All the Way to Heaven

by Becky Doughty

  These people. Where did they come from? What did I do to deserve such kindness?

  And was it a total pain-medication hallucination, or did Cosimo feel a spark between us, too?

  He reached over, laid a cool palm on my forehead, and then cupped my jaw, his long fingers curling around the back of my neck. “You are very warm, Ani. Your cheeks are bright. Your eyes, too. I can see what you are feeling in your eyes.”

  I blinked owlishly. I certainly hoped he couldn’t.

  He slid his hand back up to cup my cheek and a slight tremor passed through me. His touch was soothing even as it stirred a different kind of fever in me. He studied me, a combination of concern and something else in his expression. His thumb grazed the corner of my mouth.

  A quiet rap sounded on the door and Cosimo stood and crossed the room to open it. My flesh tingled where his hand had rested moments before.

  Claudia entered, tray loaded with a large bowl of aromatic soup, a thick slice of buttered bread, a teacup and a round, squat teapot, steam wafting from the spout as she came toward me. I straightened and let Cosimo help tuck another pillow behind my back. Claudia set the tray on my lap and patted my cheek, a motherly smile on her face.

  “Eat first. Then you sleep.” She turned to her brother and spoke to him in a tone that brooked no argument. “Bebe, you leave Anica alone so she can rest.” It occurred to me, upon hearing her use such a particularly maternal endearment, that Cosimo was considerably younger than she was. And even more telling, he didn’t seem to mind her mothering. I wondered about their parents and what the circumstances were around two siblings with such a large age difference. Were there other brothers and sisters?

  He pressed a hand to his chest in dramatic offense. “I know what is best, big sister. I am the doctor, remember?” His smile told me his reaction was all for show.

  “Perhaps you are a doctor now, Cosimo, but you are first a man, and our Anica is a lovely young lady.”

  I bent my head and swallowed several spoonfuls of the savory, clear broth. It felt wonderful on my throat.

  “It is good?” Claudia asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

  “Delicious, Claudia. Thank you.” Those words fell so short of the gratitude I felt. “You have been so kind to me.”

  Claudia lowered herself carefully to the edge of the bed, one hand resting on my thigh. “You are welcome, Anica.” She reached out and patted Cosimo’s knee. “And you have the best doctor in Italy here to take care of you.”

  “Yes. Thank you,” I said again.

  I went back to my meal, dipping the bread in the soup and taking small nibbles, suddenly self-conscious in front of my attentive audience. Claudia must have noticed my discomfort, because she stood and spoke quietly to Cosimo in Italian. He rose, too, and they headed toward the door, murmuring back and forth in low tones. I tried not to pay attention to what was clearly none of my business.

  I ate what I could then sipped my tea for a bit, wondering where Isa had disappeared to. Drowsiness was quickly setting in, and I set my cup down, clinking it against the saucer clumsily. Cosimo turned to look at me and frowned, crossing back to my side. He took the tray from me, handed it to Claudia, and then cupped my cheek again.

  “I think you must sleep now, Ani. I will come back to check on you later, okay?”

  I nodded, already sliding down in the bed. “Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. But I don’t think I can keep my eyes open a moment longer.”

  And I don’t think I did.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next forty-eight hours were spent in fevered misery, through which I did what I usually do when I’m sick. I slept. More often than not, my pain woke me up to remind me to take my medicine and use the restroom. Isa and Claudia came and went, bearing glasses of water, bowls of hot soup, tea, and cool washcloths. After checking my throat and ears, along with my injuries for any blossoming infections, Cosimo assured us all that my fever was most likely due to my contact with the sick man on the plane. My immune system, he explained, was weakened by traveling and being exposed to unfamiliar germs, my sleep disrupted by the time change, and my body was working hard on my injuries on top of everything else. Did a broken heart lower one’s immunity to illness? I didn’t see why not. I thanked everyone profusely every time I was awake and lucid enough to do so.

  It was Saturday night when I awoke, feeling frail and almost boneless, but significantly better. Someone had turned on a low-watt lamp beside the chair in the far corner of the room, the muted amber glow throwing long shadows across the floor. From the sounds of clinking dishes and boisterous conversation filtering down the hall, even in my slightly befuddled state, I could tell it was dinnertime.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to join the family for a meal. Out on the terrace, elbow to elbow to make room for family and friends, pulled up to a long table covered in creamy linens. Ceramic place settings, serving platters of roasted meat and savory vegetables, tureens of aromatic soups, and baskets piled high with crusty loaves of bread. Stemmed glasses standing at the ready for the fount of Dionysus, opened bottles of ruby elixir breathing in the Tuscan sunset. Strings of lights crisscrossing the portcullis framework overhead, twinkling into life as twilight settled like a velvet blanket over the sun. It was an artwork of adjectives, I realized, a scene I’d sketched over and over in my mind. But because I had yet to experience it first-hand, it sat frozen in time, paused at the moment before commencement. A still life.

