Dust Devil (60 page)

“
Of
course I’ll take care of her. You didn’t need to ask.”

“
No,
I know that. Still, it eased my mind to hear you say it. She’s
a good woman, the best. I been lucky to havva her. I donna t’ink
my life woulda been mucha without her. A man’s born alone, and
he dies alone, and if he finds one person, one beautiful, special
woman in his entire life who loves him, then he’s richer than
most. You gonna marry that girl of yours, Renzo?”

“
Yes,
if she’ll have me.”

“
Good.
That’sa good. She’s a fine girl, your Sarah, just like
Mama Rosa. She donna know how I helped her alla these years, your
Sarah, with her scholarship at the university—I sitta on the
board of trustees there, you know— and with her daddy’s
pension and the nursing home where her poor, ailing mama is. I sent
her that camera, too, and suggested to J.D. that he’dda be wise
to hire her on at Field-Yield, Inc., once she hadda graduated from
college. I t’ink maybe your Sarah didn’t needa my help,
that she’dda made it somehow on her own, anyway. But she loved
you, and she was loyal. She understood about family, and she gave you
a fine son...a son to be proud of. She deserved that I shoulda standa
in your stead in your absence. So, this is the other t’ing I
wanna you to do for me.” Reaching down on the far side of his
rocker, Papa Nick drew up an unopened bottle of wine and passed it to
Renzo. “I made it myself, from grapes from my own vineyards.
After I’m gone, I wanna you and your Sarah to open that bottle
and drink a toast for me... to
amore.
Because
when alla is said and done, that’sa the only t’ing in the
world that makes life worthwhile, Renzo, that makes it worth living.
Because, otherwise, what’sa the point? What’sa it alla
for, if you donna havva nobody to share it with?”

*
* *

Papa
Nick died quietly in his sleep that night. He was buried four days
later in the old, grassy cemetery at the edge of town. Much to
Sarah’s surprise, as she stood with Renzo and Alex at the
graveside, she observed that one of the many mourners present was J.
D. Holbrooke. She hadn’t seen him since that night at
Field-Yield, Inc., when all hell had broken loose and Evie had been
taken into custody for murder. Since then, a panel of three
psychiatrists having judged her mentally incompetent to stand trial,
Evie had been quietly packed off to a sanatorium, where she would in
all likelihood spend the rest of her life. And of course, J.D. had
withdrawn from the Senate race and was even now facing indictment on
several counts for his crimes.

Now,
as she gazed at him, Sarah thought J.D. looked as though he had aged
twenty years in recent days, as though the rumor circulating around
town—that his cancer had returned with a debilitating
vengeance—were, in fact, true. Neither ZoeAnn nor Bubba
accompanied J.D., and when the service had ended, he walked heavily
and alone toward his car, speaking to nobody, and nobody speaking to
him. It was the last time Sarah ever saw him alive. He died in a
hospital bed barely six months later—leaving Bubba alone to
clean up the horrible mess his father and sister had made. Like J.D.,
Evie hadn’t trusted Bubba with the knowledge that Field-Yield,
Inc. was dumping its toxic waste into the quarries. She had sensed
that he, like Sonny, would draw the line at poisoning the town to
spare the fertilizer plant the expense of properly disposing of its
noxious refuse. So, from the time years ago when she had
learned
her father’s secret, Evie had kept it, protecting and covering
up for him.

“
Alex,
will you help Mama Rosa back to the limousine, please?” Renzo
asked after they had all tossed their single red roses on to Papa
Nick’s elaborate bronze casket and the gravediggers had begun
to make the necessary preparations for lowering it into the freshly
turned earth, the rich scent of which filled the summer air, mingling
lushly with the perfume of the roses and the rest of the flowers, the
funeral wreaths. “Your mother and I will join you in a minute.”

“
Sure,
Dad. Here, Mama Rosa.” Alex slid his arm about her thin
shoulders, which shook silently from her weeping. “Lean on me.”

Tears
stung Sarah’s own eyes at the sight of her tall, sturdy,
handsome son walking so slowly and patiently as he carefully assisted
the frail old woman to the car. “It’s as though he
somehow knows she’s his great-grandmother,” Sarah
remarked quietly, for at long last, upon Papa Nick’s death,
Renzo had revealed to her his relationship to the old man. “Even
though we agreed he was too young to be told yet.”

