Page 26 of The Singing Trees
“It does present a challenge, doesn’t it?” He didn’t look discouraged, though, more curious than anything else.
A puzzling thought came to her. Admitting she didn’t believe in love felt like saying she didn’t believe in gravity after an apple dropped onto her head.
With his right arm still over the back of the seat, Thomas reached his left hand toward hers. “You shouldn’t be afraid of finding love.”
She turned more toward him, enjoying the tingle of his touch. “Says Mr.Sunshine and Picket Fences. Of course you believe in love.”
He pulled her hand up and kissed the tops of her knuckles. “All I’m asking is...quit resisting.”
She looked at her hand in his. “This doesn’t feel very resistant.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” Then, in a whisper, he said, “I’m not going to hurt you, Anna. I promise.”
If he wasn’t the real thing, then he was the sneakiest guy she’d ever come across. As her doubt fell away like bricks tumbling from a wall, she felt a need to explain herself. She pulled her hand away and sat back. “One of the last memories of my father and mother together was when he stumbled in drunk after being gone for a few days. He liked to take these weeklong sabbaticals from being a part of the family. I was sitting in a chair, talking to my mom while she painted, when he burst in and started yelling.”
Annalisa could so clearly see her father’s face, his thick mustache, his raging dark eyes. “He grabbed the painting she’d been working on from her easel and cracked it on his knee. I can still hear the wood of the frame splintering. And then he held the canvas in front of her face and tore it, so slowly and deliberately. I ran at him and he flung me to the ground. My mom rushed to me on the floor. Then we watched him rip another painting off the wall. He tore that one up, too, and then another, and another...”
“I can’t imagine,” he said, giving her hand a light squeeze. “You deserve nothing but to be loved.”
Why was this memory still so fresh and painful? But even so, she felt comfortable telling him, like he was the only one in the world who could understand. He said he couldn’t imagine, but he could. His father wasn’t that different.
After a long breath, she said, “He was always so opposed to her doing anything other than raising me and cleaning the house andcooking. She would have been a great artist if he hadn’t killed her dreams.”
“For what it’s worth,” Thomas said, “I’ll never kill your dreams, Anna. I wouldn’t dare.”
She offered a close-lipped smile. “Well...now you know what you’re up against.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, and she smelled his popcorn breath as he said, “We can’t let our fathers affect us for the rest of our lives, you know? What about all the great love stories out there? Don’t you want to feel what that’s like?”
She pulled her hand away. “Oh, you mean like Romeo and Juliet? That ended well.”
“We’re different,” Thomas insisted, not letting her make light of the conversation.
“We barely know each other,” she replied, seeing that imaginary apple on the ground. “We aren’t even awe.”
He straightened. “I want to be.”
She had no doubt about that, and as her heart kicked, she knew she wanted the same thing. It wasn’t that easy, though. There was her mother, who’d been burned so badly by love. And Nonna, who not only was opposed to this relationship but was still suffering herself from losing her husband.
And yet...Annalisa knew she couldn’t walk away from this guy, because she’d regret it for the rest of her life. So if she wasn’t going to walk away now, then she better jump right into the fire.
“Okay, then,” she said, leaning in. Tapping into her own confidence, in both herself and in her decision, she grazed her lips over his cheek and whispered into his ear, “Let’s be awe.”
Time seemed to slip away after that, and then a light flashed inside the car. “Okay, girls and boys,” a voice said. “Time to go home.”
They both looked up to see the credits rolling on the screen.
“Not yet,” Thomas complained as he fished the keys out of his pocket. “I’d kill for a double feature right now.” He went in for one last kiss, and she felt how excited he was that she was giving them a real chance. She was excited too. Annalisa Mancuso had her first boyfriend.
He started the VW and pulled away, following the car ahead of him. They didn’t get far before hearing a snap and pop.
“Oh shit!” Thomas yelled. “I forgot to take the speaker off.”
They laughed like crazy as he backed up, and she thought that even if they didn’t work out, tonight had been worth it.
Chapter 9
DODGINGBULLETS
