the book. “If you must know, whenever I read a character described as a handsome man, I think of you.”
“Then why don’t you stop reading and join me in the sleeping car?”
Ciro closed the door softly and joined Enza in the berth. The reverence of their wedding night was long gone, and had been replaced with the glorious familiarity that came from years of marriage. They knew everything about one another, and each surprise revealed along the way had only served to make them closer.
Pappina and Luigi had taken Antonio until Enza could return home. This gave her peace of mind, as she knew that her son would be happy with his friends, who were nearly brothers to him.
As Ciro kissed his wife, he remembered the train ride from New York after they were married, and the memory of it gave him a feeling of peace, the first he’d had since he went to the Mayo Clinic. He was enthralled by Enza all over again when he thought back to the night they first made love. But soon the dull ache in his stomach returned, and the feeling of doom that accompanied the knowledge of his fate. He put those thoughts out of his mind, though, and kissed his wife, and made love to her as he had so many years before, when they were young and everything was new.
Chapter 26
A CARRIAGE RIDE
Un Giro in Carrozza
Colin Chapin greeted Enza and Ciro on the platform of the train at Grand Central Station. Colin’s hair was completely gray now, and his suits were Savile Row, but his smile was as open as it always had been. He is a solid white brick of a man, Enza thought. Colin was the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, and with the job had come speaking engagements and lucrative coproductions with opera companies around the world. Colin and Laura were in the top tier of high society in New York, but Enza wouldn’t have known it when he threw his arms around them. He acted like he was still the office runner in accounting that he had been when they first met.
Colin took their bags and led them to his car, a midnight blue and maroon Packard, custom made and the height of chic opulence. As he turned onto Fifth Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street, Enza saw Laura waiting in the lobby of the apartment building. Colin pulled up to the awning and Enza jumped out of the car and into the arms of her best friend.
“Autumn in New York,” Laura said.
“Our favorite time of year!” Enza took in her friend, who opened her velvet opera coat to reveal a pregnancy so advanced, it appeared the baby could be born that same evening.
“You’re having a baby!” Enza threw her arms around Laura. “And soon!”
“I know. Forgive me, Enza, I wanted to tell you. But it’s been a very difficult pregnancy. The last week things have been so much better, but we’ve been on guard the whole time. The doctor said I would never have a baby, but here we are. It was a shock to Colin, to me, to the doctor, to the entire medical community as it stands in New York City. But it’s true, and we’re thrilled.”
“I have sons in college, and soon we’ll have a baby in the crib. We don’t know whether to be thrilled or . . . cry,” Colin teased.
Laura was at the peak of her beauty, the contrast of her pale skin and red hair were now softly dramatic. Her lovely profile had taken on the lines of aristocracy, and the sharp angles of her youth were gone.
“You should be on bed rest,” Enza told her.
“How could I rest? My best friend was on her way.”
Ciro and Colin joined them, and Laura embraced Ciro. “All right, all right, upstairs with you,” Colin said. Ciro reached to help Colin with the luggage, but a bellman whisked it away. Ciro turned to see a valet drive the Chapin Packard to the parking lot. Ciro shook his head. They were a long way from Chisholm.
The elevator opened into the foyer of the penthouse apartment. Laura had decorated the apartment in soft greens and yellow, obeying the rule Mrs. DeCoursey always proclaimed back at Milbank House: paint your rooms the colors you look best in.
The spacious rooms were well appointed with polished Chippendale furniture, Aubusson rugs, crystal sconces, milk-glass chandeliers, and oil paintings of pastoral settings, including the farm fields of Ireland, the