Page 102 of The Singing Trees
Once she’d retrieved the Waltham for him, he looked at it and then up at her. “I want you to have this.”
She gasped, once again in awe of his love. “Don’t do that. You’ve given me enough.”
“Who else would I give it to?” He took her hand and put the pocket watch in her palm, closing it. “There was a time after Gertrude died,before you walked into my shop, when I thought my time was up. It’s funny. You fix timepieces all your life, and you become one with them, one tick after another. Your whole life abides by the hands swinging around. But thenyoushowed up and everything changed. I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but you gave the horologist more time. You gave me a reason to live. When you hold this watch from now on, remember that you have the ability to turn back time. Not many are able to do that.”
Annalisa sniffled. “I’ll cherish it.” This was a goodbye she couldn’t handle, and she wished that he could keep fighting for a few more years.
“If I might offer a little advice,” he said. “You give so much to those around you. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. I do hope that one day you’ll give love a second chance.”
Annalisa tittered. “Don’t do this.”
Walt lowered his glasses down his nose and peered over them. “Thomas made a big mistake. The biggest in his life, and he’ll pay for it. One day he’ll know it and come begging. Don’t go taking him back.”
“No, Walt, I won’t.” She held up the watch, seeing Thomas’s face in the reflection of the silver. “But I don’t hate or hold any grudges.” In fact, as much as it hurt to admit, she still loved him. She didn’t say that, though.
“The war changes people,” she continued, “and I think he must have lost his way. Who knows? Maybe I’ll tell him about Celia one day, but no, I won’t ever take him back. After what I’ve been through, I’m not sure I have enough in me to give a relationship like that another shot.”
Walt lowered his voice. “Anna, one day a man is going to come along, and you’ll forget all about Thomas.”
She looked back at Celia, who was lost in the world of Big Bird and Kermit. “Between you and Celia and my family, I have all the love I need.”
He stumbled into a cough. “Humor an old man and say yes the next time a guy asks you out. Will you do that?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s my dying wish.”
“Oh, c’mon. First of all, you still have some fight left in you. Second, don’t ‘dying wish’ me. That’s something Nonna would do. Don’t let her rub off on you.”
“It’s true, young lady. There’s nothing I want more for you than to find love again. Promise me you’ll say yes when the time is right.”
Annalisa glared at him, knowing damn well thatifand when a man did ask her out again, she’d have to say yes.
For Walt.
And the idea terrified her.
Chapter 37
FLYING WITHWINGS
“Which one is your favorite?” someone from the group of people circling Annalisa asked.
“That’s easy,” she said, pointing at one of the eleven paintings hanging on the brick wall of Sharon Maxwell’s studio. It was packed with buyers and journalists and enthusiasts from all over New England.
Annalisa turned to the man, who was scribbling on a notepad. “I call thisMy Celias.” She was still blown away at the pricing Sharon had chosen. One sale could buy her a car. “That’s my mother and my daughter, and this is the...” A rich set of emotions hit her, feeling her mother’s presence as if the wind chimes were singing from above.
She stopped and collected herself. “This is the only time they ever met, on the canvas here.”
The piece was set on their side porch in Bangor under the wind chimes, and it captured her mother sitting in front of her easel, with Celia resting on her knee. Her mother was giving her granddaughter her first painting lesson.
All her paintings had meant so much to her, but during the process of this one, she’d finally found peace with her mother—and maybe her father a little bit too. She’d decided that nothing about life was easy, and sometimes it gets the best of us. No matter what, it wasn’t worth holding on to anger. Maybe one day she’d even paint her father.
Someone asked if she used a palette knife at all, but Annalisa’s attention had gone across the warehouse to the entrance. Thirty-plus Mancusos poured through the door. Jubilant tears pricked her eyes when she saw Nino pushing Walt in his wheelchair, with Nonna walking by his side. Aunt Julia pushed Celia in the stroller next, and then came her uncles and aunts and cousins.
“Excuse me for a moment,” she said, breaking through the circle of people. As her clan approached her, she was once again reminded how lucky she was to be a Mancuso, and she saw very clearly that the family and the small town that had rescued her from her loss in Bangor were the exact essence of life. As they came her way, cheering so loudly that every person in the entire warehouse turned, she decided her next painting would be with every last one of them. They, the Mancusos and Walt Burzinski, were the reason she was standing here today, finally, after all these years, realizing her dream.
Annalisa turned to her left and saw Sharon Maxwell watching the scene with her silver eyes. Without a word spoken, her teacher threw up her arms into stars and let out a brilliant smile. Feeling a fullness in her heart that she thought she might never know, Annalisa raised her own arms and spread them as wide as she possibly could.
