Summertime Dream (26 page)

He sent a text reply,
Thanks. Miss you guys too. I’ll be there next year.

She was sorry he was missing his friends, delighted she got to spend this time with him and her friends, and crazily wishing the movie was over already and they were alone. Debi had the waitress take a picture of the four of them and then Christopher handed over his phone to take another.

Conversation, jokes, and laughter filled the evening and saying goodnight took hours as they stopped for drinks after the movie. Debi gave her a big hug, and whispered in her ear, “Keep him.”

If only she could.

All too soon, Sunday dawned and they were running out of time once more. This time, no reprieve was possible.

That morning, sharing breakfast and talking lingered into making lunch and packing for a last picnic by the river. Christopher kept his phone off, not even checking for emails from his friends. They spent a restful time lounging under the leafy shade. He taught her to skip pebbles over the water and she read him passages of her story.

Sharing lunch became sharing kisses. Kisses slipped into lovemaking, sweet and slow, and more intense than ever, as if losing themselves in each other could miraculously hold off the inevitable end of the day.

They collapsed into each other’s arms, spent and satiated.

Christopher nuzzled kisses against her cheek and throat. “I love you.”

Oh, how she wanted to hear those words again and again from him. The deep, longing honesty in his voice should have sent her spirits soaring in elation, but instead clammy anxiety and sorrow filled her, even as she told him the truth. “I love you too.”

Stop. He had to leave, but she needed to stop assuming she was going to lose him forever. Hope remained of holding onto the relationship even over the distance. She loved him, he loved her. She had to trust they’d work out the future.

She lay spooned against his chest, his body and breaths relaxing as he slipped into sleep. Napping evaded her. She wanted to memorize this moment, the haven of his embrace, how neatly they fit against one another, the damp cling of skin against skin, the prickle of his chest hair against her back, the possessive curve of his fingers over her breast.

Time wandered on with the ever-flowing river. The tree canopies filtered the midday sun into a glowing mosaic ceiling of greens. Shadows shifted. A bumblebee landed on a nearby dandelion. A fish jumped, the slapping splash distinct amid the river’s sweet liquid burble and rush.

She could learn to fish. She considered all his fishing stories and his friend’s pictures of the camping trip he’d missed, and she found herself wishing they could have gone together. After all their picnics here, like mini appetizers of camping, she wanted to try. She’d always wanted to ride in a boat. How hard could dropping a line into the water be? Impaling worms on hooks posed a problem, but there was other bait, right? She would research fishing online and see what she might face.

Christopher stirred and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “You awake?”

A pair of mourning doves fluttered down, pacing over the riverbank, hunting for seeds, softly calling to one another with questioning coos.

“Yes.” She sighed, contented to remain resting in his arms. “I think those are my favorite birds.”

“Hmm?” He leaned up a bit, then settled back. “The doves? Why’s that? They’re nice, but kind of ordinary. You see them everywhere.”

“They’re a peaceful sort of bird and I like the sound they make. You always see them in pairs. They’re monogamous, you know, and both parents care for the babies. There’s a pair that nests in one of our flower baskets every year.”

“My friend Kay painted a pair of them at the river last year. I think she still has the painting up on her website. I should show you. You’d like it.” He lifted his wrist to check his watch and sighed heavily. “It’s after two already. We should get back to work.”

“Right.” She reached for her shirt. The deadline of his flight was fast approaching and so much remained to be completed in the house.

Back in the kitchen, they emptied the cooler and cleaned up the dishes.

Christopher put the last plate away. The tension had returned to his brow and shoulders. “I’m heading into the basement. I’m down to the last corner. Almost done.”

“That’s great. I’ll be up working on the library if you need me. Are you sure you don’t want to finish sorting through the books with me?”

“I trust your judgment on what to keep.” He grabbed an empty box and, after a lingering look over his shoulder, headed for the stairs.

Oh, yes, they both needed, and the temptation rose in her to call him back to join her upstairs and spend all their remaining hours together in his bed, but she understood his drive to complete that task.

