Gladly Beyond (24 page)

“Hi. You must be Claire,” she said, turning to me.

“Yes. Claire, my sister, Chiara.”

Chiara shot me a bright smile. “Nice to finally meet you. I would hug you or something, but as you can see . . .” Chiara lifted the pasta. Penne with a hint of red sauce. It smelled divine. “Love your name, by the way. We’re name-twinners.”

“Twinners?”

“Yep. Claire and Chiara. Same name. Different languages.”

I blinked. “Really? Chiara sounds so . . . modern.”

She shrugged, jostling the pasta she was holding. “
Beh
, Chiara is super traditional. Ya know, like St. Clare of Assisi.
Santa Chiara di Assisi
. Anyway, we’re ready. I’m sure Nonna could use some help.” She nodded her chin back through the open door behind her.

Chiara turned for the stairs, heading up.

Dante rotated with her. “Wait, are we eating outside—”

“
La pasta é pronta
.” An elderly lady walked out of the door, carrying a basket of bread. Housecoat, blouse, wool skirt, nylons . . . gray hair meticulously styled. She balanced effortlessly in—

Yep. She was wearing heels.

She presented her cheek to Dante who dutifully exchanged kisses with her, just as he had with Chiara.

“
Nonna, questa é la mia amica, Clara
.” He gestured my way, introducing me, I assumed.

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” I said.

“
Ciao, tesora
. Nice to meet you too.” Though heavily accented, her English was understandable. “
Dante, dai. Fa bel tempo. Mangiamo sù.
” She moved past us and up the stairs.

“The weather’s good, so I guess we’re eating on the upstairs terrace. Let’s see if there’s anything else to take up.”

Dante walked into a long hallway with doors evenly spaced along it. The door on the right led to another grand sitting room. He walked through the door on the left.

I followed and found myself in a narrow galley-style kitchen. Stove, sink, fridge and small counter on the left. Tall, paned window straight ahead. A narrow table pushed up against the tiled wall on the right.

Two men filled the space. Branwell was seated at the table, back to the window, a bowl of pasta in front of him, gloved hands on the table. Another man leaned back against the counter perpendicular to him, arms crossed.

“Tenn!” Dante grabbed the unknown man in a crushing hug, thumping his back with one hand, still carefully holding Sister Floozy in the other. “Saw your Jeep downstairs. You didn’t mention you were coming into town today.”

Ah. The elusive third brother. Tennyson.

Tennyson returned his brother’s embrace and then looked past Dante at me, a wry smile on his lips.

“Claire, I presume?”

All three brothers turned their attention my way.

Seeing them together highlighted the similarities between Dante and Branwell. They were identical twins after all. Large men with strong faces that would be called handsome or attractive.

Tennyson, however, could only be described as beautiful. Weird, I know, to call a guy that, but sometimes there’s just no other word.

Carelessly styled dark hair worn moderately short, a face that defined the word chiseled, startlingly blue eyes. Several inches shorter than his brothers and clean-shaven, he clearly favored his father’s Italian heritage—more soccer wiry than football bulker. He sported casual shorts and a black t-shirt which clung to his lean frame.

He was the kind of guy you wanted to stare at. Too pretty for everyday use, but nice eye-candy for an afternoon.

“Hi. You must be Tennyson.” I took a step forward and offered him my palm.

His smile broadened. He shifted past Dante and took my hand. But instead of shaking it, he leaned in and pressed his right cheek against mine, kissing the air near my ear. He repeated the action on the left side.

“When in Italy . . .” he said.

I looked into his eyes as he pulled back, expecting a teasing warmth.

Instead, I saw mocking brittleness. As if all the world had let him down and only bravado held him together. He settled back against the counter.

“How long are you here?” Dante tightened his grip on the paper bag while reaching for a bowl of grated parmesan cheese. He seemed to be doing everything possible to make the question appear casual, but something about the tense set of his shoulders told me it wasn’t.

“
Si trovi sempre quelle belle, no?
” Tennyson leaned forward and picked up a large bowl of mixed greens from the table.

Dante frowned. Branwell chuckled.

