Meanwhile Angela kept pointing things out to Jake in an overly enthusiastic voice, like she was trying to convince him how awesome Italy was, but she was laying it on way too thick. Jakealwaysgot suspicious if you hyped something up too much, even when he was a toddler and could barely speak. When Noah had tried to convince him carrot sticks were good by playing up how tasty and crunchy they were, Jake had stuck one up his nose just to prove a point.
Honestly, Noah wished he had a picture. Frustrated as he’d been, it was hilarious. One of Noah’s favorite memories.
Noah admired Angela’s intelligence, but sometimes he wondered if all that college made it hard for her to remember what it was like to be a child, to not know anything about the world except what your own little hands could grab at. She’d been great when Jake was a baby, but once he started developing his own little personality (and once he’d been able to argue), she’d struggled.
Angela loved Jake with her whole heart. On that front, she and Noah were exactly the same. But when it came to the little things—getting Jake to brush his teeth at night, or letting Jake Calvinball the rules of a board game, or helping him build a Lego set—parenting had always come much easier to Noah than to her.
Maybe this whole moving thing was her way of balancing the scales. Noah couldn’t blame her for wanting that.
He didn’t have to like it, though.
The shuttle dropped them off by the train station, at the top of a tree-lined hill. Angela ushered them off the bus, anxiously checking her phone.
“You need the bathroom, Jakey?”
“He can use it on the ferry,” Angela said. “The dock is that way.”
Noah pressed his lips together but didn’t argue with her. They tried not to argue in front of Jake.
Despite her short legs, Angela had a long stride, and she was walking faster than Jake could manage. Noah took him piggyback to keep up.
“You good, buddy?”
“Yeah.” But suddenly Jake let out a huge belch.
“Excuse me.”
“Jake!” Angela admonished.
“I said excuse me!”
“Your tummy okay?” Noah still remembered last year’s stomach flu. He didn’t want to be caught in the blast zone.
“Yeah.”
They cut through narrow streets lined with shops and banks, a small park with fascinating sculptures, took another left, and then—
Then Noah saw it.
When Noah was a kid, his dad had loved fishing at Osage Beach. The Ozarks formed the backdrop for what few uncomplicated good memories Noah had of growing up. Quiet days with his dad teaching him to fish, encouraging him to try again instead of berating him for failing. Nights filled with the hum of cicadas, his mom cooking hot dogs on a charcoal grill, laughing as he chased fireflies instead of yelling at him to keep his shoes clean.
Noah loved the Lake of the Ozarks, but Lake Como was a million times better.
Mountains dense with green and orange trees rose on every side.Vibrant yellow-beige-pink buildings climbed the slopes. Puffy white clouds sailed by, silent barges on an endless voyage through a sky so blue it redefined the word. And stretching into the distance, shimmering in the morning light, lay Lake Como itself.
A cool breeze ruffled Noah’s hair. The sound of gentle waves against the docks settled into his soul.
“Wow.”
He let Jake down but kept a hand on his head as he stared, slack-jawed, at the water.
He hated to admit it, but maybe Angela had a point.
Italywasawesome.
Noah pulled out his phone to snap some pictures, but Angela kept power-walking toward the dock. “Come on, guys, we gotta go.”
Noah sighed and took Jake’s hand. Angela had always been anon time is latetype person. Granted, Noah always showed up to work fifteen minutes early—the surest way of getting the other folks in the union to hate you was tardiness—but when you had a kid, sometimes you couldn’t help it. Still, he supposed they had a boat to catch.