After freshening up in the second floor bathroom, she turned up the volume on her music, and set to the sorting, dusting, and polishing. Three hours later, she was done with the library. Books she thought Christopher would want to look over to keep stood boxed and stacked in the hall. The remainder neatly lined the gleaming shelves, ready for the appraiser.

Christopher’s voice drifted up from downstairs. He was on the phone again and by his repetition of answers, his client was sorely trying his patience, but he never lost his cool, calm pace.

She turned slowly about to take in the whole of the round space. Now that the library was clean and organized, the current furniture arrangement was awkward. She stepped over to the head of the stairs and held up the photo she’d found today tucked in one of the books. The picture of Loretta’s father as a young man posed in the library showed the furniture placed more symmetrically.

As for Carl Gustaf Falk himself, it was hard not to search his young face for the cruelty of his later years as he arrogantly posed for the shot in formal evening clothes.

She shook her head and set the photo aside to show Christopher later.

Dragging the furniture pieces into their former positions took little time and three of the four leather chairs, two of the four glass-shaded brass lamps, and one side table were accounted for. The incomplete arrangement annoyed her. She’d seen the missing pieces somewhere in the house. Time to go hunting.

Searching the rooms on this floor produced only one lamp from Mr. Falk’s room. Time to check the packrat nest that was the third floor.

Lamp number four peeped from a pile in the room she called Matthew’s room. She unearthed the missing chair under a mountain of wooden hangers, hooked rugs, and empty garment bags in the maid’s room. Two tables were stacked in what must have been a trunk room. Now she just needed the last table and she only had the nursery, a storage closet, and Loretta’s room to check. The closet held a myriad of interesting odds and ends, including another food stash of a dozen cans of applesauce, eight cans of tuna, and six cans of pinto beans, but no table.

With fingers crossed, she headed to Loretta’s room, but too much stuff was precariously stacked and piled to see clearly into every corner. She started shifting junk aside to clear a path.

Bingo. A corner of the missing table peeped behind the headboard tipped on end and resting against a stack of boxes. She gingerly squeezed past the first stack, then the second, but on her next step, the floorboard gave way sharply under her foot. A shriek tore from her as she flailed, grabbing for anything as she fell.

She crashed onto a cardboard box filled with something soft and every teetering thing in that room toppled like dominoes, including the headboard which hit the closet door with a resounding crash.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Sneezing and blinking through the cloud of dust, she eased her foot out from the hole. She couldn’t have made a worse mess on purpose or made it harder to reach the last table peeking out from the tumble of boxes.

But she hadn’t fallen through a rotted floorboard. She’d tipped up the cover to a hidey-hole between floor joists revealing a bundle of papers tied with a yellow ribbon.

****

Margie’s startled scream sent Christopher pounding upstairs with his heart in his throat. That crash couldn’t be good. “Margie? You okay? Where are you?”

“I just stepped in a hole in the floor in Loretta’s room. I’m okay.”

He found her sitting on the floor with all the crap toppled around her, holding a ribbon-tied bundle in her lap.

“What’s hurting?” He tossed boxes out of his way. “Your back’s okay? You didn’t hit your head?”

“My foot twinges a little, but I’m fine.”

Not taking a chance, he scooped her up and carted her downstairs. “You should have ice on your ankle, just in case.

“Really, I’m okay.”

He carried her into the parlor and set her gently on the couch. “Sit back with your foot up here.” He peeled off her sneaker and sock. “Let me take a look.” He ran his hands over her ankle and on down to her pink polished toes. No bruising or swelling. “What were you doing up in that mess?”

“That tickles. Looking for one of the library tables. I found this bundle of letters hidden in the hole in the floor. Look.” She slipped a folded paper free from the thick stack. “It’s addressed to Loretta.” She offered up the flimsy paper.

“Stay here, I’m getting ice for your foot. Just to be safe.”

Margie nodded absently, her attention already engrossed on the letter in her hand.

He headed for the door.

“Oh, wow! Christopher, wait! I think I know who Loretta ran away with.”

