“Oh, my mother’s doing fine with it,” laughed Sheila. “It’s my father who’s really nervous. I keep telling him not to worry, but he won’t listen. How about your parents?”

“Sort of the same, but just the opposite,” he told her, rolling his eyes. “My mother’s been making buttons ever since I started talking about going to Italy. If I even bring up the subject, she goes into convulsions.”

“Hey, don’t make fun of her,” said Sheila, giving him a nudge. “She’s just worried about her little boy.”

The two of them laughed, but something in Sheila’s eyes told Carter that she was worried about him, as well. He would never have admitted as much, but for reasons even he did not quite understand, somehow this pleased him.

“So, how about your father?” Sheila asked. “Is he worried, too?”

“Ayyy, you know my father,” jested Carter. “He just told me to go and get it out of my system so I can come home and get a real job instead of swinging a hammer.”

Sheila gave a little smile and raised her bottle to her lips.

“What is it that he thinks you need to get out of your system?” she asked, giving him a sideways glance before taking a sip.

“Who knows,” said Carter with a shrug, even though he had understood his father’s meaning perfectly. Something in Sheila’s tranquil gaze led him to believe that she had understood him equally as well.This caused him a moment’s unease, as he was quite certain that she was about to press him further on the subject. Instead, to his relief, she suddenly looked down and reached into the paper bag.

“Almost forgot, I brought you something else,” she said, pulling from the bag a small, thin package wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with red, white, and green ribbon. She handed it to Carter.

“What’s all this?” he said.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied softly, “just a little going-away present.”

“But I’m not going away for another couple of weeks.”

“I know,” Sheila answered, her eyes growing a bit sad, “but you see, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Carter. “So soon?”

“I’ll have a lot to do when I get there,” said Sheila with a shrug.