No matter how many times I’ve flown, I have never gotten used to the lengthy trek through TSA. We patiently snaked our way through the first queue—amazingly long for 5:30 a.m.—and made it through to the inevitable shedding of shoes, belts, and other random accessories. One of these days, I thought, I’m just going to travel in pajamas and slippers and avoid a lot of this.
“This would be so much simpler if we just traveled in our pajamas and slippers, wouldn’t?” muttered the man in line ahead of me.
“That’s just what I was thinking!” I smiled and nodded to him.
We finally made it through, redressed, reassembled, recombombulated, and boarded the underground train to the concourse. The doors closed a split second before a very attractive man darted across the platform and missed making it onto the train. My mind wandered—what if that was the love of my life and we missed our chance at meeting because he wore shoes that were difficult to lace up and cost him that extra second he needed to make this train? How many missed opportunities could be chalked up to delays in the security area?
“What on earth are you thinking about?” asked Auntie Lil, bouncing back and forth as we dangled from the grips that hung from the ceiling of the train. “You look so far away.”
I put forth my theory.
“More likely, he would have been someone who would have stepped on your toe and not apologized,” she shook her head ruefully.
“Auntie Lil, you are being too pragmatic for this early in the morning!”
She broke into a smile, and her face—wreathed in the kind of gorgeous wrinkles that one earns from a life well lived and well loved—betrayed her true romantic self. The twinkle in her hazel eyes spoke of her own girlish dreams and escapades.
“Maybe I just need a cup of coffee before I can be too philosophical, dear.”
“I think we can take care of that. Our flight doesn’t leave for an hour and a half.”
The train jolted to a stop, and we joined the rest of the passengers ascending the escalator to the concourse.
Moments later, we were relaxing in a small bakery cafe with steaming cups of tea and coffee and pastries alongside for good measure. We reviewed our itinerary.
“Two days in Singapore on our own, then we fly into China and join your tour group in Xian for a day, then on to Beijing for the remainder of the time,” I said. “And the schedule looks jam-packed. Tell me again how you hooked up with these people if they aren’t your regular group of traveling buddies?”
“I just saw the ad in the Catholic Register and thought it looked like a great trip for the money. No one else from St. Anthony’s wanted to go, but I didn’t want that to stop me. I’ve always wanted to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Soldiers, and I’m not getting younger, you know.”
“Ha!” I nudged her. “You’ll be traveling for another ten or fifteen years before you even think about slowing down.”
“If my siblings have any say, they’ll chain me to a rocking chair someday soon.”
“Oh, Pop and the other aunties are just worriers.” I shook my head. “Personally, I think I want to be you when I grow up.”
“Well, the first thing to do is not ‘grow up’ then.”
“What?”
“I mean just what I said. Don’t grow up. Sure, you’ll get older and you’ll need to work at a job and hopefully you’ll get married, but that doesn’t mean you have to be too stable.”
“But Auntie Lil, you’re one of the must stable people I know! You worked so hard at your job before you retired, and you took care of Nonni and Poppy.”
“Sure. I’ve always been serious about my responsibilities, but you know I’ve never taken life seriously. We’re put here to enjoy all that we’re given, sweetheart, and to use our gifts and talents as best we can. No one ever said we had to be glum while we did it.”
I pondered that for a moment. One of the reasons I loved Auntie Lil was for her adventuresome spirit. Definitely no one could ever accuse her of being glum. Sure, she was careful with money, but her motto is that there is a time to save and a time to spend. This trip was an example of a time to spend, all right. Everything was costing double with me along.
“Thanks again for taking me with you, Auntie Lil. I’m sure you weren’t thinking that your bargain trip would be compromised by having to pay for a ‘companion.’”
“Look,” she took my hand into hers. “Now that we’re not around your father, we can drop the ‘companion’ business. Good lord, it made me feel like an elderly frump out of a Jane Austen novel every time he said it.”
“That’s what I said!”
“No, dear,” she shook her head, “I know my brother. He would have worn me down to a nub with his objections to this journey unless I agreed to have someone travel with me. Do you realize his first recommendation was that HE come along?”
“Noo!”
She lowered her head and covered her face with both hands.
“Auntie Lil, I can’t imagine!”
She raised her face. “Oh, I can. It would have been endless rounds of ‘Lilliana, do you need to sit down, dear?’ or ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit spicy for you?”
“Or ‘Lilliana, really, another glass of wine?’” I imitated my father’s gravelly voice.
We broke into laughter.
“Oh, he means well,” she said.
“I know, I know. He just feels that he is so—”
“Responsible for us all?”
“Right.”
