Secrets (2 page)

His sister Monica was trying to quiet Nicky, but the cramped space and choking worry must be driving the kid nuts. Monica sent him a glance, then slipped out around Lucy, whose toddler Nina was sleeping on her shoulder. His third sister, Sofie, should be studying. She was immersed in her doctorate program and couldn’t afford this distraction. Not that she’d prioritize it that way, but that was the reality.

This was going to take its toll on all of them. He was in the best position to keep watch, since his responsibilities were their usual nil. There was something to be said for that; it made you available in a crisis.

But Lance didn’t want to think of this as a crisis. They were still reeling from the last, from Tony. He glanced at Gina, small and dark, standing near the door, and knew the emotions churning inside her. His sister-in-law should definitely be home. He could handle things here. Nonna Antonia was a fighter. She’d swing back, and she didn’t miss. She’d swung for his backside enough times when she wasn’t too busy defending him.

They should go home and get some sleep. Pop hadn’t had supper. Lance caught Momma’s eye as she paused her praying. He nodded toward Pop, and she caught the gist. His family had a remarkable ability to communicate without words, though it didn’t stop them heaping on the words as well.

They’d probably worn the hospital staff ’s patience a little thin, and he wanted Nonna to himself. Momma was the one to get that done. She stood up and started herding. He could almost hear the collective sigh from the nurses’ station. Gripping Nonna’s hand, he smiled, dipped his head, and dozed.

Lance woke with a sense of urgency as acute as his need to use the men’s room. Nonna was awake. Her hand had pinched his with a death grip, and she was making noises like none he’d heard from her before. He made no sign that they horrified him, just leaned closer.

“What is it, Nonna?” He could make no sense of the sounds, and her agitation rose. He couldn’t risk another vessel bursting with her straining, so he furtively pressed the button for the nurse. “It’s all right. Give it some time and you’ll be able to say what you want.”

“Baa … baa…”

Her eyes showed a terror he’d seen there only once, and he didn’t want her suffering like that ever again. He brought her hand to his lips. “It’s okay, Nonna.” What was keeping the nurse?

But then she was there, a willowy angel of efficiency, taking over where he fell short. She must have doctored the IV, because Nonna stilled and then slept, but there’d been something she wanted him to know or do. “How long before her speech comes back?”

The nurse raised her thin blond brows. “That’s impossible to say. It’s different with every case.”

Nonna was not a case, and it would drive her crazy not to speak her mind. “What’s the soonest?”

“It depends on the extent of the damage and the area of the brain and too many other factors. It could be days or years.” She added gently, “Or never.”

“She’s trying to tell me something.”

The nurse nodded. “It’s very frustrating. But she needs to remain calm and allow the healing to proceed.”

“Can you watch her a minute while I make a pit stop?”

The nurse smiled. “She’ll be okay.”

Lance looked at her sleeping and guessed Nonna wouldn’t mind if he hit the bathroom, but her need was in his nostrils, lodged in his nerves and the bones of his hand. He had to learn what it was she had tried to tell him, but how? Maybe in the morning she’d be able to say more. He used the bathroom, then took up his place beside her, hooking his knee over the arm of the chair. “Good night, Nonna. Peaceful dreams.”

Lance woke to a hand on his shoulder and the steam of a
macchiato
in his nose. He hooked fingers with Chaz in greeting and whispered his thanks. “How’d you get in?”

“They assumed I was family.”

Lance grinned up at the tall Jamaican. They must have really worn down the staff.

Chaz nodded toward the bed. “How is she?”

Lance shrugged. “She’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t get it.” Chaz squatted down, his limbs hinged like grasshopper legs. He didn’t ask anything more, accepting better than Lance the limitations of medical clairvoyance. It was anyone’s guess how things would progress. And maybe Nonna would forget all about whatever had seemed so urgent.

But she didn’t. While his family arrived to fuss and worry over her, she remained passive, but as soon as they were alone again, she tried to express it. He absorbed her frustration, but could not interpret her message. “You’re going to be just fine, Nonna.”

But that wasn’t what she wanted from him. The doctor had explained things to her, to them. She had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on the left side of the brain. While there were new treatments for a clot-caused stroke, which could sometimes prevent or reverse damage quickly, bleeding in the brain still required time to heal.

She was exhibiting aphasia, a disconnect in the brain affecting her ability to talk, listen, read or write; and dysarthria, weakening the muscles of her face, tongue, and lips. There was some paralysis on her right side, and the doctor warned they may see emotional lability—sudden mood swings resulting in tears. As though her condition wouldn’t be enough, Lance thought.

He was having mood swings of his own, mostly resulting from his inability to understand what she needed. The message had lost none of its urgency, though Nonna still only forced it when they were alone. It was something for him and not the rest of the family. That formed an overwhelming need like a hole inside him, growing with every day.

He started bringing things from the house that she might be wanting. Her prayer book, her recipe cards—of nearly the same importance—her jewelry box that held the gold locket from Nonno, his wedding ring, and the other pieces of jewelry he’d given her over the years. The items were nothing of tremendous value, and they didn’t prove to be the thing she wanted anyway.

Lance felt strange searching Nonna’s bedroom. He’d hardly ever been in there, since she herself spent scant time inside its walls. She was early to rise and late to bed and in the thick of it for the hours in between. But there must be something she needed, and that was where she kept her things— that or the restaurant kitchen, but he’d tried her recipes already, and he couldn’t imagine she wanted pots or utensils.

