SIXTEEN
ON SUNDAY EVENING, Ana came to Mino’s room earlier than usual, just after her mother retired. She lay down in his arms and closed her eyes before they even made love, a soft smile on her face. How quickly she slept.
The night was mild and clear. Mino breathed her orange-scented skin and listened to the dreaming patterns of her breath. He watched her face as the moon climbed through the sky. Wonder kept him awake now; last night it had been fear. Last night everything had been different. When he held Ana in this same position, she had seemed the only solid ground in Mino’s world.
Last night he’d feared the meeting at the Incurables, meant to take place this morning. He had risen early, left before sunrise for his shop to prepare. But then, an hour before, in a single moment, his life had changed forever.
He had made his meeting at the Incurables for when he knew Ana would be at mass and then luncheon. He hated keeping a secret from her, but he hadn’t known how to tell her.
Early that morning before the meeting, he’d lit the candles in the shop but left the wooden casements closed. The floor was carpeted with wood shavings, and the smell of varnish had been enough to singe his nostrils. Mino loved it there, particularly alone, late at night or early in the morning. He’d lifted his prototype proudly. He wanted to present it at the Incurables as an example of what he had accomplished. He had made it with his old home in mind.
Would Letta be there? he’d wondered. Would she look upon his violin with her dark, appraising eyes? He’d shivered to imagine it. Her approval would mean so much to him. It would mean not just that his instrument was good—he knew it was—but that she didn’t hate him anymore.
He wasn’t foolish enough to hope for a moment alone with her. The prioress would be there, perhaps the maestro, and Laura. But he could look at her. They had once shared an entire unspoken language. He could tell her he was sorry with his eyes. He would recognize her silent answer.
What if she forgave him, there in the parlor? What then?
He didn’t know. He had to stop. He would drown if he began to wonder what else she might tell him—about coro life and the roof, about what freedom looked like to her now. He didn’t need to know those things anymore. He had Ana. He had Sprezz. He had his shop.
All he needed was Letta’s forgiveness so he could move on.
The back door had creaked open. Mino had looked up, startled by Ana in her pink cloak and hood.
“What time is it?” he’d gasped. Had he lost himself in thoughts for so long that she was already back from lunch? Was he late?
“Early,” she’d said, her voice unusually thin. She was a woman who spoke quietly but with a fortitude that showed her intelligence, whether she was talking about the price of artichokes or the war of the Polish Succession. Mino had looked down and saw that beneath her cloak, the hem of her nightgown showed. She’d gone there without dressing.
“What’s wrong?” he had asked, feeling his heart quicken. He had only told her of his meeting in passing. He had mentioned the violin maestra from a church orchestra and cast it as preliminary. He had not specified that this church belonged to an ospedale. He had gotten nowhere near telling her the ospedale was his.
Guilt had flooded him. Did she know?
She’d come close, reached for the violin in his hands and set it gently on his workbench. When she’d taken his hands, hers were clammy. She drew him to the chaise and they sat down. Her smile was broad but flickering.
He felt uneasy.
“Ana—”
“We’re going to have a baby, Mino.”
She laughed and covered her face, and when he’d drawn her hands away he’d seen tears in her eyes. A baby.
The world stopped. Mino felt a sense of great peace. For so many years, he had sought his mother, thinking she was the answer to all his questions. Now he was looking at a new mother, one he had helped create. Ana. Together they had made someone new.
A child would look to them for everything. His child. He couldn’t speak for his amazement.
Suddenly, all there was to life was Ana and this babe. They held hands as if neither would ever let go. Mino dropped to his knees before her. He moved their hands to her belly. He felt the life within.
He would not go to Dorsoduro that day. There could be no meeting at the Incurables. No more what ifs. With the British commission, Mino had more work already than he’d hoped to acquire in half a year. He could make his own opportunities. He must stop looking upon his broken past to heal him. He only had to look right here. Here was a baby. Here its mother. Here its father.
“Marry me,” he had said.
Ana had dropped to her knees and kissed him. “Yes.”
THE LETTER CAME four months later, in September, when pale sunlight faded in the afternoon sky, when Ana wore the rose behind her ear, indicating her betrothal. Her belly had swollen to a beautiful globe, and she sat on the chaise in his shop—the only place she was comfortable—going over his accounting while she ate anchovies for the fifth meal in a row.
“Mino?” She looked up from the paper in her hand. “What meeting did you neglect at the Ospedale degli Incurabili?”
He put down the varnish brush, wiped his face with a rag, and took a breath before he spoke. “What does it say?”
“You had an appointment to discuss an order and never showed up, never rescheduled,” Ana said, looking again at the paper, as if perhaps she had misread. “That isn’t like you.”
“It’s my mistake,” he said slowly. “The meeting was the day you told me about the baby.” He touched her shoulder, knowing she would remember how, after she had told him, they made love on the shop floor for hours. “I forgot about it afterward.”
“They are seeking violins for a full coro, Mino, and their music school. Do you not think an order of that size has to do with my well-being and the baby’s?”
He felt hot and tugged at his collar. “I couldn’t have fulfilled it,” he said. “I’ve been working all hours just to meet the Baums’ order.”
“And now you’re halfway done with the commission,” she said. “And according to this letter, they are still in need of instruments.” She looked at him carefully. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Mino came to sit beside her. He breathed her in. Underneath the anchovies was still the reassuring sweetness of oranges. This was Ana. He could tell her.
“I am an orphan of the Incurables. It would be painful for me to return.”
“Darling,” she said, and put her arms around him. “I wish you’d told me.” When she kissed him, he felt how overwhelmingly good she was, how loving. He didn’t deserve her. “Shall I go with you?”
Months ago, he wanted to go alone, to look in Letta’s eyes and return to Ana stronger. That was before he knew of the baby. With the baby coming, Mino was already stronger. He was bonded to Ana. He could lean on her.
So now he saw it—the meeting, Letta watching him, watching Ana. Would it upset Letta to see him with another? Foolish thought. She had never loved Mino, not as he loved her. Might it be better if Letta didn’t have to wonder whether Mino was still in love with her? Ana’s presence would make the meeting more comfortable for everyone.
“Thank you,” he told her.
“I’ll set everything up. I know a member of their council. We’ll bring sausages.” Ana smiled at him, then down at her belly, addressing the baby. “Your papa is about to work for the most important coro in Venice. This will change your life, little one.”
“I don’t want our life to change,” Mino said and kissed her, leaning over her on the chaise until she laughed and pulled him close, making room between her legs.
She would never know how truly he meant it.