Mia looked up at me and gave me a humongous smile, melting the fog and bringing me back into reality.
I leaned down and kissed her head. “You want to hear Mamma play another? Twinkle, twinkle, little star…”
“Winkle,” she parroted, using her chubby little finger to hit the piano keys. “Eeee!” She twisted her torso, doing her happy dance when the world bowed to her touch and thrilled her.
The chalet had a piano, and after reading time, Mia had become curious.
At some point in time my mother had wanted all of us, her children, to play an instrument. We each had a personal instructor. I’d chosen piano, and enjoyed it too, until my mother felt it became a hindrance instead of an asset to have. It was too much of an interference with the ballet, she’d claimed.
You were born to dance to the piano, not sit behind it.
Was it Maja who’d said that or my mother? It felt like lifetimes ago.
“Do you like this, my love?” I asked Mia in Italian. “Would you like to sit behind the piano and tickle the keys?”
“Amma!” She touched the keys, wanting me to play again.
“All right. Mamma will do her best to remember.”
It thrilled her when I got a good rhythm going, and then I started to sing, and she sang in her own way next to me. Mostly gibberish, and she put her heart into it.
“You never cease to amaze me.”
Mia and I both started, not realizing that Brando had come into the room. He stood against the wall, arms and legs crossed, watching us, the old camera I’d had since Paris in his grip.
“You took our picture?”
“Yeah. You were looking down at her, and she was looking up at you, like this.” He smiled, making his nose scrunch, just like she did.
We both laughed at his face.
She giggled, rubbing her stomach. “Mo!”
“Make that face again, Daddy,” I said, knowing what she wanted from him.
He did and she cracked up even more, catching the breathless giggles that made us laugh until we cried.
After setting the camera on a table, he swooped her up off the seat, bringing her forehead to his, and she rubbed their noses. Taking a seat next to me, Mia in his arms, he urged me to play another song.
I did.
He became quiet after, reflective, the silence almost too much after the last key had been played. Mia started to sing again, and it filled our world with a noise that I never wanted to stop hearing.
He set his head against mine, his nose against my temple, and closed his eyes. “Time to deliver some baked goods, baby.”
“How’d it go with Luca?”
He kissed me, deliberately lingering, before he pulled away. “Like expected. I never knew the man had a vein that bulged when he was pis—angry. Now I do.”
“You learn something new every day.” I sighed.
We’d been waiting to tell Luca about the traitor in our midst, hoping we could go to him with solid evidence. We’d made a few more deliveries to see if I could feel anything else, but nothing came from it except a plethora ofgraziesfrom the men who were in Switzerland without family.
“Does he—trust me?”
“Yeah,” Brando said without hesitation. “He’s eager to find the man.”
“Me too,” I said, caressing the keys.