He had started with the things on the table beside her bed, then moved to the dresser top. Now he opened the top drawer feeling like a voyeur. These were his grandmother’s dresser drawers, and he had no business in them, except that he didn’t know what else to do. She had grown more agitated with each thing he brought, but there was encouragement to keep trying. He thought so, anyway.

So Lance fingered through her lingerie, feeling foolish until he found a packet of letters and pulled them out. Now this was promising. Love letters from Nonno? That might be something to offer comfort. He checked the drawer, but there was nothing else. He’d try the letters, and if she glared, he’d just have to keep trying.

But when he brought the letters, her excitement was evident. He set them on the table unit beside her bed, but she immediately started making noise. He snatched them up again. “You want me to read them?”

She squawked, a hard angry sound that he knew she didn’t mean. It was frustration and panic and, sure, some annoyance with his density. But what else was new? “Nonna, I don’t know what you want.” He tried to put the letters into her hand, but she pushed them back at him.

Maybe it was one particular letter she wanted. He untied the string and took them out one by one for her to see. They weren’t all the same writing. Some were definitely Nonno’s script, but others were in there as well, and when he got to one of those, she groaned.

“Do you want me to read this to you?”

She groaned again with a hand motion that seemed to indicate she wanted to hold it. He handed it over.

“You want me to open it?”

A sharp sound showed her irritation. If she didn’t want the letter out, was it the envelope? It was addressed to her, but that wasn’t what she wanted him to know. He pressed her finger to the return address.

Suora Anna Conchessa

Santuaria di Nostra Signora del Monte

Liguria, Italy

“You want me to write this person?” Only the look in her eyes showed him her answer. “Call her? You want her to come?”

Her sound of frustration matched his own. “What, Nonna? I’m not a mind reader.” She’d have slapped his hand for that tone if she could. “I’m sorry.” Lance tried again, staring at the address and trying to guess what she wanted from him. Her nail paled where it pressed the address. “You want me to go there?”

Nonna sank back to the pillow with a sigh.

“You’re sending me off to a convent.”

A flicker on one side of Nonna’s lips.

“Great. Well, maybe when you’re stronger …”

She opened her eyes and glared. He wished he didn’t know her so well that every glance communicated something.

“If I leave, who’s gonna make you behave?”

She growled low in her throat.

“All right. I’ll go.” He’d go to the ends of the earth for her, but what was up with some Italian nunnery? Whatever it was, Nonna’s adamancy was unmistakable, and beneath it, a fear that had taken up residence on her chest.

“You’re what?” Rico’s face showed what Lance felt.

“I don’t know any more than that, but it’s what she’s been trying to say.” Lance stuffed another shirt into his pack.

Rico had perfected the Puerto Rican stare. “So you’re just out of here.”

Lance jammed a pair of jeans down inside the pack. He didn’t want to get into it with Rico. They’d already established irreconcilable differences, in spite of their history. It didn’t matter if he was in Italy or Ecuador or the next bedroom.

“It’s another excuse to run away, man.”

Lance let that go, adding socks and boxers. “Talk to her yourself, Rico. Nonna needs something, and I’m the one to find out what.” He looked around the apartment he shared with Chaz and Rico. He’d be traveling light, but he needed to cover the essentials.

“How long?”

Lance hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “I don’t know. But even if I stayed, the gig is over. Find someone else.”

Rico tipped back his head with a growl. “There is no one else.”

Lance cinched the pack and shouldered into it. He had a flight to catch. He clasped forearms with Rico. “Keep an eye on Nonna for me.”

“You know it.” Rico’s grip was wiry, firm with years of friendship stronger than blood. They’d be okay. That friendship was based on more than one thing, and Rico would see that eventually.

The flight was long and made longer by the harried woman and toddler who shared the bank of seats. Three quarters of the way across the Atlantic, Lance fell asleep with the child on his chest as the woman murmured heartfelt gratitude.

Putting and gasping along the spectacular road to the convent perched at the top of the mount overlooking the Gulf of Genoa, the European scooter was a sad excuse for his Harley. Forests of pine and lemon trees, almonds and herbs scented the breeze as the road burrowed through dark tunnels and burst again into the warm sunlight along the Tyrrhenian Sea.

As he climbed, the aquamarine water spread out below, and the city of Genoa clung between it and the rugged Ligurian Apennines. The resort-filled crescent of the Riviera di Ponente and the Riviera di Levante was a coastal playground, but Lance wasn’t there to indulge. His road climbed ever steeper to the fortress-like convent that sprung from the stone and scrub of the mountain.

It was difficult to distinguish where the walls of the main entrance began and the mountain left off. He had booked a
cumbessia
in the convent and got pretty much what he expected: a cell. One barred window looking in toward the central courtyard, a door into the same. Running water—cold— and a bed.

The whole convent seemed to be slumping back into the ground. The flat, rectangular stones of the buildings looked as if they had been stacked without mortar, but they had stood for centuries. A permeating peace engulfed him. Compared to the Bronx, it was downright otherworldly. No phone, no TV. It didn’t matter. They could have lodged him in a stable for all he cared. He just needed answers, and that meant finding his second cousin twice removed, Conchessa DiGratia, known as Sister Anna Conchessa.