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I didn’t know whether to wait or go home, so I sat there, drinking my coffee and worrying about my friend until a cheerful voice distracted me.
“Buongiorno, Noemi!”
I hopped down from my stool to greet Mrs. Calegari.
“No, no, stay there.” She waved her hand at me. “I just came for more coffee.” She reached for the pot. “And what are you doing here so early? Didn’t you just get home?”
I knew better than to give her details that would make her worry. “I thought I’d try to catch Lilly by surprise, but she has other plans.”
“That girl,” Mrs. Calegari shook her head. “She’s a wild one. I’m so glad you’ve come home. Maybe you can be a good influence on her again, like when you two were younger. She listens to you, you know.”
“She’s just spirited. I think she has some big things coming in her future.” I remembered Lilly’s comments about opening a boutique, but I didn’t know whether she’d shared her dreams with her mother, so I kept quiet.
“Well,” Mrs. Calegari leaned on the counter the same way Gabriel had and I smiled. “If that ‘big thing’ is in the form of a tall, handsome man, then I will pray that the ‘big thing’ arrives quickly! She needs someone who will make her settle down.”
I shrugged. My experience from the last week with Dante made me appreciate Lilly’s cavalier attitude toward romance. “I don’t know. I think it’s good that she’s strong and independent.”
“She can be strong and still fall in love. It happens all the time,bambina.”
Bambina? I choked on my breath. She never called me that before. Why did she start now? I was doing well until that moment. It wasn’t easy being in his home, with reminders everywhere, but hearing that term of... was it a term of endearment? It sounded so different coming from her.
“I don’t understand what she’s waiting for,” Mrs. Calegari continued.
I shrugged as I struggled internally to regain my composure. “Maybe... she’s just waiting for the right person to come along.”
I shouldn’t have looked at her, but our eyes met, and her compassion and understanding were more than my fragile psyche could handle.
In times like that, I missed my mother. I wanted to be able to sit down and talk to her about Dante, to get her advice, woman to woman. Mrs. Calegari was his mother. While she had been a substitute parental figure to me for years, she was the last person I could discuss Dante with.
“I suppose that’s possible,” she said softly. She reached out and covered my hand with hers. “I shouldn’t rush her. The right man is always worth waiting for. Don’t forget that, Noemi.”
I blinked several times. “People... get lonely. Sometimes, the waiting feels so long.”
“That’s true. But he’s worth waiting for. When he’s the right one,” she said softly.
She knew. I fought back the tears that threatened to spill over.
“Give him time,carina.He’s a smart man, but even a smart man doesn’t always see what’s right in front of his face.”
“How much more time does he need?” I whispered; my voice hoarse from holding back the emotions. “I don’t think I have another decade in me.”
She patted my hand. “I know him better than anyone. I don’t think you’ll be waiting much longer.”
Mrs. Calegari believed a lifetime of lies if she thought she knew her son. Like me, she only knew the side of him that he presented to the world. She didn’t really know him at all. But I couldn’t tell her that. What could I say?Your son kills people for money.Did it matter that they deserved it?
Instead, I forced a smile to my lips and covered her hand with mine. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right. A mother knows her son and she knows what’s right for him.”
Did she know what he’d done to me? Where we had been and what we had experienced together? How muchdidshe know about any of that? Did she have any idea what he’d done to me? While she may know that he and I would be good together, her predictions could be nothing more than wishful thinking. If she didn’t know her oldest son was a killer-for-hire, then how reliable was her claim that I was the right woman for him?
***
THREE MORE DAYS PASSED. Three long, unending days that merged into the beginning of a miserable week. I tried to put Dante out of my mind, focusing on mundane tasks like updating my resume and searching for a job. I found several that I was interested in, but none that screamed at me. I had time. My savings would last a while. It wasn’t like I had a house payment or anything.
In that aspect, I was spoiled. Our family home was paid off and Willis took care of the bills, something I would change if I ended up staying in Connecticut permanently. If I found a local job and remained in the house, I would insist on taking over the bills. It was another thing I needed to speak to my dear brother about, but we kept playing phone tag.
A storm the night before left a couple of inches of snow behind. I spent some time outside, shoveling the driveway and the sidewalk. I’m not sure why I did the driveway when I still wasn’t driving my car, but it kept me busy for a while at least.
