33 The Return of Bowie Bravo (18 page)

“Life is short,” said Chastity briskly. “And at the end of it, you die.”

Glory poured the milk into her bowl. “I noticed that.”

“I know you sent Bowie away.” It was an accusation.

“Yeah.” Glory kept her voice noncommittal because she really did not want to get into it. She put the milk back in the fridge, took her chair and spooned a big mound of bright cereal into her mouth.

Chastity watched her. “So, then, you really don’t get the meaning of what I said a minute ago.”

Glory swallowed the mouthful of sweet cereal and milk. “Okay, Chastity, what’s this about?”

“If you really understood how short life is, if you really got that it can end out of nowhere like it did for Matteo and you don’t get a do-over no matter how much you regret the big, fat mistakes you made—”

Glory was becoming annoyed. “If, if and if,
what?
”

“I’m only saying
if
you understood all the things I just said, you would not have sent Bowie away for the second time.”

Glory’s spoon clinked against the bowl as she dropped it. “What do you mean for the
second
time? You can’t lay his leaving town and not coming back for almost seven years at my door.”

Chastity sighed. “Well, all right, I’ll give you that. He needed to leave you that first time. He had things to learn and he had growing up to do and he just couldn’t seem to make any progress while he was living here. But this second time? This was
your
choice. Do you deny it?”

Glory really, really did not want to hear this. “Chastity, you know I love you, but—”

Chastity put up a hand. “Don’t tell me that this is not my business. It is very much my business. My son matters to me.
You
matter to me. And so does Johnny and that sweet baby sleeping upstairs. My son loves you. You’re the only woman he’s ever loved. And you love him. You love him
more
than you loved Matteo Rossi.”

Heat flooded up Glory’s neck. “How dare you say that to me.”

“Oh, maybe because it’s the truth—and don’t go giving in to that famous temper of yours and getting all worked up to give me a big piece of your mind. I know you loved your husband, too. And you were a fine wife to him. You made that man happier than he ever believed he could be. So you can just stop feeling bad about loving Bowie more. Because the real truth is, you weren’t Matteo’s first choice, either.”

Chapter Thirteen

G
lory almost choked. “I…what?”

Chastity got up, got down a mug and filled it with coffee. “Matteo never told you about his first love, did he?”

“I don’t…I…but…”

“You are sputtering, Glory Ann. Now you just be quiet for a few minutes and I’ll be happy to tell you about the love that Matteo Rossi threw away.”

“I don’t…” The most bizarre thought occurred to her. “Chastity, are you saying that
you
and Matteo…”

“Oh, dear heavens, no. I’ve never been the type who goes for men the same age as my own sons—not that I begrudge any woman love wherever she finds it. Besides, I was still waiting for Blake Bravo at the time, even though I knew good and well he was never coming back. That’s how smart and pulled-together I was.”

“Then who was she?”

“Years ago, when Bowie was in the ninth grade and you were still little more than a child, I hired a Grass Valley girl to clean rooms in the summer.”

Glory waited, round eyed. “Matteo fell in love with her?”

Chastity was not about to be rushed. She put the pot back on the warmer and reclaimed her chair. “Her name was Emma Sand. She was the sweetest girl. And so pretty, with long golden hair and hazel eyes. She had a room in the back at the Sierra Star, the same one you had, Glory, when you worked for me. I don’t know how she and Matteo met, but it’s a small town. And boys and girls will find each other. He came around often. I know that some nights he was with her, in her room. And every time I saw them together, well, it was the same as when you and Bowie first found each other. There’s no mistaking that glow, that…connection, when two people are head over heels in love. It’s like a light shining from inside of both of them. They share a glance, and it can blind you, the brilliance of that kind of love.”

Matteo. In love with a girl Glory had never even known existed. And making love to that girl in the room that would be Glory’s a decade later…

It was too strange. And Glory suddenly wanted coffee, even if she
was
nursing. Just one cup. With a whole bunch of milk in it…

She got up to get a mug as Chastity continued, “Matteo and Emma kept their love affair a secret.”

Glory guessed why. “Matteo’s mom was still alive.”

“I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but facts are facts. Serafina Rossi was about the most self-centered woman I have ever met. She lost her husband when the poor man was barely forty and she grabbed hold of her only son and wouldn’t let go. Matteo was a dutiful son. Loyal to the core. He lived in this house with her until the day she died.”

“Serafina found out about Emma?”

