The Last Promise Read online

  “Chi vuol nascndere l’amore sempre lo manifesta.” When one tries to hide love, one gives the best evidence of its existence.

  —Italian Proverb

  Anna returned to Rendola with all the subtlety of a summer thunderstorm. She held her horn down for fifty meters as her red, vintage Renault climbed the drive to the villa. Eliana heard her and called for Alessio.

  “Come on, Alessio, Aunt Anna’s back!”

  Alessio screamed and raced to the front door. “Slow down, sport!” They arrived outside the villa just as Anna climbed out of her car.

  “Ciao, ragazzi!” she shouted. “I’m back.”

  “Welcome home!” Eliana shouted. They hugged and kissed cheeks. And Anna crouched and kissed Alessio. “You grew!”

  “Really?” Alessio asked, touching the top of his head.

  “Sì. Now come see what Aunt Anna has brought you.” Anna took a large plastic sack from the backseat of the car and handed it to Alessio.

  “For me?”

  “Just for you.”

  He lifted out a plastic dump truck.

  “Wow. Grazie.”

  The women each pulled a bag from the car and started back to the villa.

  “So how was everything?” Eliana asked.

  “Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. The sea has never been bluer, the weather never kinder.”

  Eliana smiled at Anna’s dramatics. “So Claudia wasn’t unbearable after all.”

  “Claudia who? I met the most beautiful man.”

  “A man?”

  “Sì, sì,” she said, twisting her wrist to imply there was more to be said when young ears weren’t around.

  They set Anna’s bags down just inside her house. “Come on over, Anna. We haven’t eaten dinner yet; we were waiting for you.”

  “Oh good, I’m hungry as a wolf.”

  The table was already set for three. Eliana reheated their meal, and they sat down to a dish of gnocchi with ragù sauce and toasted crostini spread with a pâté made from white beans. They talked for nearly two hours before Eliana sent Alessio upstairs to bed.

  “I want to stay and listen some more,” he said.

  “No,” said Anna. “We have woman talk. It will burn the ears of small boys. Now go up. We’ll play tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” he said grudgingly.

  “Good night, son. Give Aunt Anna and me a kiss.”

  “Yes, come, my Alessio.” She kissed him.

  “Now, don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  “I won’t.”

  When he had disappeared at the top of the stairs, Eliana asked, “So, does Romeo have a name?”

  “Andrea. Andrea Deluca.” She spoke the name as if she were unwrapping a present, paying special attention to roll the R. “We danced, we drank wine, we strolled along the beach under the moon—it was so romantic.”

  Eliana laughed at her excitement. “I’m so pleased for you.”

  “You should be. I forgot how wonderfully intoxicating it is to be in love.”

  Though she said nothing, Eliana understood. “Where was Claudia during all this?”

  “At the house sulking. Claudia won’t be speaking to me for a century, but that’s just one of the many benefits.”

  “So where did you meet?”

  “Claudia, bless the boor, and I had a little tiff, so I went out alone for a walk. He followed me six blocks before he asked if I would have coffee with him.”

  Eliana smiled. “Where does he live?”

  “In Genoa. He was staying at a beach house with his cousin.”

  “Will you see him again soon?”

  “Yes. He’s coming for the Festa della vendemmia.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Che fico, che uomo!” What a fig, what a man!

  Eliana smiled at this as she stacked their plates on top of each other, then gathered up the silverware from the table. “So what’s he like?”

  “Carino, short and plump. A little Botticelli. And he’s a magician in the kitchen. He can cook like my grandmother.” Then she said, “Did I tell you he has the most marvelous lips I’ve ever tasted?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Eliana took the plates into the kitchen. Anna collected the glasses and followed her in.

  “So what happened while I was gone?”

  “Alessio had a bad attack. We had to rush him to emergency.”

  “Mamma mia. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing. Maurizio was only here for two days. Same old life.”

