Chapter 12
“This boy. He caused many tears before, yes?” Nonna leaned into Jasmine’s personal space. “Why is he back in Bridgeview? Why is he not staying in California and breaking the heart of some other girl?”
No doubt Nathan had done plenty of that in Los Angeles.
Jasmine was under no illusions about the level of purity he’d maintained after leaving Spokane.
She wasn’t even sure about the level of purity he’d maintained before he left.
All she knew was that when she’d told him no , he’d become more distant, soon breaking things off with her and leaving town.
She might have tried to tell herself all these years that she hadn’t seen it coming, but that wasn’t exactly true.
He’d wanted sex. She’d wanted marriage. And so he’d left.
Nonna tssked. “Yes, I tell you to find a good man and fall in love and get married and give me more great-grandchildren.” She wagged her finger in Jasmine’s face. “But I do mean a good man, worthy of a Santoro. You keep praying. You keep watching. God will reward you. Mark my words. ”
She’d been waiting. She’d been praying. And, still, sometimes she wondered if she shouldn’t have said yes to Nathan way back then.
It wasn’t that she thought God would turn a blind eye to her waywardness, but if she and Nathan would’ve moved in together as he wanted them to, maybe had a child or two, he would have married her sooner or later.
He wouldn’t have left her. He wouldn’t have gone off to Los Angeles and got mixed up in whatever all he’d done so far from home.
Not that giving in had worked out well for Dafne, but her cousin was so young.
“It’s hard to know how to pray, Nonna. Sometimes God feels so far away, like He isn’t paying attention to my request.”
Nonna inhaled sharply. “But you have given your life to Jesus. I was there when you were baptized, when you announced to the world that you would follow Jesus, no turning back.”
Jasmine remembered that day, too. It had been shortly after Nathan moved away, and she was feeling rejected and pious both at the same time. How had that even been possible? With Nathan gone, she’d thrown herself at God’s mercy. Hadn’t He caught her? Hadn’t He held her up all these years?
“Pray for me, Nonna. Sometimes it feels like God is just a wisp. Like prayers are nothing more than blowing on dandelion fluff and making a wish.”
Her grandmother’s face pulled into a scowl.
Jasmine held up her hand. “Please, don’t think worse of me for being honest. I know it’s not true, but the feelings still come. Or else it feels like my prayers bounce around in a rocky cave. They never get higher than the ceiling. ”
Nonna pulled Jasmine into an embrace that nearly suffocated her, pressed into the ample bosom.
“ Mi bella. But is not God with you? You say the prayer cannot grow wings beyond the ceiling and fly to the heavens, but the psalmist says we cannot escape from God’s presence.
He is with us to the outermost part of the earth, below the waves even.
Surely that means He fits inside that room where you pray, and your words do not need to fly beyond it. ”
Jasmine straightened her arms, pushing Nonna slightly away. Not that she wanted rid of the safe feeling of her grandmother’s arms, but she needed to look at her. Read her eyes. Gain hope and understanding. “Those words are true, Nonna,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“You chase the herbs and the wildflowers when you forage, do you not?”
Jasmine nodded.
“And how many days is the lily open? How many days is the asparagus the right size to harvest?”
“Just one or two days. Many wildflowers have only a very short bloom span.” She thought of Linnea’s fixation.
“Just like the butterflies. Many live only a week or two with wings before laying their eggs and then dying.” What a waste of beauty in both cases.
Wildflowers and butterflies definitely got the pointy end of the stick.
Nonna nodded sagely. “Yet even Solomon, in all his splendor, was not clothed as one of these.”
Jasmine blinked, recognizing the Scripture from Matthew. Or was it Luke? What was the biblical context? She’d look it up when she got back to Eden’s house. After she milked Pansy.
“Yet even though the Bible says we are like the grasses of the fields, here today and gone tomorrow, yet we are still loved by God. We are still offered a permanent home in heaven where our leaves will not wilt, our petals will not scatter, nor will our stems become dry and brown and brittle, easily broken.”
