When summer comes, I will come up the mountain and take you home.”
“Back to our house?” Ciro asked.
“No. Somewhere new. Maybe we’ll move up the mountain to Endine.”
“Papa took us to the lake there.”
“Yes, the town with the lake. Remember?”
The boys nodded that they did. Eduardo rubbed his hands together to warm them. They were rough and pink from the cold.
“Here. Take my gloves.” Caterina removed her elbow-length black gloves. She helped Eduardo’s hands into them, pulling them up and under his short sleeves. “Better?”
Eduardo closed his eyes; the heat from his mother’s gloves traveled up his arms and through his entire body until he was enveloped in her warmth. He pushed his hair back with his hand, the scent of the brushed cotton, clean lemon and freesia, reassuring him.
“What do you have for me, Mama?” Ciro asked.
“You have Papa’s gloves to keep you warm.” She smiled. “But you want something of Mama’s too?”
“Please.”
“Give me your hand.”
Ciro pulled his father’s leather glove off with his teeth.
Caterina slid a gold signet ring off her smallest finger and placed it on Ciro’s ring finger. “This was given to me by my papa.”
Ciro looked down at the ring. A swirling, artful C in an oval of heavy yellow gold gleamed in the early morning light. He closed his fist, the gold band still warm from his mother’s hand.
The stone facade of the convent of San Nicola was forbidding. Grand pilasters topped with statues of saints wearing expressions of hollow grief towered over the walkway. The thick walnut door had a sharp peak like a bishop’s hat, Eduardo observed as he pushed the door open. Caterina and Ciro followed him inside into a small vestibule. They stomped the snow off their shoes on a mat made of woven driftwood branches. Caterina reached up and rang a small brass bell on a chain.
“They’re probably praying. That’s all they do in here. Pray all day,” Ciro said as he peered through a crack in the door.
“How do you know what they do?” Eduardo asked.
The door opened. Sister Domenica looked down at the boys, sizing them up.
She was short and shaped like a dinner bell. Her black-and-white habit with a full skirt made her seem wider still. She placed her hands on her hips.
“I’m Signora Lazzari,” Caterina said. “These are my sons. Eduardo and Ciro.” Eduardo bowed to the nun. Ciro ducked his head quickly as if saying a fast prayer. Really, it was the mole on Sister’s chin he wished to pray away.
“Follow me,” the nun said.
Sister Domenica pointed to a bench, indicating where the boys should sit and wait. Caterina followed Sister into another room behind a thick wooden door, closing it behind her. Eduardo stared straight ahead while Ciro craned his neck, looking around.
“She’s signing us away,” Ciro whispered. “Just like Papa’s saddle.”
“That’s not true,” his brother whispered back.
Ciro inspected the foyer, a round room with two deep alcoves, one holding a shrine to Mary, the Blessed Mother, and the other, to Saint Francis of Assisi. Mary definitely had more votive candles lit at her feet. Ciro figured it meant you could always count on a woman. He took a deep breath. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Don’t think about it.”
“It’s all I think about.”
“You have a simple mind.”
“No, I don’t. Just because I’m strong, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid. You’re simple.”
The scent of fresh vanilla and sweet butter filled the convent. Ciro closed his eyes and inhaled. He really was hungry. “Is this like the story Mama told us about the soldiers who got lost in the desert and saw a waterfall where there was none?” Ciro stood to follow the scent. He peered around the wall. “Or is there a cake baking somewhere?”
“Sit down,” Eduardo ordered.
Ciro ignored him and walked down the long corridor.
“Get back here!” Eduardo whispered.
The walnut doors along the arcade were closed, and streams of faint light came through the overhead transoms. At the far end of the hallway, through a glass door, Ciro saw a cloister connecting the main convent to the workhouses. He ran down the arcade toward the light. When he made it to the door, he looked through the glass and saw a barren patch of earth, probably a garden, hemmed by a dense gnarl of gray fig trees dusted with snow.
Ciro turned toward the delicious scent and found the convent kitchen, tucked in the corner off the main hallway. The door to the kitchen was propped open with a