“Sí. Un traje con colores brillantes y una chaqueta.”

Now, that I don’t understand. Something with bright colors, did you say?”

“Sí.” Jose stuck his thumbs under his arms and again puffed out his chest. “Jacket of many colors.”

“You get Anna to make it or have it made, and I’ll pay for it. My gift to you.”

“Muchas gracias.” Smiling broadly, Jose left Max’s office, ignored the restaurant, where the painter swabbed paint spills, and hurried down Cove Road to report to his wife the good news about goats, chickens, and his fine new outfit.

41

What About Ben?

Covington delighted him.

At thirteen, Ben’s life had convulsed in pain and changed forever. On a late-fall afternoon, he had returned from school to find the front yard of his home overrun by strangers. The heat of fire, the fire engines, and firemen dashing about confused and terrified him. Someone strong had grabbed him and whisked him away from the billowing smoke of what had been his home. Shocked and numb, hardly able to speak, a grief-stricken, orphaned boy had been transported from his Vermont village to a Boston suburb, to the apartment of his maternal grandparents.

Whether from the shock and horror of that day, the dislocation from country to city, or life with grandparents who never recovered from the loss of their daughter and son-in-law, Ben, a formerly lively and extroverted boy, became an introverted, somber adolescent. He found a sense of comfort and escape only after being given his first computer.

Now, Covington delighted him.

When he crossed the mountain into North Carolina, the lush green mountains reminded him of Vermont, his first home, his veterinarian father, and his warm and loving artist mother. He pulled into the welcome station, sat in his car, and wept. When he grew calmer, Ben Mercer’s heart filled with hope. He had come home, and soon he would be with the woman who had stolen his heart.

Standing on the porch of the farmhouse, he was overcome by a sense of belonging. His eyes traveled from the huge red roses blooming in the garden to the white farmhouses, with their covered porches, that lined the road. They moved on to the small white church with its tall steeple, and on to a sign before a building that said Bella’s Park and gardens that stretched up the hillside.

The man and woman sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of the house across the road reminded him of his grandparents. They had died two years ago, first his grandfather and then his grandmother, leaving him their house on Travis Lane in Concord.