He skidded to a halt. Who? Grandma had run away with Grandpa Will. It was the why that was their mystery. “What?”

“Here, just read this.” She held out the letter, but her wide eyes gave him pause. He wasn’t going to like what he was about to read.

The letter opened in neat, masculine handwriting, dated three weeks before Loretta reportedly ran away.

Loretta, my dearest love,

I couldn’t sleep, so I’m writing you in hopes of sweet dreams. I miss holding you in my arms and your pretty smile. Not much new around here since my last letter, except maybe Crenshaw’s fishing stories. That salmon grows an inch every time, I swear. He makes us laugh, so it’s all good. It poured buckets all day, and we got soaked to the skin, but I kept warm with the memories of us hiding from the rain that day under the boardwalk and that kiss. I think of you every moment we’ve been apart. That we will be together soon makes the days easier. I’m counting the hours until leave and I see you again. Goodnight. I love you.

Yours faithfully, Nico

Who the hell was Nico? “She didn’t run away with Grandpa Will?”

Maybe she did run off with Will Gordon in the end, but going by this letter...Christopher shook his head. The bundle Margie handed him held a year’s worth of letters from Nico, some long, some short, all filled with earnest promises of love, tender encouragement to deal with her parents, consolation for her grief over Matthew, and passionate responses that must answer letters she’d sent him, begging Loretta to keep hope, promising they would soon be together.

An old black and white photo slipped from one letter. Nico, a handsome young man in Army uniform, with blond or light brown hair, despite the very Italian name Ruggeri revealed on an envelope.

…Well, my darling, another goodnight for now and a million kisses. Write me soon. I know it’s hard, being home and the trouble with your father, but I love so much to get your letters. I love you, sweetheart, with all my heart.

Christopher read slowly through every page, flushing and brows wrinkling at the intimacies Nico shared in the letters to Loretta, but still handing them off for Margie to read.

…I love you too and wish I wasn’t so far from you. Christmas isn’t so long and soon you’ll be back at school and, even better, soon you’ll be in my arms again. Hold onto the thought that every moment apart brings us closer to the day we can get married and live a life of happiness. Write again when you can, I will be waiting to hear from you. I’ve almost worn out your last letter from reading it every night.

…I felt your excitement for the lecture even through that simple letter. You make me wish I had cared more about school. I promise I will find that book and read every page. Maybe I better buy a dictionary too. Someday I will take you to Italy and we will explore all the places of history you love. Who knows, maybe we will discover some family of mine. I love you, dearest darling, with all my heart, body and soul.

Dearest,

I don’t feel like sleeping so I thought I’d write you a few lines. What I wouldn’t give to be able to ring you up right now and hear your sweet voice. When I was younger, I never could even dream of loving anyone as much as I love you. I ache to hold you.

So dream of me a little as you sleep, and know I hold you to my heart safe in my arms in my dreams, as I held you last, and that way both our dreams will be sweet.

Christopher finished reading through the stack and sat back. “Wow.” While not remotely racy by today’s standards, put all together the letters pretty much hinted Loretta and this Nico were lovers in the fullest sense. Why hadn’t Loretta taken these with her? If she had run away with Nico, why had she married Will Gordon? Or had she been seeing both Nico and Will and Will had been the one she chose?

Margie carefully refolded the letter in her hands. “Did you ever hear of Nico Ruggeri?”

“No.” He picked up the photo. “But, thinking it over, it’s odd, he looks strangely familiar. But if they were so in love and she ran away July fourth of 1948 to be with Nico like it sounds they planned in the letters, why did she marry Grandpa Will instead in September 1948 and have Dad April 19, 1949? The timing…Just wow.” Counting back had Dad conceived roughly late July or early August, complicating the picture. He neatly gathered the pile together. “Something’s wrong here. We wanted answers to the story, not more mystery.”

She stroked his cheek. “I’m sorry we didn’t find better answers. I can’t believe she left these letters behind. Nico loved her so much. I would have never left them.”