Twillyweed (11 page)

“
Oomph!
” She affected a jump. “I didn't see you there! Was that Morgan?”

“Yes.”

She stood back, an apron over her coat, her crafty brown eyes inspecting her hacked-up square of earth, wiping her brow with her forearm. “I'm not planting yet. Just clearing away the dirt for when it gets warm.” She gave an impish shrug. “I can't wait to get started.” Then she sat back on her broad haunches, up to her knees in boots, her face still smooth for a gardener's. “Of course”—here she frowned, shaking her head, looking a bit puzzled—“now that Noola's gone, it will all be different. We used to have a big competition with our flowers.” She rocked in the hard dirt and her little eyes filled with peevishness. “My tomatoes were always better than hers … and my figs.” She sniffed, then, remembering me standing there, she added, “I never told her my secret.” When I didn't bite, “Anchovies,” she volunteered, making a shrewd face. “That or sardines. Whatever's on sale. Now that she's gone it takes all the fun out. Death,” she whispered. “It's so final.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I wanted to say thank you,” I went on, changing the subject before she ran away with herself, “you know, for mentioning where I could find Mr. Donovan. And to let you know—you won't believe it—I'll be staying here for a while!”

I was sure I detected real disappointment in those nut-brown eyes. But she hoisted herself from the soil and brushed the dirt from her knees, out of breath from the exertion. There was something cold and off-putting about her now, and I wasn't sure if I should back off. But I introduced myself properly, and we shook hands over the hedge. From my pocket, the kitten gave a hearty mew. “Oh,” I explained, pulling her out. “Someone left her in the cottage.”

Mrs. Dellaverna's expression turned to mush. She scooped her away from me, huddling it to her breast. However cold I'd thought her expression, the iciness dissolved at that moment. “
Dio! Una gattina
. Noola used to have one looked just like her. Weedy. She never came back.” She narrowed her eyes. “It kind of looks like Sam, too—that nasty big boy cat at Twillyweed. Son of a bitch! Eh!” She stroked the kitten, shaking her head suspiciously. “How come you're going to live in Sea Cliff, eh? I'd like to know.”

“It's so funny.” I shrugged. “Everything just fell into place. For some reason it suited us—Morgan Donovan and me—both.”

“But you're not going to move in yet?” Mrs. Dellaverna sniffed the air. “Place is too crazy.”

“I haven't decided yet what to do. I might have to drive back to Queens tonight and stay at my parents' house,” I said, thinking out loud. “I'm not sure.”

“You're gonna need a team of a cleaning ladies for that place,” Mrs. Dellaverna cautioned.

“That's a good idea. Do you know anyone?”

“There's Radiance. She does housework. I wouldn't trust her, though.”

“Oh? Why not? I'd like someone local.”

“She's more interested in the showbiz!” She wiggled her nose with distaste. “I'm from Ischia and I know that type!”

I shrugged and gave my own tender nose a tentative feel. “If I could have her number …”

She watched my two black eyes now with interest. It was clear to her they were the traces of the fight she was sure had gone down.

“Oh, this!” I touched my face. “It's from falling,” I told her.

“Sure,” she said too fast, clearly not believing. She could just see the cad who'd beat me and she'd never mention it again because she knew in her heart that was why I was out here in Sea Cliff, running away from a man,
un diavolo
of a man. She put one hand on a hip and twirled the other wrist in a Mediterranean flourish. “I wouldn't worry about anything,
cara
. Claire, is it?”

“That's right.”

Her nose wrinkled, and her voice was thick with understanding. “You were right to come here. Get away. You wouldn't be the first to look for sanctuary here. I have my friend, Patsy, that shit of a motorcycle-­driving husband, he beat her up good. Eh. She came here and she slept on my sofa. Got a good job now and she'll never go back.
Basta.
Don't you worry.”

“Hmm. I'm sorry.” I edged away from her tirade. “I was just really hoping to find someone to clean.” And then I thought,
Hell, the woman is right. I am here running away from a man, a devil of a man
. Suddenly I was exhausted and just wanted to rest.