  “Not anymore,” I declared out loud, reaching up to curl a hand around my throat. Still a little raw, it no longer hurt to talk. “Before this week is over, I’m going to climb inside that picture and yell ‘Action!’“ I chuckled at the visual that evoked, even though I knew I was much funnier in my head than in reality. It seemed so strange that I’d been here for three days and still had no idea what the dining room looked like. Or the kitchen. Or the terrace. Or much of anything besides my room and the bathroom and the hallway between, for that matter.

  Tomorrow, I’d get out of bed, out of this room, maybe even outside. I would lie low tonight, though, and hope someone would take pity on me at some point and bring me a tray of leftovers. I’d send a few emails, and maybe, if I could keep from sounding like a wrung-out dishrag, place a phone call to my mother later, after the guests had gone for the night. I could only imagine what was going through her mind after the email I’d taken a moment to dash off last night, informing her that I was being well-cared for but had gotten sick on top of everything else. Even though she now had the Lazzaros’ phone number and address, she wouldn’t check up on me without good cause, but knowing her, she’d most likely been hovering near the phone and watching her email updates from me. I was grateful, once again, for Tish, who would assure my parents like no one else could. Tish, the ultimate spin doctor, with her spiky black hair, wide, expressive blue eyes, and her incredibly dry humor, giving them her version of my story over chicken and broccoli casserole. She would make them smile, laugh, and cover their faces in mock despair over my humiliating familial representation, and they would worry just the slightest bit less.

  I was in desperate need of a bath first, and a clean set of sheets, too, especially if my fever had broken for the last time, which I was fairly certain was the case. I carefully maneuvered myself into my chair, encouraged to find that the pain in my ankle, although still awful, felt more isolated, more tolerable. It didn’t throb so fiercely the moment I lowered it to the floor, and the brace seemed a little loose. That must mean the swelling was going down and it was time to tighten the straps. I knew Claudia kept spare bed linens in the armadio where Isa had put my clothes when she unpacked for me, so I rolled my chair over to it, found a fresh set, and grabbed clean pajama shorts and a tank top.

  After laboriously wrestling the clean sheets into semi-submission on the bed, wheeling my chair from one corner of the mattress to the next, I tossed the old ones in a pile by the door. I’d ask Isa to show me where
the washing machine was next time she came in. There was no reason to expect them to do that for me, too.

  With a sense of accomplishment, I headed across the hall to the bathroom, praying no one would hear me and come check on me. I really did feel considerably better, and I was curious as to how much I could actually manage on my own. A tranquil hot bath sounded divine and I certainly did not want to disrupt a lovely meal if it wasn’t necessary.

  By the time I had dried off, dressed in my clean clothes with my hair washed and towel-dried, my left ankle was throbbing again. But it was clean, and I’d shaved, so it wasn’t prickly either. Purple and black and hurting like the dickens, but no longer quite so… zombie-esque. I wished I still had my phone so I could take pictures. Tish would love to see this.

  I replaced my brace but left my hands unwrapped, then brushed out my hair, opting to let it air dry instead of going in search of my blow-dryer. I tidied up the bathroom the best I could from my chair and rolled quietly across the hall to the room I was quickly beginning to think of as my own. Backing into the room, I paused and listened from just inside the open door. Cheerful voices drifted to me from farther away than before. The group must have moved outside to the back terrace. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see it for myself.

  No one seemed the wiser of my comings and goings and I grinned, as though I was getting away with something. I closed my door, the click of the latch startlingly loud in the sudden stillness of the room.

  The light in the corner still glowed warmly, but I let out a startled squeal when the shadows shifted.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cosimo surged up out of the chair where he’d been sitting and dropped to one knee in front of me. “Forgive me, Ani! I did not mean to startle you.”

  I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed at the sound I’d made, my whole body humming from the rush of adrenaline coursing through me. His fingers brushed against my temple as he tucked damp curls behind one ear and I flinched. “Ani. Please. I am so sorry.”

  I lowered my hands to my lap but kept my head down, still trying to regain my composure. What on earth was he doing sitting all alone in my room?

  As though in answer to my unspoken question, he put a reassuring hand on my knee. His palm was warm on my skin. “I came to see how my patient was doing, and to bring you something to eat, only to discover you had flown away into the night.” He jutted his chin toward the open window across the room, and I felt my lips twitch, struggling to resist the pull of his charming words. But when he slid his palm down my leg ever so slowly to my injured foot, I forgot to breathe. The gesture was no longer quite so reassuring.

  “What—what are you doing?”

  “You are supposed to keep this elevated. Did you forget?” He propped my foot on his thigh, and using his fingers as much as his eyes, did a quick examination of the appendage, making me flinch again, this time from pain, though. “You have a very colorful leg, but I am pleased to see how well it looks.”

  I eyed the top of his head, still not quite sure what was going on. This didn’t feel at all as casual as he made it sound. His confident touch was too intimate, almost as though he was taking advantage of my injury to fondle my leg. I needed to distract him, to get my foot back from him.

  “Do you know how badly you scared me?” I asked, tugging experimentally.

  He lifted his gaze to mine, a slow grin curving his lips. The low light in the room deepened the ridge of his brow, the line of his nose standing out in sharp contrast to his broad cheekbones. “I do now, Ani. I can feel your racing blood.” His fingers pressed gently into the top of my foot where he seemed to have located my pulse. He leaned in closer. “But this makes me sad. I would like to feel your heart race because you are happy to see me, not because you are afraid of me.”

