by Jean Stone
Mothers, she thought, snapping on the gas jet with more force than she’d intended. She thought of hers again, the grand dame, Margaret Atkinson, who’d been dead ten years yet still seemed to hover. Whenever Nikki needed to make an important decision, there was Margaret, perched on her daughter’s shoulder, an unwanted, criticizing conscience, jabbering a nonstop litany, trying to get Nikki to do things her way.
Margaret, the matriarch of the Atkinson legacy, who had supported Connor at the helm of Atkinson Enterprises even after Nikki’s divorce because it was “better for the company,” the almighty company, as if they still owned it. Nikki’s daughter, Dee, being half Connor’s, not only held stock but also worked there when she had time, an action that Nikki neither understood nor promoted.
Atkinson Enterprises. The last thing Nikki ever wanted was anything to do with the business. More than once, she had been grateful that her shares of the firm, along with those of her cousins Mary Beth and Gabrielle, had been sold years ago, and the money added to the principal of their trust funds.
Gabrielle.
Suddenly, she dropped the spoon. Would it be possible that her estranged cousin was the answer to Nikki’s dilemma?
Flicking her eyes outside again, Nikki turned off the gas jet. Then she quickly grabbed her cardigan and headed out the door.
From the small porch of the caretaker’s cottage Nikki saw a soft orange glow coming from the fireplace. She’d been inside often enough to know that the square living room/kitchen combination, the small bedroom, and the bath were meager but sufficient for its lone resident. It was not unlike the lighthouse: a solitary refuge for a solitary soul.
Taking a deep breath, Nikki raised her hand and knocked.
The door opened.
“Hey, Uncle Mack,” she said, “Mind if I come inside?”
He neither straightened pillows and magazines nor apologized for the mess.
“I have a pot of two-day-old stew on the stove. Interested?” he asked. He wore the same blue plaid flannel shirt and jeans that he’d worn this morning. His sneakers were parked by the door, and his familiar stride pattered in old wool socks across the worn braided rug.
Nikki shook her head. “No, thanks. But you go ahead.”
He shrugged and sat in one of the two overstuffed chairs that cupped the fireplace. He motioned for her to sit in the other. “I get the feeling you’re here about something more important.”
As she sat, Nikki caught sight of the portrait that hung on the stone wall over the mantel. A vision of Mack, sitting in this chair, pining at the portrait, almost made her wish she’d never painted it. It had been her first, a teenager’s amateurish attempt to capture life, the life of her aunt Rose, Mack’s wife, namesake of The Rose Foundation. Nikki had painted it many summers ago. In recent years, it had been nothing but unsettling.
He tapped his fingers on the armchair. “If only one person responds to every poster out there, you ought to have a good turnout this weekend.”
She pulled her gaze from the portrait, and from the memories of the horrible accident that it evoked.
“But that’s not why you’ve come,” he added.
They might have been blood relatives for the way both she and Mack had turned into themselves, the family recluses, the “private” ones. “No,” she answered, “I need some advice.”
He did not say, “Okay, go ahead,” or “What is it?” or anything. He sat and simply waited as she perhaps would have done.
Again, Nikki drew a deep breath. “I need to raise some capital, Mack. I wondered if you might have some suggestions.” Slowly, she exhaled; why was this embarrassing?
“I’m a handyman on the Vineyard, Nicole.” Mack turned his head back to the fire. “I don’t have an investment portfolio. Everything Rose left me I gave to Gabrielle.”
Gabrielle’s name hung in the air with a presence as powerful as the amateur portrait’s. Nikki had not seen her other cousin for a very long time, not since she was a teenager and Gabrielle a little girl. But Mack knew where she was, or at least he’d known several years ago when he went to find her. It hadn’t gone well.
Why hadn’t she remembered how hurt he had been? What had possessed her to come to him seeking help from the one person he loved more than anyone—or anything—in the world, the one person who denied him that love?
“I … I wasn’t thinking of you, Mack.” She stammered. She stumbled. She could not mention Gabrielle now or ever. “I wondered if you have any friends, like maybe an island banker or two?”