  Anna looked vexed. “I don’t believe you. Something happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve changed.”

  “In what way?”

  “You seem breezy.”

  “I’m just glad you’re back.”

  “Did you meet someone?” Anna scrutinized Eliana’s face.

  “Anna.”

  “It’s the American, no?”

  “Anna.”

  “That is not a denial. I knew it. What is he like?” When Eliana hesitated, Anna exclaimed, “I was right. Out with it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, he’s nice. He’s very sweet.”

  “Dolcezza, you say! This is news. How did you meet him? Did you take him a housewarming gift like I suggested?”

  “If I had done it like you suggested, I would have been wearing a lace negligee. When Alessio had his attack, he drove us to the hospital.”

  Her face widened with the expression of a teenage girl asking a secret. “And . . . ?”

  “And what?”

  “You and the American. How . . .”

  “Anna, stop this. I’m married.”

  “Does he know you’re married?”

  “Yes. Of course he does. He’s already met Maurizio.”

  Anna looked disappointed. “Well, he’s certainly good for you. You’re not the same girl I left, that’s for sure.”

  “Still just Eliana.” Eliana changed the subject. “Would you like some wine?”

  “Who needs wine when you’re drunk on love? I better go home; he’s going to call tonight. Thank you for dinner.” She kissed her. “Let’s have coffee tomorrow.”

  “Certo. I’m glad you’re back, Anna.”

  “Me too. It’s good to be home.”

  Eliana finished clearing the table then went upstairs to her painting. From her studio window she looked out across the courtyard. Ross’s kitchen light was still on. She wondered what he was doing inside. Anna’s light was on too and it made her glad. She was happy that Anna was finally back.

  She was dying to tell Anna about Ross—not that she needed to. Anna always saw through her. Anna was right; Eliana had changed. She felt different.

  Whether he intended to or not, Ross made her feel new and beautiful again, as well as other things—a whole curious palette of bright and exotic feelings.

  She turned on her music and began working on his portrait. Even the portrait was evidence of change. She had never before felt so connected to a painting.

  She remembered, back when she was in college, a painting instructor had once confessed to her that he got a tremendous rush in working with live models. He felt as if, in painting them, he owned a portion of them, in the way some aboriginal tribes believe a photograph captures a soul. Maybe that’s what she felt now, that in painting him she might in some way own him, in a way her conscious mind would not allow.

  Artists and authors often fall in love with their subjects, though the attraction she felt had started even before she touched brush to canvas. It started that first night they met.

  Ross Story was a different kind of man from Maurizio, and she didn’t know if it was the influence of culture or personality, or perhaps the sum of both. The truth was that she didn’t know men that well. She had no brother, and her father, though loving, had always been a little distant. She hadn’t dated all that much. She had had a few boyfriends in high school. Cowboys. In a small town and a small school, with a
graduating class of thirty-six, the pickings were meager and one tended to be branded as so-and-so’s girl, and the brand inevitably stuck longer than the relationship. She often laughed when she thought of the modern mystique of the cowboy—usually proffered in bodice-ripper romance novels—talk of free range and wild horses, soft-spoken Marlboro men with hard bodies and steely eyes. Marry one, she thought. She wanted more from her life than getting up at four to milk the cows and feed the chickens.

  College was a different world. Going from Vernal to the University of Utah was like dropping from a fish-bowl into a lake. But it was a blur, and just as she began to warm to the change, her father died. His absence left an empty space in her life which, consciously or not, she almost immediately felt the need to fill.

  She wished that she had taken courtship more seriously. Or at least been more intelligent about it. Did anyone really spend enough time deciding whom to marry? It seemed to Eliana that most people just chose someone who looked good to them at the time, without really checking the label for its contents. The relational equivalent of fast food. The Italians said it best: romance and wisdom aren’t often seen in the same company.