Chastity nodded. “She made Matteo break it off. He just never could go against her wishes. It was pathetic, it really was.”

“And to think, I went and named my baby after her…”

Chastity grunted. “It’s a pretty name. Don’t blame a name because a mean woman once had it. Plus, Matteo’s grandmother was named Serafina, too.
She
was a lovely person.”

“And Emma?” Glory leaned back against the counter and sipped her milky coffee.

“She came to me, crying. Told me everything, that she loved Matteo with all her heart, but he loved his mother more. She said she couldn’t stay in the Flat any longer, that her heart was broken and she had to go—and to go far, far away. She had a letter for him, for Matteo. She asked me to see that he got it. She was afraid to mail it, for fear his mother would get her hands on it first.”

“Did you know what the letter said?”

“No, Emma didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask.”

“Did you give it him?”

“I did. I went into the hardware store one day when he was there alone and handed it to him. He thanked me with tears in his eyes.”

“And that was it? That’s the story?”

“Not quite. After Serafina died, Matteo came to me. He asked me if I knew how to find Emma.”

“He still loved her.”

Chastity gave a sad little shrug. “I told him I didn’t know where she’d gone. And I really didn’t. She’d left no forwarding address. Matteo took off.”

“Left town, you mean?”

“That’s right. He closed up the hardware store and he was gone for months.”

“Looking for Emma?”

“That would be my guess.”

“But he never found her.…”

“Yes, he did find her.”

“But she wouldn’t try again with him?”

“I guess you could put it that way. When he came back, he was thinner. And sadder. And alone. He came to see me. He said that Emma had gotten married, that she was happy with her husband and their two little children.”

“He was too late.”

“Yes, he was.” Chastity sipped her coffee. “And later, when he started going out with you, he paid me another visit. He asked about Bowie first. About how he was doing. I told him the truth. That I really didn’t know. I knew where to write to him by then, but Bowie had never done a whole lot of writing back. Matteo told me that he was going to ask you to marry him. I kept my peace as to my opinion on that. I knew Matteo was a good man. And I thought that you could do a lot worse. Then he asked that I not say anything to you about the past, about Emma. He said he wanted to tell you about her himself. I agreed to keep his secret.”

Glory admitted, “He never did tell me.”

“I’d kind of figured as much. And I would have honored my promise to him and never said a word to you about how he went and chose his mother over the woman he loved. But there comes a time when the living need the truth more than the dead need their secrets kept.”

“I always thought of Matteo as so…transparent.” Glory shook her head. “Shows what I know.”

“We all have secrets, Glory. Most of us think that if our secrets were revealed, the world might come to an end. But the world just keeps turning. And eventually, we figure out that other people have their secrets, too. At the core, we’re all the same. With our sadness. Our yearning. Our striving. And our blind, foolish hearts. We throw away our own happiness. And then when it’s too late, we wonder where it went.”

After Chastity left, Glory ate her soggy cereal and stared at the far wall for a while. She felt cast adrift somehow, lost in the tragic story Bowie’s mom had shared with her.

Then Sera started crying. Glory fed her and changed her. For once, the little sweetie settled right down. Glory put her on a play mat in the family room and she kicked her feet and waved her arms and giggled at the mobile of bouncing bees and butterflies suspended above the mat. When she dropped off to sleep again, Glory carried her upstairs. She went into her crib without a peep.

Glory did some laundry. She cleaned the house.

Johnny came home at noon, as promised. Glory was dusting the family room when she saw Bowie’s SUV drive up. Johnny jumped out and stuck his head back in to say something to Bowie before he shut the door. Then he came running up the front walk, hauling his backpack along with one hand.

As usual, he talked nonstop all through lunch. It was dad this and dad that. Glory smiled to herself. Johnny had finally started calling Bowie the
D
word. Glory realized that was just fine with her.

Better than fine. She was happy. For both of them.

They went to her mother’s for an early dinner. The whole Dellazola clan was there, including Nonna and Pop Baldovino, Glory’s grandma and grandpa on her mamma’s side.

Before they sat down to eat, Rose got Glory off in a bedroom and lectured her for not inviting Bowie. “As far as we’re all concerned, that man is one of the family, and if you’re not going to ask him to come to Sunday dinner, well, next time I’ll just do that myself.”

It was the kind of ultimatum that usually had Glory grabbing her children and heading home in a huff. But this time, she only said meekly, “You’re right, Mamma. Next time I’ll be sure to invite him.”