“Well, he’s the only boy in the family,” Lil said. “And your Nonni and Poppy drilled that into him, you know, that he was the brother and had to take care of all of us sisters.”
“Even though you were all so much older. That’s so funny.”
“It’s just our way. You know it’s that way with you and Nicky, even though you are the older one.”
“What! He’s the prince of the house!” I cried.
“Sure. But think about it for a minute.”
She was right, darn it. Even though my mother babied him more than I thought was necessary while we were growing up, both of my parents never let him forget that he would have responsibilities when he grew up. Nicky was a pretty sturdy kind of guy—funny and sweet—but definitely a responsible person.
“Nicky is just like Pop isn’t he?”
“Is that so bad Annalise? Your father and I may disagree on whether I need a ‘companion’ on this trip or not, but I’d rather have him looking after me than not.”
“I think he worries more about you because you’re the sister that isn’t married. The other aunties have husbands to take care of them.”
I looked across the table at my beautiful aunt. I had seen pictures of her when she was my age. She was a stunner. Even in black and white, her eyes were bright and sparkly and her wide smile accented her high cheekbones. In all the photos, her haircut was a variation of the way she wore it in her high school graduation picture, a shoulder-length style reminiscent of one that Lauren Bacall wore, flowing from the side and ending just above her shoulders.
“Auntie Lil, why did you never get married?” I had never asked the question before and hoped I wouldn’t upset her. “Is it because you felt you needed to stay home to take care of Nonni and Poppy?”
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, now gone completely white and cut in that short, aggressive hairstyle that older women adopt because it’s easy to care for. She looked off to the side.
“I’m sorry.” Great. I started the trip by offending her.
She turned back toward me and her eyes glistened.
“No, sweetheart, it’s fine. I let people think that. Oh, I let people think whatever they want. But do you want the truth?”
“Oh, Auntie Lil, I didn’t mean to upset you before we started our journey! No, no, no.”
I reached for a napkin from the dispenser to hand her, but, ever classy, she pulled a neatly pressed handkerchief from her bag to dab her eyes.
“No. It’s okay. You can hear this.” She smiled and began.
“After I graduated from high school, I was planning to go to secretarial school. During the summer before classes started, I was dating several nice young men.”
“Auntie Lil!”
“Don’t raise your eyebrows. Back in the day, ‘dating’ meant going to the movies or going on picnics or skating. We usually did things like that in groups of couples. I don’t know what young people do today.”
“Well, Auntie Lil, I can’t speak for other girls, but that’s still what ‘dating’ means to me and my girlfriends. If guys expect anything more, then they’re sadly mistaken. It’s just that we date one guy at a time and don’t have multiple guys calling on us.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, maybe if you didn’t put all your eggs in one basket, it wouldn’t hurt so much when you parted company with one of them.”
Ouch. That was a subtle jab at my recent depression over losing Dylan.
“But—”
“Annalise,” she shook her head. “All I’m saying is you might date more than one fellow at a time to compare and narrow down until you find the one. It’s more efficient.”
“Right,” I said ruefully. “Efficiency. That’s what dating is all about. But we’re not talking about me, right now.”
“Anyway, as I was saying, I was dating several nice young men, but then I met someone who was obviously different.”
Her eyes shone again.
“His name was Antonio. He came here from Italy with his uncle to help run the family restaurant. He was so handsome—tall, with black hair and flashing eyes and a smile that could melt your heart. He didn’t speak English, and his uncle asked if I could teach him, because he knew that I was fluent in Italian.”
“Auntie Lil! Why, that’s the stuff of romantic novels.”
“Oh, it was, sweetie, it was. At first, we just spent time together with me teaching him English in the corner of the restaurant after it closed, but soon we started talking about more than Italian lessons, and he would come over to our house to get to know the family. One day, he asked me to come for the lessons at a later time. Before it was time for me to get there, apparently he had strung beautiful lights all around the garden and even inside the main part of the restaurant.
She paused and took a deep breath.
“We think that he turned the lights on and somehow, somewhere there was a short and it blew. He was ... he was ...”
“Electrocuted?” I could barely get the word out myself.
She nodded.
“And the restaurant burned down around him?”
She nodded again and stared straight ahead.
“Oh, Auntie Lil.” I moved next to her and hugged her. We stayed in silence for a few moments.
“His uncle thinks ... thought ... that Antonio was going to propose that night. He had purchased a ruby ring. They found the ring in the rubble.”
She looked down at her hand.
I always thought the chunky piece of gold with the cloudy red stone that she constantly wore was a family heirloom. Now I knew differently.
I had so many questions!