Mrs. Dellaverna stood ruminating, inspecting me and sizing me up head to toe. She nodded with a closemouthed smile. “That's like Morgan to come up with a nice house sitter like you! Out of the blue! Eh?”

“You know him well, I guess. Living next door and all.”

“Sure.” She leaned her chin against the handle of the tall wooden hacker with a thick pick of iron. “When he's not in Scotland, he's here. Nice little boy he was.”

“He was in the seminary, he mentioned,” I pushed.

“Ah! No more.” Her tongue clicked. “Noola, may she rest in peace, she drove him to that.”

“So he is a priest?”

She laughed.

I ventured, “So he isn't a priest?”

“Morgan?
Dio
, no!”

“Lost his faith, did he?”

“His faith? Ha! More like he discovered the earthly pleasures.”

“Oh.”

“No”—she got rid of her coat—“he never made it that far, to the priesthood. Not that Noola she didn't try and hound him into it. I shouldn't speak bad of the dead now, I know. But there was nothing she wanted more than for Morgan to join the priesthood. From the time he was a boy she'd be marching him off to church for one thing or another. First, he had to be a paten boy. Then it was an altar boy. After that he was a—what do you call it?—Eucharistic minister. Nothing wrong with all that, I don't mean that. But it's sad, you know, when someone pushes their own ideas onto a child—won't stand back and let the child find his own way.” She sighed. “Morgan was so heartbroken over the separation, see.”

“Oh. His parents were divorced?”

“Not she!” She gave a snort. “In her mind, you didn't get divorced. He was from Scotland, the father—they're Protestants—and she was Irish, the Catholic part. They shared him up, the two of them. Tom couldn't take her religious ways. Ooh, he hated the Catholic Church! Of course he loved her, he just hated what she was”—she tapped her noggin—“how she
thought
.
Anh
. It's hard to describe.”

But she didn't have to. My flamboyant mother, convent educated, clandestinely paying for indulgences; my father, intellectual and conservative, spiritual as she was but scornful and wary of the politics within the church, the secret cover-ups, money changing hands. I knew the wars that went on without words. I knew the anguish it could cause in children. There was no divorce in homes like ours. Misery, even, sometimes. But you stuck it out.

“He went back to Scotland in the end,” Mrs. Dellaverna confided, leaning comfortably on her pick. “A
piccolo
village called Invergowrie, that's outside Dundie, Noola always tells. Morgan spent half his days there and half here; went to school at Edinburgh, near the father. That was the deal. All the way across the sea in Scotland!” She gave a quick look off to the side as if to see if someone could hear. “The poor boy didn't know if he was coming or going! The only peace he had was taking out that little boat of his. That's what he loved most, all the time. Any moment he had to himself, if there was just a bit of a wind, you'd see him scoot right down the hill. Ten minutes later his
piccolo
boat would be shooting out from the cove. That was what Morgan loved. The wind and the sails.”

“So no divorce …”

She closed one nostril with her finger. “Uh-uh. She was a
veramente catolica
and wouldn't even let the word
divorce
cross her lips. There'd be none of that. She was Mrs. Donovan until the day she died. Sad, really. I think she always thought one day he'd come back to her. I really do. And here she is dead.” She shook her head.

“How did she die?”

“Heart,” she answered quickly. She frowned, looked over her shoulder toward the cottage and chewed her lip. “Too much digoxin. She took too much. I thought one day she'd do something wrong—I worried she'd fall off the porch. You know, she shouldn't have lived by herself. Not anymore. Bang. She dropped dead.”

I asked, “Who found her, then?”

“Me. I found her. That's right. You know”—she scratched her chin thoughtfully, wanting to change the subject—“seems like a yesterday Morgan was little, out there sailing around …”

We both looked out over the hedge to the sea, as if expecting to see the small boy and his boat. But the rash wind belted us and there was only the flap of the flag and the clang of the pole links. She threw her apron over her head. “But that's me, talking about it when it's none of my business! And all you wanted was the name of a cleaner!”

“If you have it. Or if I might just have Radiance's number?”

