"Leave the child alone." Matt braced Vivian away from the table with a stiff arm since she'd replaced her husband as the aggressor. The bruise on the toddler's thigh was all he needed to remove her. It looked as though she'd been gripped hard, maybe used before as a bone between them.
The call had come in to Social Services that the kids were digging through the neighbors' trash and stunk to high heaven. In this upper-middle-class neighborhood, people found that unusual. He'd gone over to investigate and discovered the escalating situation. Now he needed the kids out of there.
"Stand away, Ms. Price." He took the two youngest into his arms.
"It's his fault," she shrieked. "He wouldn't give me enough. What was I supposed to feed them?"
"You snorted it!" Price dragged himself to his feet. "Snorted your meth and let the kids go hungry. Ask her. She doesn't get hungry with that stuff in her blood."
The first officer arrived and took in the scene. Matt nodded to him, then herded the oldest boy toward the door. "It's all right, kids. We'll give Mom and Dad a chance to work things out." The first contact was usually investigation: questions, observation, and assessment. This time they'd saved him the guesswork.
————
Four days after calling Lance, Sofie parked her car and surveyed the villa that had once been her grandmother's home in the wine country of Sonoma. The arched and alcoved house, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, had held its secrets until Lance uncovered them—along with their great-great-grandfather's bones. It still seemed incredible to think of Nonna Antonia anywhere except the Belmont neighborhood where she'd spent her entire life, except the part no one had known.
If Nonna could reinvent herself, surely some of that ran in her granddaughter's veins. Sofie dropped her gaze to the faint blue tributaries just visible beneath her skin. New beginnings were not genetically imparted. Whether she succeeded was up to her.
"Sofie." Lance came around the side of the house and closed her into his arms. "How you doin'?"
She should ask him. Though thinner than she liked, he was not as haggard as he'd been. He had faced down his demons and come out stronger. Was she the only Michelli without the capacity for rebirth? Or had she played that card already? She raised her chin beneath the villa's sheltering shadow. "I'm fine. You?"
"Sure."
"Are you eating?"
"You sound like Momma."
"I was instructed to." She laughed at his sigh. "I guess we don't have to do that out here."
He grinned. "I'm almost convinced she can't see this far."
"She can probably hear." Laughing, she looked up at the house. "It's nice."
"Wait till you see what Rese has done inside. She's a master."
"I saw what she did on Pop's ceiling."
"That was nothing. She's got woodwork in here that'll make you weep."
"Not that you're proud or anything." She slid him a smile. "It's going okay?"
"I screw up one more time, I'm dead. Nail down the lid and dig the hole."
He was the only one who didn't avoid death as though the mere word might sweep her away. He couldn't know how much she appreciated that. "So don't screw up."
"Yeah. My strong suit."
"You only mess things up when you want out. Something tells me that's not going to happen."
He smiled. "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too." Momma had been right to tell her to go to Lance. She'd needed to leave, but none of them could go for long without family. She'd learned that the hard way.
He pulled the two bigger suitcases from the trunk, one of them thudding to the ground. "What do you have in here?"
"Reference books." She grabbed her laptop and a smaller tote.
"Nonna wants you to room with her. She says I talk in my sleep."
"And worse." Sofie laughed. "Remember when we'd find you out in the hall on a mission from God?"
"How would I remember? I was asleep."
"Nonna told us if we touched you the angels would carry you away. Momma stood there moaning with Pop yelling, 'Wassamattah wit' him?' "
"He's still wondering that." He let her into the bungalow behind the main house. It smelled of time and secrets, new wood and old stone, hopes and fears.
"Is this the carriage house you rebuilt?"
"Rese trimmed it out."
"Where is she?"
"At work."
"I thought . . . Aren't you running the inn together?"
"She's back in renovation. Scrapped the inn before Nonna and I returned."
"Oh."
He carried her bags into the bedroom, where Nonna was napping in a big burled walnut bed. They crept on cat's paws, but if they woke her, she wouldn't mind the interruption. He set the suitcases before the large wardrobe that stood at the opposite end of the room.
