I exhale through a clenched teeth smile. “Yes, Nonna, we had dinner last night. It was nice.”
Not even a lie. It was nice. It was fine.
“He is a handsome man. Tall.” She nods, like being tall is the real standard for all things manly.
“He likes spaghetti and meatballs,” Posey says. “Tall men like that.”
“Of course they do, Posey girl.” Nonna nods approvingly. “You been feeding your man my spaghetti recipe?”
“Not recently,” Posey says, while Rose and I gape at her.
Posey has a man she’s been feeding like a stray cat? Will wonders never cease.
“Nonna,” Posey presses, all charm and cleverness, like the ferret nosing around in her pocket somewhere, “We have something we need help with.”
“I know,” Nonna says, looking baffled that this even has to be said. “Why else would you be here? Eat, eat.” She waves her hand at us. “I will bring you what you need and then you can tell Nonna whatever else is left once your stomachs are full.”
“Sounds good to me,” Posey positively sings it at her, and I vaguely wonder if I shouldn’t have been paying more attention to the meals my sisters are eating.
We all get spaghetti and meatballs. We get enough spaghetti and meatballs for a football team. Then there’s the ricotta lasagna. The small plate of grilled octopus. More bread. Olive oil strewn with spices.
When Nonna finally brings over a platter of cannoli and a pot of espresso, I’m wishing I’d stopped after the first plate of food and not the third.
It doesn’t stop me from eating her famous cinnamon flecked cannoli, though.
“Better?” Nonna nods at us all, looking pleased. “Now, now you can focus on telling me what’s wrong, my girls.”
“There, ah, have been a lot of weird of things happening around town,” Posey says, which is quite an opener.
I bite back a sigh.
“Of course there are. That is the nature of living by the sea. Everyone knows this.” Nonna puts more cannoli on my plate.
It would be rude not to eat them.
“The lighthouse, you know, Caleb’s lighthouse…” I trail off, trying to find the right words for what is going on without… well, telling her about magic.
“It has been failing for months. Everyone knows this. That’s why Caleb says he’s back. Surely he told you that.” She shrugs, smushing her lips together. “I know that’s his story: fix the lighthouse, automation, clean up the grief of his stubborn uncle. But you know how these men are. They use these words and they aren’t at all what they mean. He’s tall, though.”
Again, with his height. I take a bite of cannoli to keep from laughing, and manage to spray powdered sugar and cinnamon everywhere.
“He is here for you, Ivy girl. Let yourself decide what to do.” Nonna pats my hand.
“There was something we found in our grandmother’s scrapbook.” Rose’s voice is strangled as she tries to steer an unsteerable woman back to the real problem here, which is so not me and Caleb. “It was a recipe for bread made in a cast iron pan. We’d never seen anything like it.”
Nonna sits back slightly, something loosening in the way she holds her face.
“Oh, that was a fun day. Different, but fun. A little scary. I didn’t think it would work. Your grandmother, you know how she is. She was certain. I didn’t know if would work, but we did it anyway.”
“What would work?” I press, trying to be casual and completely failing.
“You’ve lived here your whole lives, girls. This was a storm they said would take us all.” Noona snaps her fingers, and there’s a ring of real worry in the noise. In her eyes. “You know no one is as stubborn as those that make their lives from the sea. That is what Silverlight Shore is. We fed the town that day. Everyonewho boarded up their windows, who laid out sandbags and prayed to our God in heaven for mercy. This recipe, the cast iron bread one? It was a pain.” She shakes her head, smiling faintly at the memory. “Your grandmother insisted everyone have a pan of the cast iron bread, said it was a family recipe. She made sure the whole town had enough, in case it was as bad as the weather men were saying.”
“The storm missed Silverlight Shore,” I say slowly, testing the words, thinking it through.
“It might have just been the whims of the sea." Nonna adjusts the heavy gold rings on her fingers, brow furrowed. "You know how hard it is for them to know what will happen, no matter how much science they science and math they math. But your grandmother… she was going to make sure all of us who stayed behind were as well taken care of as we could be.”
Posey pinches the bridge of her nose, and I know were both frustrated about the same thing. This has nothing to do with Watchmere Light, or the ward, or whatever the hell is in the bay.