Jasmine gazed into her grandmother’s dark eyes glittering with unshed tears. She reached and touched the leathery cheek. “You miss my nonni, don’t you?”
“With every breath, with every morning I wake up with my head on the pillow next to the one that no longer bears the indent of Salvador’s head, I miss him.”
Her grandmother had been a widow for most of Jasmine’s life.
She barely remembered the laughing man who’d jiggled her on his knee.
Mi tesoro, he’d called her. His treasure.
She and her cousin Francesca had been the only girls back then amid half a dozen boys.
He’d stroked her long hair and pressed his lips against her forehead.
She had felt beautiful and treasured indeed in those moments.
Nonna patted her arm. “You think about what I say. Even though you are as fleeting as a wildflower, you matter to the One who made you. You matter to your family and your friends. You are a good woman, Jasmine. Do not settle. Keep knocking on God’s door, and He will reply. Promise me this.”
Jasmine brushed tears from her own eyes. “I promise.”
“Good. Now I want to know when you can help me plant my garden. The days are getting warm now, and I do not have the energy I used to when I was your age. Will you help an old woman out?”
“Nonna, why don’t you let the boys and me add your garden to Bridgeview Backyards?
I’ve seen your pantry.” Jasmine chuckled at the memory.
“I think you would need to live to be one hundred twenty before you could use up all the tomatoes you’ve canned, all the pasta sauce, all the soups, all the beans.
You don’t need to plant a big garden again this year. You have plenty.”
Nonna crossed her arms and scowled. “You I trust to do my garden well. Your brother, I am not so sure.”
Jasmine couldn’t fault her grandmother’s opinion of Basil.
It certainly wasn’t Alex she was talking about.
“We’ll do it together. Peter, Basil, and me.
You may have all the fresh eating you want, just as you always have.
Step outside and pick whatever vegetables and herbs you want for dinner.
Let us take care of the excess and sell it. ”
“I am not so old as all that.” Nonna scowled. “It’s just in the early spring with all the damp weather my arthritis bothers me. I will be fine when the weather is warm. I can do the work then.”
Jasmine reached out and grabbed both her grandmother’s hands in her own. “Nonna, but it’s too much in harvest time, too. Remember how many times you needed Francesca and me to come help with the canning? And Daria, too.”
Nonna harrumphed. “I didn’t hear you girls complaining about taking home jars full of food.”
“You’re right. It was all very delicious. But I still have enough for another year or two myself.” She squeezed Nonna’s hands. “It’s okay to admit you can’t do everything.”
“Enough with your meddling. Didn’t you say you needed to milk that goat? Go then. And return Saturday to help me plant my garden.”
“I’m busy on Saturday. It’s my workday for the business, and we are planting the yard next door to Alex’s house. You know Mrs. Essery.”
Her grandmother glared at her. “Beulah is too young to be giving away all her yard. She is only seventy. She will regret it.”
Jasmine shrugged. “I don’t think she will, actually. She said she wants to travel more while she’s able to, and visit her family on the Oregon coast. Maybe you would like to go on a trip some time? Maybe back to Italy?”
Nonna gestured toward the door. “I have no need to go places with all my children and grandchildren nearby. I will travel with your parents to Helena when Roberto adopts Bren’s two children in June.
That is as far as I need to go, and no one needs an old woman visiting for weeks on end.
My place is here.” She pointed at the kitchen floor. “Right here. Do not forget.”
Jasmine gave her grandmother a hug, though the softness she’d felt a few minutes ago had been transformed into steel. “I love you, Nonna. I have to go. We’ll talk again.”
Nathan couldn’t believe he’d agreed to help Peter today in the yard next door.
He’d known Jasmine would be coming. He’d known it was a bad idea to keep turning up like a bad penny, but somehow he couldn’t help himself.
He, Peter, and Basil got an early start with the heavy labor since the late April day promised to become a scorcher.
He’d forgotten what that was like. Close to the ocean, the climate was more temperate.
