Once in the kitchen, she set the mail onto the table in a neat stack and turned to look out the window over the sink. If the interior of her home seemed gloomy to her, the exterior was positively bleak. It was late afternoon, and the barren trees and shrubs swayed back and forth in the cold wind, while the sun slowly fell off to the west. A thin cover of hard, frozen snow lay across most of the backyard, though here and there a patch of ground managed to show itself. The picnic table at which Francesca liked to sit during the warm weather was blanketed, as were the nearby gardens in which she occasionally liked to putter around. Across the yard, a bird feeder clung to a tree branch. Francesca had filled it before leaving for Florida, but now it was empty, swinging to-and-fro like a pendulum in the wind, not a bird in sight. This saddened Francesca, because she welcomed the sight of the birds happily pecking away at the feeder. They were a sign that life was still close by, even though it was the dead of winter.
Francesca gave a little sigh, turned away from the window, and went to the refrigerator. It was several hours since she had last eaten. The stewardess had offered her a snack during the flight home, but Francesca had said no. She had been too nervous to eat. Besides, Roseanne had packed a pepper-and-egg sandwich for her in case she really became hungry. She had ended up giving it to the young man sitting next to her. He had never before tasted a pepper-and-egg sandwich, so the look of surprise and pleasure on his face when he took his first bite had been the only bright spot of the journey. The rest was just a long blur of nervous anxiety.
Now, peering into the refrigerator, Francesca realized that the anxiety had all passed, but she still did not feel hungry, or if she did, she didn’t care. There was plenty on hand in the refrigerator for her to whip up something quick, but the thought of eating alone at that particular moment took away any satisfaction the meal might have given her. Added to that was the sudden weariness that settled in on her like someone had just handed her a sack of potatoes. She was too tired to cook.
Francesca closed the refrigerator door and walked out of the kitchen to the front hall. Her daughter, she well knew, would be waiting by the telephone back in Florida, anxious to hear that her mother had made it home safely. Francesca would call her from the bedroom and then lie down to rest. She took hold of her suitcase and turned toward the staircase.
“Leo,” she called as she started up the stairs, “I’m home.”
CHAPTER 3
“Tony, you call these tomatoes?”
Tony, the grocer, who at the moment was putting out cucumbers on the shelf across the aisle, looked over at Francesca and gave a shrug. “Well, that’s what it said on the carton they came in, Mrs. Campanile,” he replied with a good-natured smile. Francesca had been coming to the market for years, and Tony had long since become accustomed to her occasional criticisms of the produce selection.
Francesca picked up a piece of the fruit, breathed in what little she could detect of its scent, and made a face that suggested her assessment of it had been less than favorable. She dropped the tomato back in the bin with the others and shook her head in disdain.
“The cardboard boxes these came in probably have more flavor,” she suggested ruefully. “I should find another market.”
“Ayyy, what do you expect?” laughed Tony. “Nobody has good tomatoes this time of year.”
“Ayyy, and that’s what you always say,” replied Francesca, shaking her hand at him for emphasis. “What are you doing? Hiding all the good tomatoes for yourself? I should go to the supermarket down the road. They probably have some nice tomatoes there that actually taste like tomatoes. These things don’t even look like tomatoes.”
Tony chuckled, for this was a scene that had been played out many times there in his little corner market just down the street from Francesca’s house. Inwardly, Francesca gave in to a smile of her own. Both of them knew full well that, despite the lower prices and the greater selection to be found in the huge supermarkets, Francesca preferred the comfort and convenience of her own little neighborhood market. It felt almost like a part of her home. Why would she go anywhere else when Tony carried just about everything she needed? Sure, the detergent and paper goods were a little more expensive, and the store didn’t stock fifteen brands of every item, but nobody anywhere had a better meat selection than Tony’s Market, and the produce, despite her occasional gripes in the winter, was the best around. But there was more to it than just the meat and the fruit and the vegetables that kept her coming back.
Though she would not have admitted it at the moment, Francesca stayed away from the big markets for one simple reason: They made her dizzy. They were all so big and impersonal. Too many people, too many products, too many aisles. Too many everything. Here, everyone knew her. When she walked into the store, she was always greeted with a “Hello, Mrs. Campanile!” or a “What will you have today, Mrs. Campanile?” It was nice to come to a place where you always found the same faces and everybody knew you. Francesca rarely had to waste time looking around for help if she couldn’t find what she was looking for on the shelf or if it was up out of reach. It seemed as though someone would always be nearby looking out for her. “Oh, we moved the spices yesterday to the next aisle over,” Tony might tell her before she needed to ask. “Let me get that for you, Mrs. Campanile,” one of his sons might say before she had a chance to lift her hand. “Try this new brand of pasta we just got in, Mrs. Campanile. I think you’ll like it,” Tony’s wife, Donna, might suggest. Those little gestures of familiarity meant a lot to Francesca. They were the primary reason she always returned. Then, of course, there was the pleasure of knowing that if she was in the mood to complain about anything, a not-uncommon occurrence, she didn’t need to go searching all over creation for the manager. Tony, or Donna, or one of their sons, was always right there every day. There was nothing she liked better than to give one or all of them a good earful now and then, just to keep them on their toes. It made her day. In an odd sort of way, it made theirs as well. They all knew that her occasional outbursts were nine-tenths playful bluster.
The dearth of decent tomatoes, however, was a source of true consternation to Francesca. Not that she blamed Tony for it. She well understood that, no matter where she shopped, the bland, flavorless pieces of near-plastic grown in hothouses or shipped in from somewhere overseas were all that she would find in the middle of the winter. There was nothing to be done about it. But how she longed for those beautiful native tomatoes of late summer! Gazing at the pile of (not) cheap imitations, she tried in her mind to replace them with the sweet, succulent varieties from the local farms she would find there in the balmy days of August. The cherry tomatoes, bursting with sweetness at the first bite. The big beef tomatoes, so luscious and heavily laden with flavor that just one was a meal in itself. And her favorites, the oval-shaped plums. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Leo, of course, had kept a tomato garden for years, spoiling Francesca. How could these pale things before her even compare? There were not words enough to describe the scent and taste of a sun-warmed tomato just plucked from the vine. Sinking your teeth into it, letting the sweet juiciness fill you up, renewed the life inside you. It was like eating sunshine. There was no end to the uses to which she would put those beautiful sun-ripened tomatoes from her husband’s garden. Marinara sauces, pizza, salads, sandwiches. Her favorite, though, was a simple tomato salad. Francesca would start by cutting up the tomatoes and tossing them into a bowl with a healthy dose of virgin olive oil. Next, she would add a clove or two worth of diced garlic, some chopped basil and oregano picked fresh from her own little garden, then pinches of salt and pepper. Finally, she would toss it all together once or twice, and she was done. The addition of a loaf of fresh-baked bread and maybe a nice piece of cheese was all anyone needed for dinner on a hot summer’s evening. If she and her husband were really hungry, they found that nothing went better with those tomatoes than a thick juicy steak hot off the grill. That was Leo’s favorite meal in the summer. He loved to scoop up the tomatoes and drizzle the juice and olive oil and bits of garlic onto the meat. It brought a contented smile to his face every time. Despite the paltry selection of produce before Francesca, the memory brought a wistful smile to her face. She let out a long sigh.
“Cooking for the family tonight?” asked Tony, bringing her