  Well. So much for distracting him.

  I started to turn away, terribly sensitive of the building awareness between us, but he reached up with his free hand and caught my chin, stopping me. “Do not look away, passerotta. I want to see your face, your eyes.”

  “What’s a passerotta?” I blurted out, completely disarmed by him.

  I shouldn’t have asked. I could tell by his tone that it was an endearment of some kind. I tried again to pull away, to retrieve my foot from his lap, but he’d slid his hand around to the back of my leg and was cupping my calf, keeping me captive.

  “Passerotta. It is a little sparrow. My plump little sparrow.” He squeezed my calf appreciatively.

  “Cosi—simo.” His name came out in two attempts. I needed to move. Quickly. I reached up to clutch his wrist, tugging his hand from my jaw. He moved it to my shoulder instead, breaking my hold, then down my arm to take my hand.

  He leaned closer and purred, his voice making my skin vibrate. “Why are you trying to fly away from me? You have a broken wing. You will be easy to catch, remember?”

  He’d been drinking. I caught a whiff of the musky sweet smell of red wine on his breath. But then, everyone in Italy drank wine. It didn’t mean he was drunk.

  His behavior, on the other hand, indicated that it was a very good possibility. I didn’t think this was proper physician/patient etiquette, even for after-hours house calls in Italy.

  Besides, plump little sparrow? He just called me fat. And plain. In so many words.

  “I just need to go to bed, Cosimo. I’m sick, remember?” I pulled my hand from his grasp and gripped both sides of my chair, preparing to free my hostage leg once and for all, even if it hurt to do so. “Besides, I’m not trying to fly away from you. I’m trying to roll away from you.”

  Cosimo snorted and released his hold on me, raising both hands in the universal gesture of surrender, reminding me of Paulo at the train station. “Go then. Roll away, little birdie.” He didn’t stop me as I scooted my chair backwards toward the bed. No way was I going to take my eyes off him right now.

  He didn’t get up right away, but stayed crouched on the floor, watching me fold back the covers of my haphazardly made bed. Finally, he rose and came over to hold the chair while I pivoted my backside over to the mattress.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, wondering what came next.

  He stood there for several moments, his hands on the back of the chair, his right foot resting on one of the casters, studying me. I slid up in the bed toward the jumble of pillows I’d tossed in a heap before heading for the bathroom. When I started to lift my leg onto the bed, he shoved the chair aside hard, sending it rolling several feet past the foot of the bed, and I raised my eyebrows in concern. He didn’t acknowledge my questioning look, but helped me get my leg positioned comfortably so I could lie a little on my side, fluffing the pillows under my foot, and wedging another one behind my back for support. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and scrubbed at his face with both hands.

  When he finally turned to study me, his expression was unreadable, made even more so by the shadowy light in the room. His smile was gentle, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He seemed deflated somehow, reduced.

  “Are you—is everything all right, Cosimo?” I probably shouldn’t have asked, but the thought became words before I had time to reconsider. He snorted again, the same sound he’d made just a moment ago when he’d released me. Then he looked away, his eyes alighting on the night sky outside my window. He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through his already mussed up hair.

  I just waited in silence, sensing his need to unload. As odd as his behavior was, I didn’t believe he’d come to my room with the intention of seducing me.

  He turned to me and smiled again. This time, his eyes were warm, and he reached back and covered my knee with his hand. “Ani. I want you to trust me, but I behaved like a cavalier tonight.” He paused for a moment, as though weighing his words. “I know you do not feel so well, but you are like a beautiful flower after the rain tonight. You make me forgot myself. Forgive me.”

  As far as apologies went, it was almost laughable. He sat on the edge of my bed in my dimly lit bedro
om, a beautiful man reeking of wealth and wine and tortured soul, a hand casually resting on my bare leg, trying to tell me his behavior of moments ago was inappropriate. Like this was any better? When I didn’t respond right away, his fingers started to move, back and forth, feather-light along the bend of my knee. I reached down and put my hand over his, halting his movements.

  “Please stop. You—you’re tickling me.” It wasn’t a lie. The backs of my knees were extremely sensitive and I didn’t want to accidentally kick him if he hit the spot. He turned his hand over and took mine in his.

  We sat that way for a while, the sounds of the night drifting in through my open window, just holding hands. He seemed to find strange comfort in my company tonight, but wasn’t quite sure what to do with me, since I wasn’t in any condition for a romantic tête-à-tête.

  But there was something sparking in the air between us, of that I was certain. It felt like the electrical static after a lightning storm, but I sensed it could quickly and easily turn into something more if I let down my guard. In fact, it was a little like trying to harness the lightning itself. Exciting and brilliant, but oh, so dangerous at the same time.

  I’d felt it in his office that first day, and a few other times over the last few days, even being sick, I’d seen it in his eyes.

  Over the last few days. I frowned. “Cosimo, it’s Saturday, right?”

  “Yes.” He tipped his head in question.