He whispered, "You can share the drawers. Nonna didn't bring much with her." He ran his hand down the wood. "Rese built this." At her stare, he nodded. "Told you she was good." He pointed to the matching queen-size bed that swallowed Nonna. "You can share that or use the cot in the other room. I know neither one's a great choice."
"We'll figure it out. Thanks." She and Nonna had shared the apartment at home and had an easy way between them, understanding the silences inside each other.
Lance carried her laptop to a table in the other room. She followed him out and studied the portrait on one wall.
"Great-Grandpa Vittorio," he told her.
"He looks like you. Something in the eyes."
"Trouble."
She laughed. "Passion."
"He was murdered."
"Nonna told me."
He straightened. "She did?"
"Before the two of you left. She told me all of it."
His jaw fell slack. "She makes me dig it up and swears me to secrecy, then tells you everything?"
"Once you found the truth, she didn't have to be ashamed."
"She never had to be ashamed. None of it was her fault."
"Sometimes it still feels that way."
His gaze softened. "So how'd you break out?"
As they left the carriage house and crossed the garden to the villa, she recounted everyone's arguments against her coming. "Pop didn't want me driving alone across the country." He didn't understand that once you'd looked death in the face it wasn't as frightening as everyone thought, but she didn't tell Lance that.
"And Momma?"
"Surprisingly supportive, when I agreed to come here."
"Cuts both ways. You can report back on me." Lance led her into the big Italian kitchen. "Our great-great-grandfather built this."
"Quillan Shepard." The first non-Italian in the family tree. A rugged, mining camp freighter and poet whose mysterious lineage they'd never know, but Nonna had spoken of her grandfather with weepy reverence. Sofie circled the room, trailing her fingers over the stone walls. "This has to be original."
"This room pretty much is. The rest was in bad shape when Rese got it. She matched the original look as well as she could, except where she improved it. Look here." As they moved through the doorway of the dining room into the front parlor, he indicated wooden corner pieces wrought in leaves and vines.
"Beautiful."
He touched one like a talisman. "Hard to find craftsmanship like this anymore."
Sofie nodded. "It would be a shame not to use her skill." He must have agreed, though his face showed something else. "What is it?"
He shot her a glance. "Her partner."
"Is he interested?" she asked, raising her brows.
"I don't know. I just hate that she gave up what we'd planned."
"Lance." Sofie touched his arm. "
You
gave it up."
He sighed. "Want to see the rest?"
"Sure."
He headed up the stairs. "I'm here in Seascape." His room had a weathered mariner theme in sea blue and beige that didn't quite suit him, but the guitar in the corner made it his.
Rese's mother's room next to that had shades of rose and cream; lovely, though lacking decorative items that could be hazardous to a schizophrenic. In contrast, the Rain Forest room was heaped with colorful clothing, jewelry, paints and paintings, books of Shakespeare and other sonnets, and a plethora of bright enamel frog sculptures.
"Star's room."
"Of course." It fit the little she'd seen of Star in the Bronx.
Lance closed the door, then indicated the farthest door on the landing. "Maria and the baby are in there, probably napping. She's pretty wiped out."
"Thought you weren't running an inn." She nudged him.
"More like a shelter for misfits."
"I hope it's okay that I—"
"Fagedda-bout-it." He gripped her shoulders. "We're glad you're here. Nonna's ecstatic."
A throaty melody trailed down the attic stairs through the open door in the hall. Sofie turned.
"That's Star. She takes Elaine to the attic when she paints inside."
She hadn't met Rese's mother. "How is Elaine?"
"Some days better than others. She can get agitated, but she's mostly content and more or less coherent. Seems to be glad she's here."
They climbed the stairs to the long attic furnished with colorful beanbag chairs. Rese's mother leaned on a purple one by the window, repeating fragments of Star's bawdy tune. Sofie approached the canvas on which Star had incorporated an aspect of Elaine's face into a floral garden scene, the effect created by the shadows of leaves and petals. "That's wonderful."
Star stopped singing and turned with a serious mien. "Flattery lights like dew upon the leaf, too soon evaporated."
"Or, as Nonna says, fine words don't feed cats." Sofie smiled. "But it really is amazing."
