and lit one, cranking the window open to let the smoke chimney through it. His hand still shook when he raked it through his hair.
He saw Trissa and Fitapaldi stop to talk briefly to someone. Chancellor? Then they made their way down the hill toward them. The limousine slowed as it passed them, then stopped. The door opened and Trissa stepped in, leaving Fitapaldi on the curb.
"No!" Cole flung open the door and heaved himself out. "Don't go. Don't go," he whispered as he tried to will his feet to take him past the minefield of graves between them. "Don't leave me!"
But the limousine did not move. Fitapaldi saw him and waved and Cole began to run. The limousine door opened again, and Trissa stepped out. His wind left him in a deflating rush and Cole went to his knees in the dirt. When she saw him, Trissa broke away from Fitapaldi's supporting arm and ran down the hill toward him, her hat sailing back off her head. He had just managed to reach his feet when she flew into his arms.
"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
"I thought... I saw you get in the car. I thought you were going with her. I thought you were leaving me."
"No! Oh, no, I wouldn't. I promised I wouldn't, remember?"
Fitapaldi lumbered closer, smiling, with Trissa's hat in his hand. Cole stiffened and she let him go. "Still, it would be best if you did. I'm insane, you know."
He would ask Fitapaldi tomorrow to cure him or destroy him. All his blind fear of madness and psychiatry and winding up in a room next to his father was nothing compared to the fear of losing her. Or hurting her. But he had to come to her whole and healthy. Or not at all.
She did not respond to his declaration of insanity, but turned to smile back at Fitapaldi. "Are you hungry? How about Rigazzi's for lunch?"
"Aah, sounds like my kind of place. If more people knew of the curative powers of pasta, doctors like me would be put out of business."
Cole limped stiffly ahead of them back to the car. "Cole, would you rather go home and rest?" Trissa asked when he settled into the front seat next to her.
"No, I'd better get me some of that pasta. I need all the help I can get," he said grimly.
*****
By the time they got home late that afternoon, Trissa had spent the last of her tears over a heaping plate of toasted ravioli. No one looked when Fitapaldi slipped her his glass for a few sips of wine after she told them what her mother had said when she got in the car. Blinking like owls in the dim light of the limousine, her aunt and cousins had looked on while her mother called her an ungrateful little slut who deserved nothing from her and would get nothing. Trissa had replied with all the dignity she could gather that she had expected nothing more from her than she had given in the past, not even love. It was obviously something she was incapable of giving.
They told sparse details of the funeral to Augusta and the others of their housemates who waited anxiously for them, then Cole offered to take Trissa to her room. Before they left the kitchen, Fitapaldi took her aside to whisper in her ear. "He loves you, Trissa, I can see it. He's just afraid to admit it yet." With a puckish wink, he added, "Be gentle with him."
Cole accompanied her to the door of their room, then hugged her briefly, like a distant relative at a family reunion. "I'm sorry I deserted you this morning. Goodbye, Trissa."
There was something so final in the words, goodbye and not good night, in the desperate sadness of his eyes that she could not let him go. "No," she said, clinging to his lapels, reaching up to lightly kiss his chin. "Come in and talk for awhile. I don't want to be alone." She stepped backward through the door, still holding him, and he came with her. She noticed again his stiff, labored limp. "You're hurting, aren't you? You need a long soak in a hot tub."
"I'll go back to my room, take a few aspirins, maybe a nap."
"But this is your room. The bed is much bigger and more comfortable. You probably miss it in that cramped little one down stairs."