He laughed. “Friends? Sure, I have friends. A couple of fishermen. And Ben Niles, the builder.” He leaned closer to her. “Are you okay, Nikki? Is the foundation in trouble?”
She could have told him about the rise in AZT costs. She could have told him and then he, too, would worry more about the kids he didn’t know, and he’d worry about Nikki because he knew how much this meant to her. So Mack would worry, too, and what good would that do?
Nikki stood up. “Everything will be fine,” she replied. “There’s just a bit of minor juggling I need to do.” She said good night and returned to the lighthouse, feeling empty of options, out of ideas, and like an insensitive rat.
Daffodil yellow, the clerk had announced when Nikki selected the paint for the kids’ cabins. She chose it for its cheerfulness and because it was on sale.
Dipping a wide brush into a bucket of daffodil yellow, Nikki wondered if, at nineteen, her daughter was familiar with either concept.
Fortunately, Dee lived in Manhattan with her father; unfortunately, it seemed she only called her mother when she needed attention or money. Like this morning, when Nikki still was in bed, looking out as the day struggled to grow light, wondering how and where she’d find the money for the mounting foundation costs, and wondering if it would rain. It was easier to dwell on the possibility of rain. Rain would mean that not much work could get done at Camp4Kids. Rain would mean that not many volunteers would show up.
The phone had rung, distracting her from her worries.
“If I were insecure, I’d think you cared more about total strangers than you do about us,” Dee had accused.
“Total strangers are often more appreciative than family,” Nikki responded. The verbal dance between them had begun when Dee had hit puberty and along with her breasts had developed an Atkinson love of money and of self. Nikki often wondered if Dee were actually Mary Beth’s child, if Shauna and Dee had been switched at birth, although they were a year apart.
“I’m calling to see if you’ll be there this weekend,” Dee asked, as if Nikki might be in Madrid or New Delhi.
Nikki simply answered “Yes,” because it was too early in the day for caustic remarks.
“I’m coming with Shauna. We’re going to have fittings.”
The other shoe that ordinarily accompanied Dee’s phone calls suspiciously did not drop.
“Can we have dinner?” Nikki asked, doubtful of a positive response.
“Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll see what Shauna has planned.”
Of course.
“I’ll be at the big house, so you won’t have to move the pile of laundry off the bed in your guest room.”
Nikki wondered if, before she died, she and her daughter could ever become friends. “Well, I hope I get to see you,” she added before ringing off, because she was the adult and Dee was the child, which did not always make it easier to bite back the words she really wanted to say.
Applying a hefty coat to the cabin now, Nikki wondered if there was enough time before the wedding to muster endurance both for her daughter and for the onslaught of society that would invade her backyard and assault her distaste for glitter and glitz.
Then she took a deep breath and tried, instead, to focus on the here and now, on the victories of her day: No vandals had destroyed the cabins; no picketers had greeted the two dozen volunteers who had miraculously showed up this morning and were now scattered around the grounds, blessedly bringing a spirit of ho
pe into the run-down old place.
Life is good, Nikki reassured herself, despite Dee’s constant challenges, despite the new wrinkle of added expenses that somehow (please, God) would work itself out.
But as she reloaded the brush, an unfamiliar voice interrupted her.
“Excuse me. Are you Nikki Atkinson?”
Nikki turned. A middle-aged woman shielded her eyes from the glare of the not-quite-sun. She wore a raincoat and a transparent rain bonnet and carried a collapsible umbrella. The brown leather handbag and matching squarish pumps suggested she’d come from the mainland, that she was not an islander or even a seasoned tourist.
Nikki cleaned off her paintbrush. “That’s me. I don’t suppose you’re a volunteer.” She turned back to the cabin, hoping this was not anti-AIDS trouble, a picketer disguised as a librarian.
The woman moved closer until she stood right next to Nikki. “We’ve never met,” she said, “but I feel that I’ve known you many years.” She smiled an odd half-smile, then extended her right hand. “My name is Carla DiRoma,” she continued, “and I work for Lester Markham.”
