Chapter Fourteen
Confusion. Loss. Guilt. Mel kept an eye on Daniel as he sat on the couch in the keeping room, a cup of espresso cooling next to him. He faced the coffee table where she was teaching Jamie origami but he wasn’t really paying attention.
“Then fold this straight bottom all the way to the top and crease, fold it halfway back like this and crease. That makes a Z-shaped spring.” Mel tugged at the bottom of the newly formed legs.
“Then fold it out like this, put it on the table, and voila!” She pressed on the rear of the frog and it jumped right into Jamie’s face.
Jamie giggled, picked up the frog and made it jump back at Mel.
“Now you try to make one.” Mel slid an old playing card toward Jamie and shifted herself into a comfortable position on the floor next to the coffee table.
The transformation had been amazing. Once the emotional catharsis out by the apiary had ended, Jamie had become a talkative, irrepressible whirlwind.
Then Jamie had taken Daniel’s hand and Daniel had had another episode. The girl hadn’t even noticed how much trouble Daniel had negotiating the steps up to the porch or how fast he had collapsed into the armchair.
Daniel had been quiet, smiling in all the right places and nodding. Mel could sense the pain he felt, but that wasn’t all…
Anger. Frustration. Guilt. Whatever he had seen when he took Jamie’s hand had left him reeling. The prophets and seers of old were sometimes portrayed as blind and tormented by their visions but seeing it in reality was dreadful.
“Like this.” She reached in and showed Jamie the fold. “That’s right.”
Jamie did almost all the folds herself and sent her frog jumping right off the coffee table with a proud grin. She retrieved it, then carefully unfolded it and ran her finger along the creases. “It’s geometry,” she said. “This is so cool. What other ones can you do?”
“Well, I’ve got some bees in my bag upstairs. It’s a new one I’m trying to figure out. Maybe you can help me?”
“I’d love to do a bee! Can you get them?”
“How is everyone this afternoon?” Grace’s voice came from the hallway, and Jamie was up and off like a shot.
There was the muffled sound of rapid conversation in the hallway and Nick returned to his work on his gnocchi masterpiece.
He had just thought he was being stealthy when he left the kitchen after they returned from the apiary.
Grace and Jamie followed Nick into the kitchen. “Yes. Starting today. We’ll order the prep books. You can take the practice tests and go from there. Oh look, the Italian chef is here.” She wrapped her arms around Nick from behind and kissed his neck while his hands were occupied.
Jamie stuck out her tongue. “Yuck!”
Daniel looked resigned as Grace sat next to him to watch Jamie show off her incredible jumping origami frog. Daniel whispered something to Grace, and she curved her hand around his neck for a moment before standing.
“It’s going to be dark soon, and a certain young lady needs to head home.” She looked at Jamie, who was making her origami frog and Mel’s jump in a race.
Jamie looked up. “But I ain’t… I haven’t checked on the goats or—”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “Starting today,” she said, repeating herself.
“Yes’m.” A smile lit up Jamie’s face as she turned to Mel. “Miss Mel, you’re gonna be here tomorrow, right?”
“I—”
“The teachers got—have an in-service day and I’ll be up here early. I wanna learn some more of these.” She held up the frog. “And the bees. I can bring another old deck of cards or some paper or something and I wanna know about that picture on your shirt too. That’s cool.”
Mel looked down at her Rider-Waite Magician shirt and smiled. “I’ll do my best to hang around.”
“That’s your little blue car with the stripes out there, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have a ride in it?”
“Well, I—”
“With the top down and everything?”
“If it’s okay with everyone here.”
Jamie ran up and gave her a hug, then rushed out the door.
Mel released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. “Whew.”
Grace smiled. “Yep, that’s our Jamie.”
“Do you think our girl is going to be that hyper?” Nick said.
Grace didn’t reply.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Mel laughed.
“I think I have half the garden in my hair. Shower, then collapse,” Grace said, heading for the master suite.
“Shower, eat, then collapse, hon. I don’t want Lily kicking me out of bed in the middle of the night for a snack again.”
“You can always sleep on the couch,” Grace sing-songed over her shoulder.
“I do so love my feisty woman. Anyone care to help me with the salads?” Nick called out. “Or the garlic bread or setting the table. I don’t care which.”
Daniel hefted himself out of the armchair. “I’ll get the table. Is Ouida joining us? Eddie?”
“No. She’s got some meeting in town she’s off to, and Eddie’s up at the old home place watching the crew. She packed him a supper,” Nick replied.
“I’ll do the salads, if you like,” Mel offered.
“Thanks. Can you point that remote toward the fireplace and press play?” Nick nodded to a controller on the counter. “I queued up some music for tonight.”
