His sisters were on his mind, or he would not have noticed the fashions on parade. His sisters, his mother and aunts and sisters-in-law, all the women who would be at Greenwood to welcome Anna into the family.
Anna said, “Why don’t you put Tonino down?”
But the boy was comfortable. He should be at ease and unafraid, and that meant he couldn’t be dumped into the middle of the chaos at Greenwood.
“Here’s the carriage,” he said, as if that were an answer.
When Anna was seated Jack helped Tonino up to his place between the two of them.
He said, “Here’s the plan. When we get to Greenwood, I’m going to leave you at the mercantile while I go to the farm to get the girls. I think it would be best if they see each other in a quiet setting.” Then he repeated a shorter version of the plan to Tonino in Italian. The boy didn’t seem to be listening, unless you paid close attention. Anna saw it too.
“Have you noticed that he sits a little straighter when Italian is being spoken? As though he’s hearing a familiar sound from far away. Jack, please make sure he understands that you’re coming back for us. He should never have to wonder where we are.”
? ? ?
JACK SPENT THE forty-minute trip to Greenwood pointing things out, first in English, then in Italian. An inn where George Washington had supposedly spent the night; a turn in the road where Jack had upset a wagonload of earth at the age of sixteen, and the teasing he took for that still; a grove of apple trees that had once been part of a larger farm, all of them bent and warped by age so they resembled a herd of gnomes; a farm where his mother bought her poultry. As the village got closer he told stories about particular families, like the Carlisles in an old stone farmhouse, though they did no farming at all; the schoolteacher’s house in the shape of a saltbox; and the school itself, where he had learned to read and write and play mumblety-peg along with his brothers. He pointed out the doctor’s place, the churches, a barber, a blacksmith, a lending library no bigger than an outhouse. A small, neat town on a sleepy Sunday afternoon in late June.
They stopped in front of a building that seemed to be an inn, a restaurant, and a dry goods store all under one roof.
“The mercantile,” Jack said. “Let me introduce you to Rob, and then I’ll be off.”
Anna passed Tonino down, and then took the hand that Jack extended, letting out a soft exclamation when he slipped his arm around her waist and swung her to the ground.
She said, “How much farther to the farm?”
“Depending on how long it takes me to get the girls, I should be back here within the hour. Just enough time for you to settle your nerves.”
“If I’m nervous about anything—” she began.
He leaned over and kissed her temple. “You don’t have to explain. Not to me.”
She relaxed against him for the barest moment, and then turned to usher Tonino into the mercantile.
But the boy stood aside, his whole body tensed as if for flight. Something had frightened him, but what? Jack saw all that and handled it without the slightest hesitation.
He said, “Let’s see what kind of ice cream Rob has today.”
It was one way to test Tonino’s hearing—and his English—but he gave no sign that he had heard or understood.
A voice came out of the shop, rough with age or tobacco.
“Did I hear a Mezzanotte asking for ice cream?” An older man came out of the shadows, wiping his hands on a rag the size of a tablecloth.
“You heard right,” Jack said, walking forward to shake the man’s hand. “How are you, Rob?”
“Surprised. You’ve got a lady with you. Don’t think you’ve ever brought one by here before.”
Jack said, “I’ve never had a wife before.”
Sparse white brows climbed high on a freckled forehead. “You don’t say. I heard a rumor, but I wasn’t going to bite until I saw the proof. And here she is.”
“Anna Savard Mezzanotte,” Jack said. “Or Dr. Savard. This is Rob Carlisle. He runs most everything in the town of Greenwood. And he makes the best ice cream in twenty miles.”
“The only ice cream,” corrected the older man. “But I’ve got a batch made with the first of the strawberries, maybe the best ever. Can I offer you a dish? And that young man hanging back by the carriage, he’s welcome to a dish too.”
“I have to go run a quick errand,” Jack said. “Rather than bore Anna and Tonino I thought I’d leave them here to sample your ice cream. Tonino’s a little shy—”
“He can have his outside,” said Rob Carlisle. “In fact, we all can. Nothing like ice cream on a warm summer afternoon, sitting in the sun.”
? ? ?
THERE WAS A picnic table on a patch of lawn beside the mercantile where they sat down with their ice cream, but sooner had Rob picked up his spoon did a dray pull up, spilling children in every direction while a mother called warnings after them.