  She had spent years deciding which college to attend, weighing the costs and benefits, and not a hundredth of that time or energy deciding something of infinitely more importance—whom she should spend the rest of her life with. And that was her intent. In the Webb home in Vernal, Utah, marriage was for keeps.

  She hadn’t known that there were men like Ross Story. Men who valued what she thought. Men who were emotionally available. Men who didn’t have just one thing on their mind—two if you counted sports. Not that she disparaged sexual attraction. She didn’t. It was pleasurable and delicious in its own way—just not at the exclusion of everything else.

  Though he never spoke of it, she knew that Ross was attracted to her. It’s not hard for a woman to tell. She knew by the way he smiled in her presence, by the inaudible cues when she moved in certain ways, when she brushed up against him, accidentally or sometimes not. She caught him staring at her a few times, though he turned away as if embarrassed. It was intoxicating to feel desirable again—especially to a man she found so desirable.

  Sometimes, as she painted him, she found herself just staring, gathering the hues and light on his body and then unable to translate them to the canvas—as if she were trying to speak a language she didn’t understand. He was gorgeous. Gorgeous and thoughtful and interesting. Why wasn’t he married? Why had he come so close to marriage only to have it derailed? Something had happened. Something profound enough to keep him from talking about it. And though she wanted to know what it was, a part of her didn’t. His mysterious past held its own pleasure for her, as she came to know him slowly, in the same way she painted him. One stroke at a time.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Anna, Eliana’s sister-in-law, is back from holiday. We had the most interesting dialogue in the garden, though I likely contributed less than a dozen words to the whole of it. How often the most serious of discussions begin with the lightness of simple pleasantries . . .”

  —Ross Story’s diary

  Ross spent the next few days mostly downtown, either at the Uffizi or nearby, keeping his distance from Rendola while Anna settled back in. He didn’t know what effect her return would have on his relationship with Eliana. She was, after all, Maurizio’s sister.

  He came home from work late Tuesday afternoon, made himself a sandwich and, as twilight fell, went outside to the garden to relax with a new novel he had bought that morning. He didn’t see Anna sitting outside on the garden bench as he came around a tall hedge of laurel.

  “Buona sera, Signor Story.”

  Ross turned around. “Oh. Salve, Anna. Welcome home.”

  “Grazie. How are things?”

  “Good.”

  “With the apartment?”

  “All is good.”

  She patted the empty space on the bench next to her. “Here, sit with me.”

  Ross accepted her invitation. He leaned back on the bench, his arms across the back of it. For a moment the two of them just looked out over the vineyards.

  “Looks like storm clouds in the west,” Anna said. “Rain by morning. Pretty though.”

  “Sì.”

  “How could anyone look at that and doubt there’s a God?” she said. “God’s an artist, I think. The world is His canvas. Our most clever, our Leonardos and our Michelangelos, make only copies of what He already did.” A wind blew across the land, over them, as if in confirmation.

  “So how was your vacation, Anna?”

  “It was wonderful. Seems the older I get the more drawn I feel to the sea.”

  “It seems that way to me too,” Ross said.

  “Still, after a week or so I can’t wait to get back home. Casa, dolce casa,” she said. Home, sweet home.

  Ross just smiled.

  “I must say I’m surprised by how much things have changed in my absence.”

  “In what way?”

  “Eliana, mostly. I don’t remember the last time I saw her so happy.”

  “It’s probably just because you’re back. She’s missed you.”

  “Not as much as usual, perhaps,” she said cryptically. Ross suddenly felt a little uncomfortable.

  “And then there’s little Alessio. He was showing me the soccer trading cards you gave him. He’s pretty taken with you. You’re all he’s talked about since I got back. I’m happy for him; it’s good for him to have a man interested in him.” She turned to face Ross. “But then I could probably say the same for Eliana, couldn’t I?”

  Ross looked at the ground. She was playing with him. “Where are you going with this?”

  She smiled slightly. “That was my next question.”