3
Gabrielle closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warm Italian sun. Standing on the hillside in gentle Tuscany, she listened to the stir of the silvery olive leaves and tasted the clean aroma of spring, the promise of black grapes that nestled in the air, the hope of a season that would yield an abundant crop.
Castello di Bonelli needed a good season. It had not had one since 1995. The coolness, the dampness of the recent years had resulted in thin, rotting grape skins, high acidity, tannins that were too hard—and a vineyard that lost more money than it made.
She opened her eyes and looked off toward the estate where Stefano’s family had been making wine since the late 1500s. Surely they had weathered cycles of bad climate. They had not, however, had the added liability of an American wife in the household, a nonvintner by birth, a legendary curse on the crop according to Enzio, the “pigheaded foreman,” as Stefano often called him.
It was true that Gabrielle had known little about wine-making and even less of growing grapes, that she’d believed the fruits were grown only on vines threaded among arbors, not on tangled, dwarflike trees set in rows across the slopes—trees that needed to be pruned and fertilized and watered sparingly to promote the smallest clusters and the ripest fruits.
She had not known then, but she did know now. She’d learned about the grapes the way she’d learned of patient, truest love.
“Gabriella!” She heard her name called out and knew it was her unsuperstitious husband, the heir to the title “Count Bonelli” that had made her a countess, the man who did not believe she was the cause of his troubles. She turned and smiled, the same way she always smiled whenever she heard him add an “a” to the end of her first name. She’d been smiling for six of her thirty-four years, since they’d met and married, since the birth of little Rosa, the magic of Gabrielle’s life.
Stefano raced toward her on winemaker’s legs, lean and muscled from traversing the slopes. His dark hair floated in the breeze, his arms were outstretched with the eagerness of a child on his way home from school. He reached her and swept her up, nuzzling his nose into her neck.
She laughed. “What are you doing?” she asked, her Italian accented with a mix of proper British-schooled English and long-since-leftover American. Another annoyance for Enzio.
Stefano kissed her throat in response, then carried her over the hillside, past twisted cypress trees, up to the olive grove and into the cabin, the rest stop for the grape pickers during the autumn harvest.
The small, dark building had been built of boards many decades ago. It was damp inside.
“Stefano …” Gabrielle protested, but he untied the pale blue ribbon that held back her wispy chestnut hair and quickly laid her down on a soft, thick blanket. Then, with the sunlight framing his back, he smiled at her and slowly removed each item of his clothing: his neck scarf, his denim shirt, his jeans. His erection, like the sound of his voice, made her smile.
“We must christen the earth for a crop that is worthy of the great gallo nero.”
Gallo nero, the black rooster. The seal of the consorzio. The mark of the finest vintage of Chianti Classico—an honor that had eluded Castello di Bonelli since Gabrielle and Stefano had wed.
She tried to smile in return so Stefano would not think she believed Enzio’s curse.
“Besides,” he added, his grin widening, “it is time we produced a male heir for the business.”
The small smile that she’d managed faded, for she was unsure of his joke. Then he bent down and lifted her long cotton skirt, slid down her panties, and lowered himself onto her. She closed her eyes and pushed aside her doubt. Then she let his welcome scent fill her body and his tender touch caress her heart.
“Mama!” Rosa cried later that afternoon, when Stefano had returned to the spring fertilizing and Gabrielle to the villa, where she prepared sausage, cheese, and fresh-picked porcini mushrooms for their evening meal. She had not heard the school bus rumble up the hill from the village; she had been lost in her world again, where all things were wonderful.
She set down her knife and hugged her daughter. “How was school today, my darling?”
Rosa frowned and when she did, her big eyes saddened. Her hair was dark, but her eyes were big and blue like Gabrielle’s, big and blue like an Atkinson’s. Gabrielle hugged her daughter again. She was so attached to this tiny being—too attached, perhaps. But she could not fathom life without her. She only wished she could wrap her in a tight, safe cocoon and protect her always, the way that she wished she’d been protected when she was young.
“School was terrible, Mama,” Rosa burbled. “The mathematics. Oh. And Cesare Fiore. He stuck his tongue out at me.”