“Tenn just called you pretty,” Branwell said to me with a wink. He motioned Dante to lower the cheese so he could scoop a spoonful onto his pasta. Dante shot a frown at his twin.

“Seriously, Tenn. How long are you here?” Dante angled the cheese toward Branwell.

Tennyson shrugged. “Until I can’t handle it anymore. Same as always.”

He moved around Dante, the salad bowl cradled in one arm.

It was only when he started walking that I noticed his left leg. Or, rather, the jointed prosthetic which
was
his left leg.

He noticed my noticing.

“Afghanistan,” was all he said as he walked out the door, slapping the frame with his free hand.

Dante’s eyes followed his brother. Pensive. As if Tennyson were an ache he didn’t know how to soothe.

“Better hurry.” Branwell stirred the cheese into his penne. “Pasta’s getting mushy.”

Dante glanced back at him. Nodded.

“Claire, would you mind grabbing the
oliere
?” He motioned toward a cruet of oil and vinegar still on the table.

I followed him out the door and up the stairs, Sister Floozy in her bag still wiggling in his hand.

“Is Branwell not eating with us?” I asked as we passed another landing and continued up another floor.

He shook his head. “Bran hears the last moment of alteration with food as he eats. Pasta, obviously, constantly changes as you scoop it up. He says eating pasta at a table with everyone talking is like listening to a TV show being played randomly, multiple times at once with sentences overlapping and repeating. So he’ll eat in the quiet of the kitchen and then bring the
secondo
up with him.”

“There will be a
secondo
too?”

“There’s always a
secondo
.” He chuckled as he pushed open a door at the top of the stairs.

I stepped out onto an enormous rooftop terrace. The roofs of Florence stretched in a sea of orange terracotta, defunct chimneys and TV antennas. The enormous dome of the Duomo rising above them all.

Oranges and lemons in huge planters dotted the terrace. A large wisteria vine curled around and over a stone pergola, sweet-smelling purple blossoms hanging like clusters of grapes.

Under the pergola, a table was set for lunch. Chiara and Nonna were scooting things around, making room for the pasta and bread. Another woman, who I could only assume was Dante’s mother, placed napkins on the pasta bowls with a . . . why, yes, . . . a white rat perched on her shoulder.

“Here you are.” She looked at us and smiled.

“Hi. I’m Claire.” I took a step toward her, holding out my hand.

“Judith.” She shook my hand with a firm grip.

Maybe in her late fifties, Judith radiated warmth and kindness. Tall and curvy, she had curly, shoulder-length hair and the same deep blue eyes as Tennyson. The rat scampered around her shoulders.

Judith arched an eyebrow at the bag Dante still carried. “You brought me a present?”

“A pigeon with a hurt leg.”

“And?”

“Nun.”

Like Chiara, she nodded, as if that explained everything.

He gave his mother the bowl of cheese and took the cruet from me, handing it to her as well.

He motioned for me to follow him around a row of lemon trees to the opposite side of the terrace where a large room sat. I could hear squawks and meows and snuffles coming from inside.

Dante opened the door and I walked into an animal hospital. Cats, birds, rodents and even a dog or two sat in comfortable cages lining one wall. All of them sporting bandages of some kind. The room smelled of fur, antiseptic and sawdust. He absently scratched the head of a cat through the bars of the cage as he passed.

“My mom was a veterinarian before she retired.” Dante lifted a clean, empty cage off the shelf, setting it on a metal table in the middle of the room. “She treats injured animals and then releases them back into the wild, in the case of birds, and finds homes for the others.”

“You bring her animals often?”

“Sometimes. I seem to be drawn to ones who used to be people.”

“Makes sense, I suppose.”

Gently, he opened the bag and set Sister Floozy into the cage. The pigeon hopped around, looking at me with weary eyes. “Mom will deal with her leg after lunch.”

I looked around the room. “So all these animals were people in a past life?”

“Some. The cat there was a pirate.”

“Please tell me his shadow has an eye patch.”

Dante chuckled. “Nope. Just scraggly hair and missing teeth.” He stepped too close to me and motioned for us to leave.

The cat meowed as I passed by. I tried to feel sorry for it, but a scurvy pirate? It didn’t take much imagination to understand the things a pirate had done to end up reincarnated as a cat.