  Ross looked over, studied her face. As direct as her accusation was, there was no hint of condemnation in her eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking, me being Maurizio’s sister. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anybody. Especially my brother. I may be his sister, but I don’t like him. I think he is a fool. He doesn’t deserve Eliana, and when I think of how starved Alessio is for his father’s approval and attention, it makes me want to cry. So if you are bringing a little happiness to my two favorite people in this world, then God bless you.”

  Ross still didn’t speak and there was quiet again. Anna suddenly clasped her thick hands together, as if in prayer. “I think you’re a good man, Signor Story. I have a sixth sense for things like that. But my allegiance is to Eliana and Alessio. Eliana’s as innocent as an angel. She loves the Lord and she loves Alessio more than herself. And now she’s in love with you.” Ross showed no reaction, though he wondered how Anna knew Eliana’s feelings.

  “Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t notice, she is.”

  “She told you that?”

  “She didn’t need to.” She paused, swatted at a fly that had landed on her hair. “Listen to me. The road you two are on might seem like a simple joy walk now, but make no mistake, it is perilous. And you’re further down it than either of you realize. If you’re not serious about the journey, I suggest you get off the path, because you are setting Eliana up for a fall I don’t think she can handle.”

  Ross only rubbed his hands together in thought.

  “You know, this whole affair ought to be black and white. What God has brought together let no man tear asunder—not even handsome Ross Story. But as God is my witness I don’t know what’s the right thing to do. Because I can’t believe it’s right that a heart as good as Eliana’s needs to live without love for the rest of her life. And unless Maurizio undergoes a conversion akin to the apostle Paul’s on the road to Damascus, that’s exactly what’s in store for her.” She looked away in thought. Her eyes were moist now; her voice turned solemn. “Frankly, I have no desire to spend the next decade watching her wither away. So I have no idea what’s right and what’s wrong here. I’m just praying that you have some idea of where you’re going and what to do
when you get there.”

  She looked again to the fields. Again there was silence; then her expression suddenly lightened. “I think Michelangelo was right; God didn’t create us just to abandon us. No one creates without leaving a portion of themselves in it. It’s not possible.” She smiled. “But what do I know? You’re the art expert. Buona notte, Signor Story.” She stood up and walked from the garden. Ross watched her go then looked back out over the vineyards. He sat there, lost in thought, until the green of the garden faded to black.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Il vino è il latte dei vecchi.” Wine is old men’s milk.

  —Italian Proverb

  The old men were always the first to arrive at the vineyard. It was part of an inalterable cycle of sowing and reaping. The vines stretched out their new green tendrils to the maternal trellis, the seeds appeared in small clusters, and the grapes grew and ripened. Then the old men would come, as if drawn by the smell of the grapes, like the bees and birds. They’d come wobbling up on their rusted bicycles a half hour before the harvest was scheduled, some an hour sooner. They had already had their coffees, or if it were a cold morning, their grappinos, and they would stand around with the other old men, swapping stories of past harvests, or laying out plastic harvest baskets in preparation, and waiting for the call to work.

  The young workers, mostly students, straggled in right at eight o’clock or five minutes past, harried and tired, having woken only minutes before. The old men would grumble about the young people and their tardiness, but it was with forgiveness and done more to call attention to their own work ethic than out of actual annoyance.

  There is a palpable excitement on the first day of the vendemmia, like that of men standing around the waiting room of a maternity ward. Every generation felt it, was charged by its electricity. They slapped each other on the back, laughed and kissed each other. Everyone was happy.

  The harvest baskets waited next to the trellises, and the tractors were fired up and brought in line to the end of the rows, pulling large metal trailers that would be filled and refilled, bringing in a kilo of fruit with each haul—more than a ton of grapes—four times a day. Each tractor drove down a wide row lined with trellises while two teams of four workers, two teams to each side of the tractor, moved down the row with it, cutting the thick, woody stems, separating the grapes from the vines with metal shears, dropping the fruit into plastic baskets.