gaze through the open door, and her arms shook.

Please, please don’t have a stroke
.

Rese could hardly imagine how this must be for her, forced out as a girl and not seeing her home once in all these years. Not to mention the grief and violence that happened to her family inside these walls. Though Rese had mistaken old wine corks popping in the cellar for ghostly gunshots, Antonia might very well remember the real thing.

But then, if she expected things to be as she recalled, Antonia had another blow coming. To soften it, Rese said, “It might not look the same. It was badly damaged, and I took some liberties.” A few walls removed, new floors, new shelves, new moldings, paint, and carpets, but always with a tenacious replication of the original style and materials. Antonia nodded as she stepped inside, tears streaking the soft powder on her cheeks. Rese’s anger drained at the sight. Certainly she could not blame Antonia. Even if, as Lance said, she had wanted to see the place. Wanting and doing … well, Lance did have a problem saying no to her.

Antonia raised her face. “Lance?” Her main concern, even in these first moments home. He sure knew how to steal the scene.

“This way.” She led her down the hall into the kitchen, where the old woman paused once again, gulping. Anger rose at the poor woman’s predicament—Lance dragging her there, then passing out and leaving her to face the shock of it alone. Not alone, Rese vowed.

She’d do whatever it took to ease Antonia’s stress. “He’s in here.”

Antonia looked through the door. “N … onno’s room.” Her mouth trembled.

With Star hovering, Rese ushered Antonia through the narrow passage and into the room, which, judging by the look on her face, was also steeped in memories.

Lance lay as they’d put him, his eyes sunken, his breathing shallow. A surge of concern tugged her. “Does he need a doctor?”

Antonia shuffled to the edge of the bed, her hand on the walker reminiscent of Evvy’s, though without the crabapple knuckles. She looked down at Lance, her face flushed.

Rese swallowed hard. She did not need this. She had found her equilibrium.

Antonia shook her head. “Let him rest. M … aybe now he’ll eat.”

Eat? But unbelievable as it was, he didn’t appear to have eaten in ages. Lance—for whom sharing a meal had eternal significance. “Does he have something awful?”

“Yes.” Nonna nodded. “The w … orst I’ve seen.”

Fear tore through her. If Lance had come there to die, she’d never forgive him.

————

Antonia swayed, the edges blurring again.

Rushing into Nonno’s room, I shake him awake. “Come, Nonno. Hurry. There’s trouble. We have to hide.”

Arthur Jackson’s face, match-lit in the driveway; another man hidden by shadows—Carlo Borsellino. Stealthy footsteps, gunshots! Fear fills my lungs. The tunnel. We must hide in the cellar. Hurry, Nonno! But …

Was the tunnel still there? Yes, Lance had found Nonno, buried him. Time overlapped, and she struggled to keep it straight. Did they have to hide? Where was Papa?

A hand touched her shoulder. “Let me pull the chair up for you.”

Rese. Lance’s Rese. And it was Lance in the bed, not Nonno. The fear was past, but she sank into the chair, overwhelmed. How had she come here after all these years? And then she looked at Lance, lying where Nonno had lain. Ah. It wasn’t over. Not yet.

————

It would help if Star stopped laughing. Having settled Antonia into the wing chair in Lance’s room—formerly her own, but seemingly not to be for a while since neither Lance nor Antonia could manage the stairs—she stalked out to the yard before doing something she’d regret. She had worked hard on the walls and didn’t plan on repairing punch holes.

“I’ll need to rig up a cot in the office for Antonia until Lance can get out of my bed,” she told Star, then stopped halfway down the flagstone path. “Or maybe I should put them both in the carriage house.”

“She’s awfully old, Rese.”

“He’s not.”

Star caught up. “He doesn’t look up to helping her if she falls or something.”

“It’s an excuse for showing up without a word.”

“And what, pray, could he have said?” Amusement danced in hereyes. “This isn’t funny, Star! I wish I could—”

“Did you see Antonia’s face?”

Rese sighed. “Yes.”

“Such rapturous sorrow.”

“I know. It must be awful and wonderful.” Her chest squeezed. Maybe it really had been Antonia who needed to come. Maybe that was what Lance had tried to say:
“Don’t think this was my idea; I only came for Nonna’s sake.”

“Call Michelle and see if she has a cot, and tell her it needs good cushioning.” All those bedrooms with their top-quality beds were inaccessible for a ninety-something stroke victim. She should have put in an elevator. Maybe she’d build the shaft tonight. It was a sure bet she wouldn’t sleep.