Gabrielle stood up and went back to her work. “That boy is no better than a street urchin, Rosa. I don’t know why you bother with him.” Cesare Fiore was Enzio’s nephew, the son of Enzio’s sister, whose husband had been killed three years ago when his old truck slid off the dirt road that wound its way up from the village. Cesare’s father had been a worker on the vineyard, but not “good enough” for Enzio’s sister, Angie, who “should have, would have,” married Stefano if Gabrielle hadn’t been in Paris, where Stefano went to witness the consorzio, if Gabrielle hadn’t been waiting on tables in a café on the Left Bank, if Stefano had listened to Enzio’s persistent pleas of Have you lost your mind? She’s not one of US!
“He says now that the pruning’s done and school’s almost out, his uncle Enzio is going to take him to Florence for three days, maybe four. Will Papa take us, too, Mama?”
Florence. Firenze. A slow, dusty image of leather shops and lovemaking came to Gabrielle’s mind. Stefano had taken her to Florence for their honeymoon on their way back from Paris. It was not uncommon for people to make the northward trek from their village south of Siena to the great city, a rite-of-summer rejuvenation. “We will go to Firenze this summer, Rosa. But do not worry. We will not go with Cesare. Or his uncle Enzio.”
With pink, full lips that Stefano forewarned might someday break many hearts, Rosa pouted. She stood on her tiptoes to study the sausage-cutting process. “Well, that would be okay, you know. If we went with them.”
Gabrielle laughed and swatted her daughter with a dish towel. “You are so fickle, my little one! First you hate Cesare Fiore. Then you beg me to take you to Firenze with him …”
Rosa turned away. “I did not beg, Mama,” she said softly, her small voice cracking.
Gabrielle feared she had made a mistake, that what she’d meant to be playful had instead come out hurtful. Quickly she stooped and took Rosa by her thin arms. “I’m sorry, my darling. I did not mean to tease you. I did not think you liked him.”
Rosa shrugged. “I don’t,” she whispered. “I guess.”
Raising her hand under Rosa’s chin, Gabrielle slowly lifted it. “It’s okay if you do! It’s good to like people. I’ll tell
you what. Let’s ask Papa if we can go to Firenze with Cesare and Enzio. We could explore the piazza together. Maybe even visit the museums and the chocolate shops. Would you like that?”
The big, blue Atkinson eyes smiled back at Gabrielle. She hugged her daughter again and reminded herself of her unwavering promise that this child would never, ever suffer the way Gabrielle had suffered, would never, ever wonder if anyone loved her or if she would always be alone.
“I’m with him every day. Why would I want to travel to Firenze with Enzio?” Stefano’s words were firm, but his tone was playful.
They had finished dinner in the old stone kitchen of the villa. There no longer was a reason to take their meals in the dining room—the massive teak table was suited for sixteen—and they’d laid off the service people, the cook and the housemaids, three years ago when the bad years had caught up to them. “If I go on holiday, I want to be with my family, not my foreman’s.”
“It would only be Enzio and Cesare. And Angie, I suppose. If she wants to go.”
Stefano rolled his eyes. “And you are not jealous? That Angelina once loved me?”
Gabrielle gestured toward Rosa as she shushed her husband.
Stefano reached across the table, took her hand, and kissed it. “It is no secret, Gabriella. The whole village knows Enzio’s sister wanted to marry me, that she wanted to be the Countess Bonelli, the queen of Castello di Bonelli.”
Rosa leaned on her elbows. “But you took Mama as your countess, right, Papa?”
They laughed. “Oh, yes, little one. I took Mama as my countess and my queen.”
Gabrielle pulled back her hand. “And now the queen requests that we all go to Firenze.” As she stood up and carried the dishes to the deep stone sink, she heard a heavy knock on the old wooden back door. It was Enzio, the pigheaded foreman. He was slight, like Gabrielle, and stooped from an added two decades of age. They stood eye to eye, her big blue ones looking into his much smaller black ones. As an afterthought he removed his cap.
