up at odd angles, sat on the floor near the door leading to the back room. With the focus of a surgeon, he dug his small fingers through the contents of a box that appeared to be filled with buttons. Whenever he found what he wanted, he would smile slightly and hold it up to the faint light coming through the front window. Utterly consumed with the process, he ignored Vi and Marcie as he carefully placed each treasure on the floor into the design he was creating.
Caught in the spell of the shop, and of the little boy—Jimmy was about his age—Vi jumped when a woman spoke from behind her.
“Buongiorno.”
Vi turned to see an attractive young woman—one with dark-brown hair, not red—standing beside the display counter.
Her inquisitive blue eyes darted between Vi and Marcie. “Come posso aiutarti?”
Waving the note, Marcie answered her in Italian while Vi studied the woman’s expression. If the woman was surprised to see them instead of Luciana, there was no sign in her serene face. As far as Vi could tell, the woman’s polite interest in the note was genuine, as if women in uniform showed up in her shop looking for watches every day. Given the army’s preoccupation with everything being timed almost down to the second, perhaps they did. A working watch wasn’t just a luxury to a soldier but a necessity.
Marcie turned to Vi, her forehead puckered in a slight frown. “She says there’s no watch waiting for pickup and knows nothing about the note you got. So what do we do now?”
“Ask her to check in back for something other than a watch? Maybe somebody else took the order and sent the note.”
Marcie hesitated and then turned back to the woman. While Marcie interrogated the clerk in Italian, something Vi couldn’t help with, she drifted around the shop as if looking at the merchandise. What really interested her, though, was the little boy in the corner. Something about him, and the way he bit his lip as he concentrated, tugged at her heart.
“Marcie,” Vi asked, interrupting the women, “how do I ask ‘what’s your name’ in Italian?”
“Come ti chiami,” Marcie replied breezily, and then went back to the clocks.
Vi crouched near the little boy, close enough to see what he was working on but not so close as to alarm him. “Come ti chiami?”
Long-lashed hazel eyes lifted to meet hers. He hesitated, the solemnity in his little face heart wrenching. “Enzo.”
His gaze dropped back to the box, and she watched him in silence as he selected a bone button set in a metal filigree—Vi couldn’t even imagine what kind of garment might have once borne something so elegant—and placed it into his design.
Vi glanced down at it and then did a double take. Whereas she might have expected an abstract picture or perhaps something benign like a dog or a car, Enzo was creating what was clearly a tank. Worse, he was putting red and white buttons under its treads. Vi hoped it wasn’t meant to represent crushed people, but after the destruction she had witnessed in the countryside, she suspected otherwise.
What did one say to a child creating such a monstrous image? Certainly not “wonderful” or “that’s so pretty.”
Enzo pointed to the red-and-white button layer and said something in Italian. His childish voice held no emotional inflection, giving her no clue how to react. Still, she needed to acknowledge whatever he had said, so she nodded but kept her expression as solemn as his.
What had this boy seen; what had he lived through? Overcome with sorrow, she wished she could take him in her arms and hold him, if only for a moment. Life could be so unfair sometimes.
Tears unexpectedly filled her eyes, and she dashed them away. When she glanced up, Enzo was watching her.
“Perché sei triste?” he asked in his clear soprano voice.
Triste . . . That meant sad, so she guessed he was asking her why she was crying.
She gave him a small, watery smile. “I doubt you will understand me,” she said softly so Marcie wouldn’t overhear, “but I have a small boy of my own. Un ragazzo,” she added, remembering the word in Italian. “And I miss him.”
He watched her silently for a moment more, then put down the button in his hand and crawled over to hug her. Stunned, she froze, hardly able to breathe. The heavenly smell of warm little boy filled her senses. She closed her eyes under the rush of emotions.