Dante led me out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

Two minutes later, I was seated next to Dante at the table under the wisteria vine, eating some of the best pasta of my life. How could simple penne, tomatoes and parmesan cheese taste so good?

Conversation bounced around the table. Dante talked about our project with the Colonel. Judith asked questions, the rat still perched on her shoulder, twitching its nose at the pasta. Tennyson ate mostly in silence, but I got the impression his eyes missed nothing.

Chiara was the life of the table. She focused all her energy on you when she spoke, asking and answering questions. Laughing too loud at my lame attempts at humor.
Darling
. It was the only word I could think of to describe her. She was just this darling bundle of life.

She worked as a researcher of sorts. “I’m the person you come to when you have a historical question no one else can answer—I do everything from genealogy to dramaturgy.”

It all felt casual and normal, but I could sense an undercurrent. A lingering tension.

Somehow Tennyson being here was meaningful. I definitely got the impression he didn’t join the family often.

Judith asked him questions about the family villa near Volterra where he lived. Dante mentioned a hiking trip they were planning to Mont Blanc at the end of summer.

Everyone drawing Tennyson into the conversation and, yet, tiptoeing around him at the same time. As if he were a bomb that needed to be handled with care.

I wasn’t sure if I should be confused or just sorry for him.

When I was about halfway through my bowl of pasta, Tennyson lifted his head and fixed me with a look. As if he knew what I was feeling or thinking . . . which, I supposed he did. Maybe. Dante hadn’t been too clear on how Tennyson’s gift worked.

Sheesh.
And I thought Caro’s emotions were messing with me. How would it be to constantly feel the emotions of people around you?

Tennyson raised an eyebrow as if to say,
Welcome to my hell
.

Not wanting to contribute to his emotional overload . . . or whatever he experienced, I turned to Judith and asked the question I had been wondering about.

“So why Dante, Branwell and Tennyson as names for triplets?” I stabbed more penne. “They seem a little—”

“Random.” That was Dante.

“Unrelated.” Tennyson.

“Adorable.” Chiara winked.

The brothers groaned.

“There
was
a method in my madness.” Judith chuckled, petting the rat on her shoulder.

“Mom has this thing for Victorian British writers.” Tennyson gave a weak smile.

“I would say artists, more than writers specifically,” Dante said.

“I do love poetry,” Judith agreed.

That explained a lot about Dante’s interests, I supposed.

I glanced at Tennyson. “So you were all named for Victorian British artists?”

“Yep.” Dante turned to me. “See if you can guess.”

I raised my eyebrow at the challenge.

“Well, the first one is easy. You’re named for Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” I waved my fork at Tennyson across the table.

He nodded.

“And British Victorian . . .” I turned to Dante. Raked his
fine
form up and down. He took a bite of pasta, smirking. “So
not
named for Dante Alighieri, the thirteenth century Florentine poet—”

“Which would have made a lot of sense,” Chiara said.

“Agreed.” Judith sighed.

I ran my brain through Victorian artists . . .

“Hah!” I crowed. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter.”

“She’s good.” Tennyson saluted me with his fork.

“One more.” Dante returned my perusing look, running his eyes over me. “Branwell.”

Mmmm, that was more difficult. I searched my brain but was coming up blank.

“Does it help to know my middle name is Bronte?” Chiara offered.

“No giving hints.” Dante shot her a stern look.

Bronte . . . three sisters—Charlotte, Emily, Anne—all writers. But they had a brother . . .

“Branwell Bronte.” I snapped my fingers. “The ne’er-do-well artist and poet brother of the Bronte sisters.”

“Who’s saying I’m a ne’er-do-well?” Branwell asked, crossing the terrace.

Branwell carried a large platter of heavenly-smelling roasted chicken and potatoes in his gloved hands which he set on the table.

Everyone passed their dirty pasta bowls to Nonna, who placed them on a side table.

And then we all dug into the
secondo
. Lemon-herb chicken and garlicky, oven-roasted potatoes. It was all so good, I couldn’t help but eat until I was stuffed.

This was the problem with Italian food, I had decided. You didn’t need to eat it all, but it was so delicious, you couldn’t help yourself.