Mel did so and smiled as the room filled with real Italian music, not the Italian-American stuff most people equated with the Olive Garden.
Singing along if she knew the lyrics and humming when she didn’t, Mel threw together a colorful salad of produce straight from the greenhouses. She found most of the ingredients for her father’s favorite vinaigrette, plus a cruet, and made fresh dressing.
Grace came out in another pair of yoga pants with her hair damp and curling around her shoulders, but there was no cute slogan on her draped top this time. Also, being pregnant and in love had apparently removed the need for makeup.
“You have the most gorgeous skin. How do you do that, being outside so much?”
Grace smiled. “Sun hat, long sleeves and gloves. There are summer days when I wish I wasn’t a redhead.”
“Don’t you ever wish that,” Nick called out.
Grace smirked. “He only married me for the hair.”
“And the kitchen,” Nick added.
Grace wore a pendant similar to Daniel’s lapel pin—fireflies escaping from a mason jar. Maybe she could finally discover what the Firefly Foundation was all about. “So, what is—?”
“Which wine did you plan to open?” Daniel asked from behind Mel, taking her by surprise.
“The Pizzolato pinot grigio.”
“Oh. They make a great prosecco too!” Mel said.
“Mel loves prosecco,” Daniel said. She felt him standing close behind her, his breath raising gooseflesh on her neck.
“Then bring it up too,” Nick said. “It’ll go with the dessert.”
“Wonderful!” Mel exclaimed.
Daniel headed for the back stairs. “To think, a few days ago I had no idea what prosecco was.”
Grace settled on one of the tall chairs. “Mel, I wanted to thank you for the way you dealt with Jamie today. She can be a challenge sometimes.”
“She’s delightful,” Mel said. “At least, once she and Daniel talked things out, she was. I was afraid she saw me as some kind of rival.”
Grace laughed. “Not quite, but close. Daniel handled it beautifully, though.”
“I saw.” Though I helped a bit.
“He’s great with kids,” Grace confided. “The ones up here in the summer months swarm around him like—”
“Bees?” Mel asked.
“Pretty much.”
“From what I saw in Bologna, he’s a great teacher,” Mel said. “I told him he should put your Pops’ stories into a book.”
Grace turned and looked at her. “That’s a great idea. Have you written any books yourself?”
“Not yet. But all my articles could fill a few.”
Daniel emerged from the hall with a bottle in each hand. Mel met his eyes and he smiled. Then she noticed Grace gaze at her with that same soft smile and realized she was broadcasting again.
“If someone will take charge of the bread and salad, Daniel can serve the wine, and I’ll bring the main course,” Nick said, then nodded to Daniel. “Stick the prosecco in the wine fridge.”
Nick sat at the head of the long farm table with Grace on one side and Mel on the other. Daniel sat next to Mel.
Grace settled into her seat. “What’s for dessert?”
Nick laughed. “Asks the one person at the table who doesn’t have to save room for dessert.” He ladled the steaming gnocchi into pasta bowls while Daniel opened the wine.
Grace patted her stomach. “Don’t be so sure! You can’t imagine how much room your daughter takes up in here.”
Mel looked at her baby bump. “It’s got to be the most amazing feeling, to have a little person growing inside you. Do you ever wonder if she is listening to us talk about her?”
Grace’s complexion grew pale. Daniel suddenly reached for the breadbasket to pass around to everyone. She didn’t need her talento to sense the change in the air. She had said something wrong but had no idea what it was.
Nick picked up the wine and poured her a small amount. She sniffed and tasted.
“Perfetto!” she exclaimed. He poured her a glass, then one for Daniel, then for himself.
“Buon appetito!” Nick said, lifting his glass.
“Buon appetito,” the rest answered, lifting theirs.
Grace, however, had to settle for sparkling grape juice.
“If I inhale deep enough, I can pretend,” she said wistfully.
Mel laughed, then took a bite of the dish: homemade gnocchi with white beans, spinach, diced tomatoes and onions, sautéed and covered with melted cheese. “Compliments to the cook,” she said. “è delizioso.”
Grace dug in. “The salad dressing is wonderful,”
“I’ll need to check that recipe too,” Nick said sternly. “Don’t make me call the Feds.”
Mel laughed.
“Where did you learn Italian?” Grace asked.
“My father’s family is in Italy. Tons of great-aunts and great-uncles and cousins all over the place.” She smiled. “Lots of visits, and I was the one who did all the translating.”
“She’s a great tour guide too,” Daniel said. “Knows all the hidden gems and the stories that go with them.”
“Only about Florence,” Mel said. “It’s my favorite city in the world, I think.”
“Where are you from?” Grace asked.