"Then I'll bask in your flattery and thank you."
Bask. How long had it been since she'd even thought of basking? Suddenly the possibility was real that, in this place, with these people—two who were family, three who were strangers, and a mother and infant she had yet to meet—where no one looked at her and saw death, she might make her way through the last of its trappings.
She startled as Elaine gripped her arm. "Have you seen him? Where have they gone? They've all gone. Gone, gone."
"No, I'm sorry," Sofie told her, startled by the words. "I don't know where they've gone." She looked into the white-haired woman's face and saw Rese's features housing a troubled mind. "I'm Sofie. It's nice to meet you, Elaine."
Elaine searched her face but didn't answer.
Star detached Elaine's grip. "Come on, Mom. Come watch the street."
Sofie glanced at Lance. He smiled. She smiled back, thankful once again for an old woman's words. Where there was life, there was most certainly hope.
————
Still keyed up and more than a little aggravated, Matt went into his house. He wasn't in the mood for company, but Ryan obviously had no qualms about admitting himself, raiding the kitchen, and enjoying the plasma flat screen in the den.
He looked up, all blue eyed and eager. "Hey. Long day?"
And getting longer. "A late call that got complicated."
Ryan didn't press for details, didn't want them, and wouldn't get them anyway. "Grab a beer and join me."
Nice offer, Matt thought, as it was his den, his beer and food Ryan was consuming. "Did you leave me any stew?" He'd thrown the steroid-free meat and packaged organic vegetables into the slow cooker before leaving for work that morning.
"There's plenty." Ryan mopped up the gravy in his bowl with a chunk of baguette. "Good thing one of us can cook."
"You could do a lot of things, Ryan, if you tried." Like patching things up with Becca, his ex-fiancèe, instead of mooching off him and pretending it would all work out on its own.
Ryan held up his empty lager. "Mind grabbing me another?"
Matt went to the kitchen. He filled a bowl from the half-empty slow cooker, tore off a chunk of bread, and carried Ryan his beer. The ball game was as good a means as any to decompress, and Ryan probably needed that too.
"This is the night"—Ryan twisted the lid off the bottle—"that the Raiders put one in the win column."
Matt shook his head. "That giant sucking noise you hear? That's your team in the drain."
"And the Niners aren't?"
"I don't take it personally if they are."
"How can you say that? It's your team, man."
"Oh yeah? Does Al Davis call you on Monday morning to see how your weekend went? Does he stress out when your sales are down? It's just a business."
"I haven't evolved into the complete mature man you are, Mattski." Ryan pulled on his beer. "When I was a kid, I thought they'd win the Super Bowl every year. Now I'm not sure they'll ever get there again, but I don't stop hoping. Sure you don't want a brew?"
Matt expelled a breath. "Just watched a man get ugly on the stuff, so I'll pass for now."
"Whether or not you have a beer won't affect what happens to some poor kid whose parents think he's a punching bag. You'll still be the schmuck pulling him out and trying to make something out of nothing. Maybe a brewski would help you forget."
"I really don't want to forget." He kept every face like a collection, small reminders of a world gone wrong. Ryan preferred to look the other way, even when his own house was burning down over his head.
When the game ended and Ryan showed no sign of leaving, Matt put on a jacket and hit the streets. The cold Sonoma night chilled his cheeks and neck as he strolled along, imagining a world where kids were safe. The town was quiet, in tune with the vineyard rhythms. The vines were dormant, cut back to gnarly Ts, and tourists nonexistent.
A car came toward him, a Z3 that stopped in the lane beneath the streetlamp. "If it isn't my favorite bleeding heart."
"Hey, Sybil."
"Contemplating the universe?"
"Yeah."
"I can think of more exciting ways to pass the time." Her silky hair looked like a shimmery veil as she tipped it over her shoulder.
Hard to tell if she was teasing. Her reputation suggested not.
"Buy me a drink and unwind?"
He glanced over his shoulder. "I've got Ryan at the house."
"Converting his sob story to a hangover?"
Matt shrugged. "Not his best of times."
"You cut everybody slack, don't you?"