“I know what you mean,” Tony confessed with a nod of his head. “Tell you the truth, I won’t eat those things myself. But I suppose they’re better than nothing in the winter. Just be patient. It’ll be summer before you know it, and we’ll have some nice tomatoes in. By then, of course, we’ll all be complaining because it’s so hot outside.”
“And by then you’d better make sure that inside you have that air conditioner working again,” she admonished him. “Not like that time last summer when it broke and it was a hundred degrees in here.”
“Ayyy, don’t worry,” sighed Tony. “My wife has already reminded me a thousand times about that. You two are a lot alike; you never forget anything.”
“It comes with being a woman.”
With that, Francesca continued on to collect the few things that she needed from the market that day. In truth, she could have managed quite well with what she already had at home. But it had been two days since she had returned from Florida, and this was the first time she had stepped outside. Already it felt as though the walls were closing in around her, so a trip to the market had been a good excuse to get out of the house. The previous day had been spent unpacking, washing her clothes, and getting her closet back in order. Then there were the bills to be paid, and the appointments to be confirmed to have her hair done and to get a checkup from the doctor. Francesca liked to have everything in order. She started each day by making a list of things she needed to do. While she sipped her morning coffee, she would check the list from the day before to see if there was anything she had forgotten. She lived alone, so it was easy to forget things. Organizing her day in this way made her life easier. It kept her busy and made the days when she was alone pass more quickly.
The only items on the list for her excursion to the market were a half gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. The tomatoes had been an afterthought. A few other odds and ends caught her eye as she made her way up and down the aisles. She tossed them into the cart and ambled along. Francesca took her time; there was really no hurry. She had no place else in particular to go and nothing else to do that day. Now and then, she cast a glance over to the entrance, hoping to spy a familiar face coming in, one of her market friends, as she liked to call them. Most of her old friends from the neighborhood were gone, some having moved to warmer climes, some to retirement centers or nursing homes, and some directly to the next life. Still, there were new faces she had come to know, younger couples who had moved in to take the place of the old. Francesca enjoyed seeing these new people, exchanging a few moments of pleasant conversation with the younger women, commenting on the price of this or that, complaining about the weather. Most of all, she loved seeing their little children, especially the newborns. It gave her hope.
On this day, however, there was no one in the store she recognized, so she pushed her cart up to the checkout counter, where Tony’s wife, Donna, waited by the cash register.
“Find everything you need, Mrs. Campanile?” she asked. “I see you have your milk and bread. That’s good. They say we might get some snow later today.”
“Oh, yes,” Francesca replied as she started to put her groceries up on the counter. “I heard the forecast. I’ve got everything I need, not that I’m one of those nervous Nellies who thinks the sky is falling every time she sees a few snowflakes, but it never hurts to be prepared.”
“They say we might get six or seven inches,” Donna said as she scanned the groceries. “Sounds like it will be a good night to just stay home.”
Francesca nodded and smiled. “What else would I do?” she thought.
CHAPTER 4
A few fragile flakes from the approaching snowstorm were already drifting down when Francesca left the market and started on her way home. It was late morning, nearing lunchtime, and the cars zipped up and down the road as she walked along the sidewalk. There was a palpable feeling of nervous tension in the air; she could see it in the faces of the passing motorists as they hastened along, almost frantic to run their errands before the real snow started to fall. Watching them go by, seeing the impatient frowns of the men and the worried looks of the women chirping away on their cell phones instead of paying attention to the road, Francesca could not help but laugh. It was always the same whenever the weathermen predicted a winter storm. The specter of a few inches of snow put everyone in a tizzy.
Clutching the handles of the cloth bag in which she carried her groceries, Francesca made her way along the sidewalk, keeping a watchful eye on the pavement lest she slip on a patch of ice. That was all she needed to have happen. God forbid she should fall and hurt herself; she would never hear the end of it from her son and daughters. Francesca might just have easily taken the car to the market instead of walking; she was a perfectly capable driver. But she liked the exercise and enjoyed being out in the open air. Besides, in her mind, the world was already going by much too fast. As far as she was concerned, people spent too much time hurrying from one place to another, from one task to another, without ever taking a moment to appreciate the journey. People, she often observed, would be far better off if they could only learn to slow their lives down a bit, but they were generally in too much of a rush to give the idea much thought.
An added benefit of walking to the market was the opportunity it afforded Francesca to monitor the comings and goings in the area. Hers wasn’t what one might call a tough section of town by any means, but some of the shine had gone off the neighborhood since she and Leo had first moved there years ago. The main avenue down which she was walking was lined with two-and three-decker tenements, where generations of predominately Irish and Italian families had once lived together. They had been proud people who had kept their properties immaculate. It grieved Francesca to see the dilapidated condition into which many of those beautiful old homes had descended since the old families had moved out. Not that it was the fault of the new Hispanic and Asian families that had taken their place. Francesca blamed the landlords from whom the new families rented the houses. Had they lost all their pride? She was heartened, though, by the new shops and little restaurants and other businesses she saw the newcomers opening here and there. The neighborhood, as she saw it, was in transition. In time, these renters would become owners, and then those houses would be restored to their proper states. It was inevitable. Nothing instilled pride in a person more than owning his own home.
Francesca rounded the corner off the main road and walked up the street to her house. The street climbed a considerably steep hill, but her legs were more than equal to the task. Over the years, she’d made that climb more times than she could remember. When she finally made it to the house and through the front door, Francesca hurried straight to the kitchen, to put away her groceries. Her haste was not due to any great concern about the food spoiling. She kept the temperature so low inside that even if she left it all out on the counter, everything would probably stay fresh for days. Her real purpose in bustling so purposefully through the hallway to the kitchen was the reassuring noise that it created. It dispelled some of the quiet in the house and made her feel like less of a ghost rattling around within its walls.
The little red light on the telephone answering machine was flashing when she came into the kitchen. She gave the button a tap and listened to the messages while she sorted out the groceries on the table. The first was from Alice: “Hi, Mom. It’s me. Just wanted to see how you were doing. I talked to Rosie yesterday. She said you guys had a good time together at her house. Hope you’re all settled back in, now that you’re home. We were watching the Weather Channel last night, and they said a big storm is heading your way. Looks like you might get a lot of snow. Make sure you stay inside. Don’t try to shovel the walk or clean the car by yourself. Get one of the neighborhood kids to do it. You don’t want to slip and fall. Anyway, no snow out here, just a lot of rain this week. So, that’s all. I just wanted to say hi. Hope to see you soon. Yesterday, Will and Charlie were wondering when you were going to come out to visit us again in Oregon. They miss your lasagna. Give me a call when you get a chance. Love you.”
A