It was almost worth being such a doormat about it, just to see her mamma’s mouth drop open in shock at Glory’s gentle response.

Because Bowie wasn’t there for Johnny to visit before bedtime, he gave his dad a call. They talked for half an hour, which Glory found kind of cute. And then at eight-fifteen, when she finally tucked him into bed, he said, “When can I go stay at Dad’s again, Mom?”

Strangely, hearing that question hardly hurt at all. “How about Wednesday night?”

“That would be so sweet.”

“You can call him tomorrow and ask him if that will work for him.”

She kissed him good-night and went to feed Sera, who was really on a roll with being easy to deal with. The baby ate, cooed and giggled through her diaper change, and went right back to sleep.

Glory watched an hour of television, had her bedtime tea and climbed the stairs to bed.

She fell asleep quickly—and then woke with a start. It was ten minutes of eleven. She’d barely had her eyes closed for half an hour.

But she’d had the strangest dream, a dream of something that had actually happened, something she’d completely forgotten until now. A dream of Matteo, out in the workshop, one evening not too long after they were married.

Glory had come out to call him to dinner. She opened the workshop door without knocking and found him standing at the nearest workbench, a carved wooden box open in front of him.

He glanced over at her with a start. “Glory! You surprised me.…” Already he was pushing the contents back into the box, shutting the pretty hinged lid that was carved with a nature scene—a weeping willow and a graceful doe, her slender, delicate head bent to drink from a stream.

Glory had laughed. “Okay, what are you hiding there?”

He laughed, too—a nervous sort of sound. “Just some of my mother’s keepsakes.”

“Ah.” She went to him, kissed him on the cheek. “Dinnertime.”

He’d turned and embraced her, kissing her so sweetly. She wondered now if the kiss might have been at least partly an attempt to distract her from the carved box. “I’ll just be a minute,” he’d said, and turned her by her shoulders, pointing her back at the door.

She’d returned to the house, oblivious to any secret motives, sending him a last warm glance over her shoulder before she shut the workshop door.

The workshop.

After Matteo’s death, she’d hardly been out there. Matteo had spent a lot of happy hours puttering around in that half of the barn. The first few months after he was gone, being out there in his special space had made her feel the loss of him all the more acutely. She’d never gotten around to going through all the stuff he kept there, deciding what to save and what to give away.

Was that carved box still out there, tucked away in a drawer or a cabinet somewhere?

She turned on the lamp, pushed back the covers and put on her robe and slippers. Pausing only to grab the baby monitor from the night table, she tiptoed down the stairs.

In the workshop, she flicked on the overhead bulb, put the monitor on the workbench nearest the door—the same one she remembered Matteo standing at that long-ago evening—and she started going through the endless rows of storage drawers.

The second drawer down in the second row of drawers opened only halfway. Glory shut it. Opened it again. The back of the drawer was right there in front of her.

Or was it a false back?

She eased the drawer off its gliders and set it on the workbench.

And there it was, a second compartment behind the first. The pretty carved box waited there, so easy to find once she started looking.

With care, she eased the box out of its hidden space. She set it on the workbench and then, for a moment, didn’t quite dare to open it.

Was it wrong to pry into Matteo’s secrets now that he was gone? Who was she to invade his privacy? If he’d wanted her to know what was inside the box, he would have shown her.

She sent a little prayer to heaven for his understanding. And then instantly, she felt a kind of peace, a sense of rightness. Where Matteo was now, he didn’t need secrets. And she really had no malice toward him. She was only grateful to have known him, to have been the recipient of his tender care at a time when she needed a companion, when she yearned for a good man to turn to in the middle of the night.

It felt right. It felt okay. To take the lid and ease it open.

Inside, she found a curling lock of golden hair tied with a blue ribbon, three photographs and an envelope with
Matteo
written on it in a small, neat hand.

She touched the lock of hair, smoothed the ribbon with care. And she studied the photos, two of a pretty blonde girl perched on the deck railing in the back of the Sierra Star. She had wide eyes and a shy smile. She tipped her head for the camera, flirting so sweetly with whomever had taken those first two pictures.

The third photo was the same girl, standing at the same railing, with Matteo. A Matteo so young that the sight of him brought tears to Glory’s eyes. He had his arm around the girl and the look on his face…it was the dazzled, ecstatic look of a man who has everything. A man far gone in love.

Glory stared at that snapshot for a long time. Finally, she set it aside and picked up the envelope.