The Calm Before the Strike

Candice's P.O.V.

Three days later, after my reconciliation with Mom, the villa did not seem as it was: it was still a fortress, but a villa with open windows.

Mom had been coming to the procession of the morning coffee in the terrace. She did not talk at first--she was simply sitting there with her cup, watching the sea in the distance--but she was there. Sanna would draw out her chair and not make a fuss. Conti, in his turn, jokingly mocked her due to her espresso method, being so awful. Mantovani stood and carefully gazed at it, but I found he daily relaxed slightly.

The war preparation did not stop, of course.

The men vanished into the study every evening and after dinner. Now it was my time--no stay in the kitchen stuff. We had pictures of the brother to the sheriff (a clean-cut older guy called Ryan Harlow who played lacrosse and worked at animal shelters). We even had schedules, class lists, satellite pictures of the L.A. campus. The plan was operational: snatch him at the end of school, steal out information as to next move of brother and then use it to bring stand-down.

But today was a pause.

Mom caught me in the library in the middle of the afternoon sitting in the window bench with a book that I was not actually reading.

"Walk with me?" she asked.

and we were in the garden, among the lilies. It was the same road on which Mantovani and I had begun to unravel some months before.

She had paused in the presence of a growing bush and touched a petal.

I hated these flowers, I said to myself. Your father had planted them to you every year. I had found them too commonplace, too sentimental. Now... I think they're perfect."

I waited.

She took a breath. "I spoke to your dad yesterday."

My heart stuttered. "You did?"

"On the phone. For almost an hour." She gave a small, rueful smile. The first thing he inquired of you was how you were really getting along, and not the smooth kind of version of it. I told him the truth. That you were in love with a bad man, that you have handled a gun, that you have made the life I did not want you to, that you are as strong as I ever underestimated you being.

I swallowed hard. "How did he take it?"

"He cried," she said simply. But he replied when she said, Just because she is happy and safe, That is all I ever wanted. Will he see you on his birthday, he asked?

Tears pricked my eyes. "Of course he will."

Mom nodded. "He wants to meet Mantovani. Not to judge--but simply to mean his eye and see the man who has the heart of his daughter.

I laughed through the tears. Most likely, Mantovani will be in a suit and all.

She smiled--genuine, soft. "I hope he does."

We continued in silence a little way.

I have been thinking, she said at length. I want to go on a trip--when this is over--when the sheriff is dealt with. Just you and me. Perhaps to New York now over a weekend. Walk our old neighborhood. Eat terrible diner pancakes. Sit in your little bedroom and recall in life when life was easier.

"I'd love that."

She stopped, faced me fully.

I can not change the world you picked, Candice. However, I have the option of joining it. I can be trained to eat at that table on the side of men who scare me. I am able to restrain myself in case I wish to scream. I am able to love you even where you are.

I embraced her--squeezed her--hard, abrupt, like I had not since I was a child.

She embraced in return quite as ardently.

As we parted, she stroked my hair off my face.

Now go and get your scary boyfriend, she said, and her eyes were twinkling in the first months in ages. I believe I saw him washing guns in the courtyard. Inform him that dinner is at eight, and I am making lasagna. No shop talk tonight."

I laughed. "He'll behave. Probably."

She saw me stalking off, and called after me in a low voice:

"I'm proud of you, baby. Terrified... but proud."

I turned around smiling with tears.

"I'm proud of you too, Mom."

That night, the table was full.

Laughter was reserved and yet true.

Sanna has an old story of Mantovani as a boy who was attempting to ride on a motorcycle when he was eight years old. Conti humiliated himself by telling about his first terrible date. Mom made up some lasagna, and even ate two portions. I saw my hand on the table, gripped by Mantovani and kept there the whole meal.

The war was outside--where the next step was Ryan Harlow, sheriff.

We ate lasagna, told stories, and a mother was learning to love the daughter she came almost to lose.

We would organize the strike the next day.

Tonight, we were just family.

And that was like enough the first time in a long time.