Anna thought of encouraging him, of telling him to go to them, but some instinct made her hold back. To intrude now might be disastrous. The boy was so tightly wound, so tense, that she could almost feel him vibrating.
Then the girls came to a skidding stop in front of their brother. Anna moved out of the way, and Lia climbed up on the bench to take her spot while Rosa took the other side. Anna couldn’t see Tonino’s face because they had their arms wrapped around him. They were talking more quietly now, their voices hitching and catching.
There was no sound from Tonino. He was trembling, and his face was wet with tears, but he didn’t seem able to bring forth a single word. Anna walked over to Jack and leaned into him.
“Did you ask the girls about—”
“I asked if he was as good as Lia at telling stories, and they had a discussion that made it clear that he can hear and speak.”
It was almost bad news; if he were deaf, the challenges would be clear-cut. But a boy who simply would not or could not talk was a much more difficult puzzle.
When she thought she could not stand one more second of not knowing, the three children shifted a little on the bench, and a single hand—a little rough, browned by the sun—came around to rest on Lia’s narrow back, and patted.
Anna realized then that she had feared the worst: that he wouldn’t want to see the sisters who had mourned him. And here was proof that she was wrong: whatever he had endured, the boy he had been—the brother he had been—was still there. Torn and fearful and angry, but enough himself to touch his sister gently. He patted Lia’s back to comfort her, and took the comfort the girls offered him in turn.
? ? ?
THE THREE CHILDREN sat on the rear carriage bench pressed together and very quiet. Anna had still not heard Tonino say a word, but then the girls had asked him no questions, as far as she could tell. They whispered to him now and then, and twice Lia gave a low giggle, but otherwise they had closed themselves off, cocooned together. She wondered if they had told him about their father, and decided that they had not, and did not know how to share this news.
For a moment Anna felt the same light-headed sense of unreality that overcame her after an important exam. She would have liked a few hours to catch her breath, but another exam was before her. All the calm reserve she had drawn around herself simply leaked away, and she shivered.
Jack took the reins in one hand and with the other he took her forearm. The dress she wore had wide sleeves of a light batiste, secured with a single button at the wrist. With a simple twist Jack opened the cuff. He pulled back her sleeve to run his fingers down the skin of her inner arm to trace the creases on her palm. Every nerve in her body snapped to life, and she pulled her arm away, laughing.
“Do you think I’m so easily distracted?”
“I know exactly how easily distracted you are,” he said. “But this is as much as I dare, under the circumstances. Do you remember the stories about us swimming in the river on the hottest summer days? This is the river. We could follow it to the farm if we were on foot.” Something in his tone aroused her suspicions and Anna turned to study his profile.
“I have no intention of swimming, Jack.”
He raised one eyebrow at her as if this were a challenge. Which, she supposed, it was.
She said, “Tell me how the houses are laid out. Give me a picture.”
He told her in his usual spare way: there were five houses in a rough half circle, set far enough apart and with fruit trees planted between them to provide some privacy. The biggest house, the one in the middle, belonged to his parents. They would eat all together at a long table under the pergola, with a view of the orchards and greenhouses. And they would sleep in the room he had had as a boy.
He shifted a little, and Anna poked him. “You’ve never had a girl in that room before, have you?”
“Define what you mean by had.” He closed his free hand around hers before she could poke him again. “Of course not. The only females who have ever stepped foot in that room are my mother and aunts when they helped with the housework.”
“Your sisters?”
“Only upon pain of death,” he said grimly.
“You had a room to yourself?”
He shrugged. “It’s a big house. When we had family parties I had to share with cousins. You won’t mind sharing the bed with Pasquale and Pietro, will you?”
“Very funny.”
He bowed from the shoulders. “You haven’t met them yet, so you don’t know how funny.”
He was in a good mood. They had done the impossible in finding Tonino, and fulfilled at least half of the promises made to Rosa. And he was proud to be bringing Anna home to his family.
If only there weren’t so many of them. Anna had devoted a good amount of time to learning names: his brothers, their wives and children. Between Chiara and Jack she had learned enough about each of them to give her a firm footing.
She said, “I’m ready to do battle to establish my place in the pecking order. It will be a bit of a challenge, but then my Italian isn’t very good, so I won’t know if I’ve succeeded or not.”