“I’m going to tell Mom they’re here so she doesn’t think she’s seeing things.” Rese went upstairs where Mom was watching the only TV in the house. It had been in her own room, but she gave it up. Maybe she should have seen that as prophetic.

“Mom, we have visitors.”

Her mother nodded. But that could have been an involuntary motion.

Just in case, she added, “It’s a man and his grandmother.”

Mom didn’t turn from the nature show on the TV, just started nodding again, her fingers flicking away. “All they have is water. Water’s all they have.”

“Okay, then. You doing okay?”

Nodding and flicking. “Fine. Fine. I’m fine.”

Rese went out, stood against the wall, and dropped her head back against it hard enough to hear the
thunk
. What was happening? Having Lance in the house was some nightmare d
ja vu. She hadn’t wanted him there the first time, but he’d talked his way around all her objections. Now he didn’t even bother to talk; just fell at her feet.

No one else could have pulled that off. And she didn’t believe there was nothing wrong either. He looked worse than Star had when she brought her home. Or Mom for that matter. How many ailing souls was she expected to care for?

The whole thing had her so worked up that when Michelle came with the cot and an extra foam topper, she hugged her.

Michelle raised her eyebrows. “So what’s up?”

Rese glared. “Unexpected guests. Lance and his grandmother.”

“Oh.” Michelle’s face brightened. “Where is he? I’ve got some Baxter stories.”

She thought about asking Michelle to hide the dog, but didn’t. “Sorry. He passed out in the driveway and isn’t awake yet.”

Michelle squashed the foam pad under her chin. “Passed out?”

Rese pulled the cot out of Michelle’s car. “Antonia said he’s used up by God. Whatever that means.”

“Well, howdy. That’s why I’ve had such a burden for that man.”

Rese stared. “You have?” With all the people Michelle cared for daily, she’d been worried about a man three thousand miles away whom she hardly knew?

“It just seemed he was under fire.”

Rese vividly recalled too many nights, waking up gasping, aching for him in a way that was deeper than her own loss. Feelings that now intensified her anger.

Michelle looked toward the house. “Can I see him?”

Rese frowned, feeling incongruously protective. “I guess. But he’s pretty wiped out.”

She carried the cot into the office portion of her suite, where Antonia would sleep. Star took the foam pad from Michelle, and then they went into the bedroom, where Antonia was already sitting. Lance had not moved a hair. She had never seen him sleep but doubted this dead faint was normal, even for Lance. Her heart clutched up inside her. With four women gaping at him, shouldn’t he show some sign of life?

Michelle put a hand on his head, silent for a few moments, then nodded and released him. She bent and patted Baxter’s head, but the dog wasn’t budging from beside the bed. Rese found a sliver of consolation in that he hadn’t climbed in. A matter of training, not preference, she knew. Even unconscious, Lance had better control of him than she did. So why had he deserted the animal, and her, and their plans, and …

She crouched beside his grandma, breathing a scent like winter roses. “Antonia, what’s really wrong with him? He told me there was something he had to do, but he looks …” How did he look? Not sick, really, but gaunt and certainly exhausted. A pang shot through.

Lance kept intruding on her life with no warning and no explanation. And anger and hurt made her vulnerable. She had to keep a clear head.

Antonia seemed to pull herself back from somewhere, cognizance dawning in her eyes. “It s … tarted here. In this r … oom.” She spoke slowly, but much more clearly than when Rese had last seen her, sometimes searching for words, but doggedly continuing. A lot of the story Rese knew, but not what had happened after she and Star left New York.

Antonia barely held her emotions in as she told them Marco had been murdered, but when she said Lance believed God had called him to settle the vendetta, Rese almost lost it. How could he think that? But she’d seen the anger simmering, the unresolved grief and his need to prove himself.

Was it really surprising he would retaliate? Her throat closed. And now? Was that why he hadn’t told her he was coming, why he’d said everything would be different? She rasped, “Did he settle it?”

Antonia nodded. Rese looked from Star to Michelle, whose faces reflected her concern. Even if he might believe she would shelter him, he couldn’t expect them to.

Antonia drew a breath, and her mouth worked hard to find the words. “H … e prayed and f … asted. And when he knew God’s h … eart, he forgave Paolo Borsellino.”

Star made the connection first. “He settled the vendetta with forgiveness?”

Antonia nodded again. “He w … ent to the prison and f … orgave Paolo.”

Comprehension rushed in. Relief and fury. Rese turned and stared at him. Lance had done the right thing, even a great thing. He’d found God’s will—that big all-encompassing purpose—and had discarded her to accomplish it.