“I have the number.” She turned and, elbows out, took off. She raised an arm. “Come in my house,” she ordered. I followed her in. “It's cold outside.” She rubbed her arms briskly and kicked off her clogs. “Let me warm up some milk for that puss. Eh?”

The house, after the one I'd just been in, was a pleasant shock. Highly polished Mediterranean furniture and clean windows. Petit point embroideries of violets lined the walls in oval frames. A woman living alone. Mrs. Dellaverna's house wasn't dead on the water, but you could see a little chink of it, blue and white capped with wind. “Rest yourself,” she invited, pointing to a thronelike chair at the table.

I sank onto the plush cushions still covered in vinyl. Heavy, amber velvet drapes muffled any sound, and the miniature, expensive furniture gave the room a loungelike feel. There was smell of something wonderful bubbling on the stove. “What's that, gravy?”

“Gravy? No, it's sauce!” She paused in the doorway, catching me. “Ay! You look done in.” She eyed me suspiciously, coming back to the table with a recipe box.

“I have had a rough two days,” I admitted.

She frowned, placing a leathered hand gently on top of mine. “I'm gonna make you a cup of coffee.”

Sometimes a perfect stranger is just that—perfect. And so I told her my whole sorry saga. She didn't bat an eye, just sat there stroking her flimsy mustache until I was done.

“It's so crazy it's got to be true. The whole house burned to the ground? Unbelievable!” She shook her head. “All your clothes and all your shoes?”

“Yup. Well. It's not that tragic, really. After all, everyone's alive. So it's just me, really. I suppose it's up to me now to start a new life.” When I got to the part about Enoch and his, uh, “diversion,” she grabbed her chest and the kitten flew out.

“
Mama mia!
” she cried dramatically and blessed herself. I almost laughed. She held out her hand and made me hand over my trousers. “I looked at you in these pants”—she held her fingertips against each other and shook them—“and I'm thinking, what's she doing walking around like a vagabond?”

While I waited for the strong bitter coffee to percolate, she mended the pants on her machine in the bedroom, her knees bobbing up and down from the doorway, the kitten on the floor at her feet tackling a spool of emerald thread. “You gonna have a quick rest on the nice sofa while I finish these off,” she said, snapping the thread with her teeth.

“Oh, I shouldn't. I have to go to Twillyweed. I'll never wake up.”

“What time you want to leave?”

“I'm to be there at four.” I gave a lion's yawn.

“Never you mind.” She led me to the sofa. “I'll make sure you're up by three. You can use my shower. Let's see if I can fix these for you to wear by then. Hey! What's about you stay here just for the night?”

I supposed she figured if Morgan Donovan trusted me, she could, too. I looked up hopefully.

“Eh. Then you can start up fresh in the morning. Let's face it. You can't sleep in a dump like that.” She gave a warning look. “But just for the one night, eh? This is not a
pensione
.”

“Are you sure?” I lowered my head and yawned again, sniffing with pleasure the percolating coffee and clean linen pillowcase she'd maneuvered beneath me.

“That's what the neighbors are for.” She smiled, her little acorn eyes glittering with kindness. “Noola—she taught me that.” She went to the stove and stirred her sauce.

I gazed at the beautiful religious souvenirs from Rome on the bottom shelf of her fancy glass
armadio
, the cloisonné paraphernalia, the ornate gold clock under a glass dome, and I half listened as her voice became muffled and faraway. Enoch's self-satisfied words echoed in my ears above the shush of the waves beating the shore.
These are things that men do. It's just … release
, he'd explained. The last thing I saw before I fell off to sleep was Mrs. Dellaverna folding a copper-colored silky comforter over my shoulders then turning off my cell phone and tucking it into my purse.

Jenny Rose

She waited at the end of the drive for the school bus. At last it came, crunching to what Jenny Rose thought was an excessively rash halt. Anyone sitting unbelted would lurch! Determined to start on the right foot, she smiled hopefully up at the driver, who opened the door with a hefty lever and then sat there chewing gum, looking straight ahead, not signaling the little boy that he should move. Jenny Rose poked her head in the bus. There was no obvious head peeking back down the aisle. She stepped onto the bus.

“Hey!” the driver snapped. “No parents on the bus!”