“
Perhaps
he doesn’t need to be told,” Renzo suggested. “Children
are often wise beyond their years, knowing things by instinct that we
adults don’t give them credit for being aware of. I think
perhaps I always knew on some level that Papa Nick was my
grandfather, that I knew that first day I ever saw him and that it
was something I simply buried in my subconscious, because I didn’t
want to know it, was afraid to acknowledge it. Sofie, my biological
mother, had called him a ‘big, mean old spider,’
and
that had frightened me horribly.
He
frightened
me that day. I was only a little boy. It wasn’t until this
summer that I came to understand that there was great goodness, as
well as great wickedness, in him, as strange as that may seem to you.
Believe it or not, I’m going to miss that old man, Sarah. He
stood for everything I’ve ever fought against my whole life.
Yet, except for you, he understood me better than anyone else alive.
He goaded me on, even when he knew my triumphs would prove his own
defeats. In his own way, he loved me the way his son, Luciano, my
real father, never did. If it hadn’t been for Papa Nick, for
him seeing that I grew up in the Martinelli household, I don’t
think I’d ever truly have known what love is. I don’t
think I’d ever have been the man I am today.” Renzo
paused for a moment. Then he said, “Walk with me a piece,
Sarah. There’s something else I need to do here before leaving
the cemetery today.”

“
All
right,” she replied quietly, forcing herself to breathe calmly
in order to still the sudden, painful, hopeful throbbing of her
heart. Since that day when he had first learned about Alex, Renzo
hadn’t mentioned marrying her again; and at first, when he had
requested she walk with him, Sarah had thought he intended to propose
to her. Now she realized how crazy an idea that was. If and when
Renzo asked her to marry him, he wouldn’t choose a graveyard as
the place to do it in, or hard on the heels of his grandfather’s
funeral as the time.

Renzo
didn’t speak further as they seemed to wander aimlessly among
the old headstones, many of which were engraved with dates as far
back as the late 1800s. But at last, beneath an old willow tree, he
came to a halt, and as Sarah gazed down at the marker they now stood
before, she recognized that they had not, after all, been meandering
through the cemetery, that Renzo had intended to come here all along.

Twelve
years of sun and wind, of rain and snow, had dulled the once-polished
grey granite of Sonny Holbrooke’s elaborate headstone—but
not his memory. In her mind’s eye, she could see him as plainly
as though he were still alive and standing there before them, a shock
of his golden-blond hair falling carelessly into his blue eyes, his
face studious and absent, as though he were perpetually lost in
thought, heard in the distance a drummer different. To her surprise,
Sarah now realized suddenly that it was the same expression she
sometimes spied on Renzo’s dark, handsome visage.

Reaching
out, he rested one hand on the top of the granite marker, went down
on one knee upon the grassy grave, his head bowed. For a long time,
he was silent, and the only sounds were those of the gravediggers in
the distance, burying Papa Nick, the soughing of the humid breeze
through the trees, the drone of locusts and other insects. Then at
last Renzo spoke softly, saying what to Sarah seemed a very strange
thing.

“
Right,
Holmes,” he murmured. Then he laid upon the grave the book he
had carried all through Papa Nick’s service, which, until this
moment, Sarah had assumed was the Holy Bible. But it wasn’t so
at all, she recognized now as she read the title stamped in gold on
the forest-green leather.

Her
eyes were puzzled. Still, instinctively, she said nothing. It was one
of those things about Renzo, she knew,
that
would forever remain a mystery to her, unless and until he chose to
enlighten her. Perhaps he would someday. Or perhaps he would not. And
that was all right; that was something she understood in her heart.
There were some things too private to share even with those closest
to you, with those you loved, with the one who was the other half of
your soul.

As
Renzo was hers. Had always been hers.

Rising,
he stared down at her intently, searchingly, for a long
moment—marveling at the fact that, unlike most women would
have, she asked no questions, but stood there waiting patiently for
him. As she always had and always would, he thought, his heart
flooding, welling to overflowing with love for her. Without speaking,
he took her hand gently in his. In silence, they strolled back to the
limousine, the afternoon sun beating down brightly upon them and upon
those who now slept forever in the dark, quiet earth... dust in the
wind.

A
man
travels
the
world
over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

The
Brook Kerith

—
George
Moore

Now
lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,

And
all thy heart lies open unto me.

The
Princess

—
Alfred,
Lord Tennyson

An
Old Victorian Farmhouse, The Midwest, The Present

As
she always would, Sarah sensed Renzo behind her even before he
stepped quietly out onto the deck to join her, a wine bottle and two
glasses in hand. Still, she didn’t turn to acknowledge his
presence, but went on staring at the night sky, at the full silver
moon, at the countless glittering stars that swirled across the
heavens, like the fiery trail of a flaming Catherine wheel captured
at the height of all its glory, forever poised in motion. Her piquant
face was upturned to the sultry, soughing wind, which ruffled
her
long, dark brown hair, her diaphanous white nightgown, so she seemed
like some beautiful, otherworldly creature standing there, the
woodland fairy princess he had once called her years ago, Renzo
thought.