Spokane definitely felt all four seasons — sometimes all in one day, the locals joked.
Mrs. Essery had offered them muffins before retreating inside her older two-story house, one of the Bridgeview originals, Nathan would hazard a guess. “It’s a nice property,” he said to Peter, who was digging near him .
Peter ran his arm across his sweating forehead. “I love it. I love the house and the character of it, and I love this yard. Bridgeview is built on such a slope there are not many properties that are this flat but still have a great view.”
Nathan angled a glance at his friend. “If you feel so strongly about it, you should buy it.”
Peter grinned. “It’s on my mind. But I’m not quite ready, and Mrs. Essery isn’t quite ready to sell. Meanwhile, she’ll lease the backyard to us for a few years, and we’ll do something more formal later.”
“Have you guys written up legal agreements for your business yet?” Nathan leaned on his shovel and watched his friend.
Peter rolled back a section of sod. “No, not yet. We’ve all been so busy.
And, besides, Bridgeview is a small neighborhood.
It’s not like Los Angeles. We all know each other, and I’m comfortable that Mrs. Essery will do well by me.
She said she’ll definitely give me first dibs when the time is right.
” Peter flashed a grin at Nathan. “I can wait. Living with Alex and Basil isn’t that bad.
I don’t imagine Alex is going to get married any day soon and kick the two of us out.
And if he does, we’ll just move in with you in the basement suite. ”
Nathan chuckled. “I think that would be my cue to move on out, quite frankly. But thanks for the offer.”
Peter laughed. “I hear you. And I’m not sure I’d want to live downstairs from Alex and his wife anyway.”
“My little brother is getting married?” Basil sauntered in from the yard next door. “That’s news to me. I didn’t know he was even dating anyone. The kid is too serious to let loose and have a little fun.”
Not for the first time, Nathan wondered how two brothers could be so different. Not that he was anything like his younger brothers, but they had different mothers and hadn’t been raised the same. Ray and Grace Santoro had offered much more stability to their children than he’d ever experienced.
“Well, don’t put off the legal paperwork too long. You never know what will happen.”
Peter sent him a mock salute. “Now you’re starting to sound like Alex.”
Basil let out a sardonic chuckle. “And God knows we only need one Alex in our life.”
He said that about the little brother who’d offered him a place to live? Nathan was pretty sure Basil paid rent, but still. Alex had been under no obligation to offer a room to Basil at all.
Peter pointed his trowel at Basil. “Don’t mock him. The world could use a few more guys with their heads screwed straight on their shoulders.”
Basil rolled his eyes and draped an arm across Nathan’s shoulders.
“Maybe it does, but it also needs guys who are willing to go out and have a good time. Imagine how boring the world would be if everyone were like Alex.” He patted Nathan’s shoulder.
“What do you say we go out this evening and see if we can meet some girls?”
Nathan stepped aside, causing Basil’s arm to drop to his side. “No, thanks. That’s not my scene.” Memories of sirens, of gavels falling, of clanging metal doors resurged, and Nathan shoved them back in the recesses of his mind.
“That’s not what you told me on Facebook.” Basil’s eyebrows waggled.
Nathan met his friend’s gaze. “Been there, done that. That’s true. But hey, I’ve turned over a new leaf. Coming back to Bridgeview meant a break from the life I’ve been living. Besides, if I stay out too late, I won’t make it to church in the morning.”
Basil laughed. “Good line, Hamelin.”
Peter looked between the two of them, his brows furrowed.
Yeah, the man should be worried about his cousin. One of these days Nathan might try to figure out what had happened to make Basil so jaded but, for now, he just needed to be sure that his old friend’s lifestyle didn’t suck him back in. No way.
Hanging out at the bars with Basil as his best bud would not be any way to impress Jasmine. How he’d decided that impressing Jasmine was at the top of his list, he couldn’t quite remember.
Seven days since he’d asked her to dance. Six days since he’d kissed her. There were no two ways about it. He’d lost his mind.