The muscles in Oscar’s jaw began to tick and roll, but his tone was even. “A trickster of the first order, and him not even a Jesuit. I’m sorry for the girls, but it’s a miracle you got as close as you did. I don’t suppose Rosa sees it that way.”
They rode along in silence for a while. Jack glanced at his partner and said, “Lia is calling me uncle and Anna auntie.”
“And Rosa?”
“Don’t know if she is even talking to us,” Jack said. “Remains to be seen.”
? ? ?
ANNA WOKE IN stages, like a swimmer drifting toward land until the water itself pushed her out into the waking world.
Three things came to her all at once: she was alone in bed in a quiet house, which meant that Jack had left for Mulberry Street without waking her, the rotter; the winds that had battered them all Saturday had subsided, but left behind a hypnotic rain as soft and warm as new milk; and she had a cold.
She barely got the handkerchief out from beneath her pillow before she produced a triplet of wet sneezes.
After a day of travel in damp clothes the head cold was no surprise, but it was something of a catastrophe in purely practical terms. Until her symptoms had gone, she could not see patients or even step foot in the hospital. A head cold was not a real threat to an otherwise healthy, well-nourished person, but it could be the end of someone whose health was already compromised. And she hated colds, the fuzziness of mind and head, the impertinence of a body that would not obey simple commands. The oddest thoughts came to her when she had a cold.
She hoped the girls had escaped this, and somehow knew that she needn’t worry about Jack. Lying in the bed they shared, half-asleep, sniffling, she willed him healthy and untouched while he did whatever detective sergeants did on a Sunday morning.
Now she had to get up and talk to the girls. To pretend yesterday was just a bad dream would only make things worse. But it would not be easy.
Dressed and armed with three fresh handkerchiefs, she made her way through the quiet house toward the kitchen and heard the distinct rhythm of Mrs. Cabot’s Down East accent: clipped in some places, r-sounds swallowed whole, while in others words were stretched to the breaking point and tacked back together. There was some debate going on about Skidder’s breakfast.
“Lia, my dear, no honey for Skidder.”
“Why?” Lia, sincerely curious, as ever.
“Because he’s already sweet enough.”
Anna smiled, imagining the look on Lia’s face as she puzzled this through. Then she got right to the crux of the matter.
“Am I sweet enough?”
“You are mighty sweet but maybe you could do with a little more honey. Wipe your nose, dear—but on your hankie.”
The girls sneezed, one after the other. Anna supposed it was inevitable.
Mrs. Cabot was saying, “Now, what were you telling me about that priest fella on the island?”
Rosa said, “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“I do,” said Lia, sniffing. “He has a red face, and white hair, and he smiles a lot but he’s mean. He didn’t like us. He wouldn’t tell us where he hid our little brother.”
Anna opened the door and all three of them turned toward her. Lia’s thoughtful expression gave away to something else, comfort or relief or some combination of the two. Anna’s throat constricted, but she forced herself to breathe and then to smile.
Rosa’s expression was far more solemn, but yesterday’s open hostility was gone.
“Welcome to my infirmary,” Mrs. Cabot said. “Dr. Savard, your nose is as red as a lobster.”
“Lob-stah!” Lia echoed, and sneezed.
“Sit down, I’ve got dry toast and my special fever tea with honey and lemon.”
It took some time to negotiate breakfast—Anna gave up on the idea of coffee in the face of Mrs. Cabot’s stern disapproval—but in the end she sat across from the girls with a cup of tea in her hands and a plate of dry toast between them. She had wanted Jack here for this conversation, but now it seemed that this was the better way. It was something she needed to do on her own, without worry about what he was hearing or what he thought about it.
“We should talk about Vittorio,” she said. “And about Tonino, too, and your parents. We have to tell stories about the people we love who go away. It’s the best way to hold on to them. Don’t you think, Mrs. Cabot?”
“A-yuh,” Mrs. Cabot said with a quiet smile. “No better way.”
“You don’t talk about your people,” Rosa said. “Auntie Margaret says you never do.”
“I didn’t, that’s true. But I think it was a mistake not to. We should tell the stories and then write them down.”
“I don’t know where to start,” Lia said.
“We can take turns,” Anna said. “I’ll tell you first about the summer I was three years old, when my parents died.”
“Three is too little to remember,” Rosa said, with a certain disdain.