All through that difficult day she wondered about the least important issue of all: Jack Mezzanotte sent his partner to accompany them, instead of coming himself.
Standing at the graveside with a trembling Rosa pressed against her side, Anna tried to block out the dull monotone of the chaplain reading from a funeral service in order to focus on the girls. What she could do for them. If anything could be done for them. What to say, or not say. Over the years she had developed a way to tell an adult that a mother or sister or daughter was gone. She tried to answer the questions, and she listened patiently. She was empathetic, but calm. None of that seemed possible standing by this particular grave and a coffin of cheap pine.
Rosa’s sorrow was palpable, but Lia seemed to be in a kind of waking dream. Her expression was almost blank, her eyes fever-bright, and she made no noise at all. Oscar Maroney was holding her for the simple reason that when he tried to put her down, her legs wouldn’t support her. Even Sophie, who had the gentlest and most compassionate of touches, could not get Lia’s attention. When she reached out to put her hand on Lia’s back, the girl turned her face to press it against Oscar Maroney’s shoulder.
It was Maroney who got through to Lia, on the ferry ride back to Manhattan. She sat on his lap with Rosa close beside him, and for the whole journey he told them what Anna took to be children’s stories. He changed his voice and hunched his shoulders, opened his eyes in mock surprise and whispered.
And this, she told herself, was why Jack had sent Oscar. Because he knew that Oscar had a talent for dealing with children in distress.
If only he could do that much for lady doctors in distress, too. She was embarrassed by this thought but could not deny the underlying truth: she had hoped to see Jack Mezzanotte, had wanted his support and help. Such a short amount of time she had spent with him, and already she had unrealistic expectations simply because he had flirted with her a bit. It was good that he had stayed away, she told herself. She would go home and nurse her hurt pride and wounded ego, and tomorrow she would start over again. A highly educated physician and surgeon, with work that satisfied her, and a loving family that now included two little girls.
? ? ?
SHE HAD ALMOST convinced herself of this when they got back to Waverly Place to find a letter waiting.
Savard: If you are free tomorrow I suggest we go together to talk to the people at the Society for the Protection of Endangered Children about the boys. Unless I hear from you I’ll expect to see you at the Washington Monument in Union Square at one. We can walk from there.
I’m sorry I couldn’t come with you today to help with Rosa and Lia.
—Mezzanotte
? ? ?
AS JACK CAME out of the front door of the shop on Sunday afternoon, he saw Anna. She walked right by him, lost in her thoughts. He called her name and she came to a sudden stop and turned toward him.
“Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte.”
Back to the formal, then. He inclined his head. “Dr. Savard.” Her gaze moved over the sign above the door: MEZZANOTTE BROTHERS FLORISTS.
“Oh,” she said. “This is where you live. I don’t know why I didn’t realize; I pass this corner all the time.”
She was nervous, and embarrassed about being nervous.
“I don’t live in the shop,” he said, and turned to point. “The house is farther down, behind the brick wall. If you’d like to see—”
She shook her head, flustered now. “Another time, maybe.”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s stop for coffee, and you can tell me how it went yesterday.”
? ? ?
IT WAS A reasonable idea and something concrete to do; a chore to focus on. As soon as they found a table in the coffee shop across the street, Anna started talking and she didn’t stop until she had related the whole grim story.
“It would have been so much worse without Detective Sergeant Maroney,” she said. “We owe him—and you—a great favor. The girls needed more help than we could provide.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” He paused as the waitress put down their coffee cups. “But if you feel strongly about it, there is something you can do for me.”
Anna drew in a deep breath. “If it’s in my power, of course.”
He leaned forward—something he did a lot, she was noticing—and smiled.
“I’d like you to relax. There’s nothing to be anxious about.”
She let out a small laugh. “I’m normally a very composed person,” she told him. And in a fit of honesty: “You make me nervous.”
“That much is obvious.”
For a minute there was a silence between them while they tended to their coffee cups.
She said, “I didn’t realize that there was more than greenhouses behind that wall. It must feel like an oasis in the busiest part of the city, living there.”