Page 84 of The Singing Trees
By the time they reached the market, she had left her other worries behind and had become laser focused on one single item waiting for her in the near future: a cinnamon bun. Amid the farmers and the artists and other vendors was a baker named Eli, who made the most incredible pastries in the world. She always looked forward to indulging, but today she was particularly needy for one of his magical creations, as if she hadn’t eaten in days.
The vendors were lined up along the sidewalk on the Lincoln Park side of Federal, and they stood behind tables toppling over with boxes of fresh produce and flowers. Their trucks were backed up behind them, many with large scales dangling from their camper tops. The open tailgates revealed even more produce waiting for their eager clients.
When Annalisa and Walt came upon Eli’s table halfway down the line, the baker said, “My favorite artist, Annalisa Mancuso. Did youfinally bring me a painting? I told you I’d trade you free cinnamon buns for life!” Eli drove a VW bus that was backed up behind him, and folk music played from the radio, a banjo and guitar dueling with each other.
“That’sexactlywhat I need,” Annalisa said. As the sweet smell of those cinnamon buns hit her, she decided she could have eaten every single one in the case, on the table, and in the van. Upon looking at the man who was most likely somewhere in his forties, one wouldn’t know that he was a pastry chef. Unless he ran daily marathons, he did not consume his own inventory.
“You know, Eli, my fiancé is going to come home and not even recognize me if I keep coming back here.” She loved how the wordfiancéleaped off her tongue, each time giving her a shot of love. “The only way I know to solve the problem is if you stop making these things,” she said. “I have zero discipline.”
Using tongs, Eli lifted a cinnamon bun up in front of him. “Something tells me he’ll be just fine. What’s life without guilty pleasures? And hello, Walt. Good to see you too. Shall I cut it in half for you all?”
Leaving Eli, Walt and Annalisa strolled farther into the park and sat on one of the benches facing the Parisian fountain in the center. Sitting here had also become a tradition that Annalisa cherished. What was the point in painting if an artist couldn’t take time to breathe in moments like this?
Walt had told her that the elm trees that had once shaded the park had succumbed to disease a few years earlier, so the sun sprayed down past the leafless branches. However, there was a beauty to this park and a great presence, and this particular spot became where Walt told her about the history of Portland. Her heart had broken when he’d told her weeks earlier about how there had once been a thriving Little Italy, but that the Italians had spread apart and some had fled.
Today, between bouts of coughing, Walt expressed his fear of what the Maine Mall was doing to their city. They had already seen a decline in foot traffic in the city and in their store.
“I wonder if Pride’s will go out of business,” she said, wiping beads of sweat off her brow. She almost complained about the heat but then thought of Thomas trudging through the humid and sweltering mess of Vietnam.
Walt coughed for a little while and then spat out, “Life used to be so much simpler.”
“I bet.” She thought about how even the world wars were simpler, with clear motivations to fight. Every day blurred the already-lost point of Americans losing their lives in Vietnam. After taking her last bite and losing herself in the deliciousness, she said with her mouth full, “But we still have these. Can’t get any simpler than that.” The sweet flavor coated her tongue with pleasure.
“Quite true,” Walt agreed. “There might not be a Little Italy, and we might just lose our downtown to the Maine Mall, but there will always be a park bench.”
At the same time, they both said, “And there will always be cinnamon buns.” They shared a smile, and Annalisa thought that, finally, life made sense.
Then, a cloudy sensation came over her, and she reached for the arm rail of the bench. The heat was getting to her quickly. Her head swam as she slipped away from consciousness.So hot out,she thought. Everything happened in slow motion as she fell into Walt’s lap.
While they waited for tests to be run at the Maine Medical Center, Annalisa fell in and out of sleep. She was beyond weary, thinking that maybe they’d given her something. She felt them sticking her withneedles and moving her body around. She was afraid, worrying that something might be very wrong.
It was in this haze that Annalisa peeled open her eyes at the touch of someone by her side.
“Nonna,” she said with squinted eyes, “what are you doing here?” How long had she been out?
Nonna patted her hand. “Oh, Annalisa,” she said with great concern. She put her hand on Annalisa’s cheek, as she’d been doing all Annalisa’s life. “You work too hard.”
Annalisa heard the chirp of the heart monitor, the steady metronome of life. “It was hot out today; that’s all. Who brought you down? What time is it?”
“Hey, cuz,” Nino called out, looking up from a sports magazine.
She was very grateful to see them. “You guys really didn’t have to come.” She reached for the paper cup of water by the bed, and Nonna helped her take a sip.
Walt was there, too, and the four of them talked for a few minutes, mostly about what might have led to Annalisa’s fainting. When the doctor walked in, everyone parted. He wore a thick gray mustache and was only an inch or two taller than Nonna.
“How are you feeling?” he asked in a nasally voice.
“Better, I think,” Annalisa said, though that wasn’t really true. She felt dazed but didn’t want to worry everyone. Mainers had trouble in the heat; no surprise there.
She’d already forgotten his name, but the doctor turned to everyone else in the room. “Could you please give Annalisa and me a moment?”
Once the door was closed behind Walt and Nino and Nonna, he approached her bed. “Ms.Mancuso,” he started, “you’re pregnant.”
She burst into laughter. “Did Nino pay you to say that?” Even as she joked, though, realization dawned: she knew it was true. Her body had been dragging lately, changing. Oh God, what was happening?She was pregnant? But ... the birth control. She thought she’d just overworked herself.
“I’m quite serious,” he said. “Congratulations.”
Come to think of it, she had been late. How had she not put it together?
