Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 86

Adventures In Speech Production (and other kid-ness)

Sunday morning, exhausted after weeks of sick kids and bad nights, we decided…gasp!…to sleep in and go to late Mass. So 8:45 a.m found me on the Nordic Track, attempting to multi-task the time as brain-quiet time. I knew better, of course. Julianna stepped lightly into the room in her white-and-purple dress, her boots on the wrong feet, carrying a book, and held it out to me. “Wee boh?”

“Book,” I corrected.

“Bo-koh.”

“When I’m finished exercising. But it’s going to be half an hour.”

She stood and watched me for a minute, then let out a long stream of jibberish I couldn’t follow. But I caught the words “wa bee bah,” which is watch baby signing times, which is code for “I want a video.” The rest, however, completely escaped me.

She kept repeating that “rest,” however, for the next six hours. Clearly she was trying to communicate something, but “Pee-poh Jah-yu-yigh” did not ring any bells. “People?” I kept asking, and she’d shake her head.

In the afternoon Alex and I went out for a while, and when we came home, among the madhouse that met me at the door was Julianna carrying this:

Christian gave me a wry grin. “That’s what she wants for a movie today,” he said, and Julianna said happily, “Pee-poh Jah-yu-yigh!”

Purple Jazzercise.

(Disclaimer 1: this video was a gift.

Disclaimer 2: there is nothing “burlesque” about this DVD except their annoying tendency to say that every body part is “sexy.” Last week while I was snowed in, the kids alternately watched and danced with me to this and my other workout DVD.)

This reminds me of the last time Julianna desperately wanted to communicate something to me. Another stream of unintelligibility she kept repeating for hours as I wracked my brain and came up with nothing. “Yi-yi wah-oh.” Finally she signed “pool,” and I caught it: swimming lessons.

They weren’t sure their IQ tests were quite accurate this year when they did the re-eval, because she can’t talk. Until now, she’s been pretty easy-going and didn’t have a lot of trouble communicating, because her desires were pretty basic. Now, however, she really wants to talk, and does. It’s a good thing, but hoo-boy, it’s a brain stretcher!

Now, on to the “other random kid-ness” I indicated in the title:

Item 1: Apparently from here on out, thunder snow is the norm for mid-Missouri.

Item 2: What with President’s Day, an intestinal virus, and eleven inches of snow, Alex and Nicholas went to school one day last week; Julianna went two. Our street never did get properly cleared, and now we have another several inches dumping on us again…and another snow day.

Item 3: After last week’s lackadaisical attitude toward closures caused havoc on local streets, everyone is gunshy, and the entire city has closed down: busses, schools, universities….doctors’ offices…

Item 4: Which means it is time for Nicholas to wake up crying at 5:30 a.m. after three days of runny nose…because his ear hurts.

You’ve met a character named Murphy, haven’t you?

How Do You Power Down Your Brain?

Spiralstorm (Photo credit: Stuck in Customs)

I’ve said before that I’m obsessed with sleep. This is because i don’t get enough of it, though not for lack of trying. I go to bed at 9:30, I take naps during the day when it gets bad…but I don’t sleep well. In these latter days, I can blame it on kids (last night’s count: Nicholas, 4; Michael, 1; total 5), but the truth is I never have slept well. When I was a kid I used to have long discussions with God, my head wedged up against the screen so I could see as much of the sky above the north pond as possible.

I don’t know if it’s a gift of nature or a learned skill, but my brain just won’t shut down. Ever. In many ways this is a benefit to my crazy lifestyle; my mind is always working in the background–not efficiently, of course, while I’m making grocery lists, cooking dinner or waiting for a child to turn a page–but nonetheless, the gears are always spinning. When I have a moment to work, I’m rarely starting from zero.

But the down side is this constant sense of urgency. I seem to have lost the ability to stop thinking. And so I’m not really living in the moment.

It came home to me this weekend when my sister visited. She loves little kids. She’s so good with them, too. Nicholas lights up whenever she arrives. He’d play with her for hours, and she’d oblige–happily. But me? Well, this weekend we were at last pulling clear of the Infinite Intestinal Virus. In other words: there was a LOT of cleaning to do. And I had this conference call for our Down Syndrome group, so I spent the first two hours of the visit closeted in my room, folding laundry and making beds while I listened to the discussion. (In case you’re wondering, my sister did know before she came that I had to do this call, and how long it would take. I’m not that much of a jerk.)

Later, I watched her play with Nicholas, the two of them obviously enjoying each other. And then it was nap time, and I groused about having to take the time to put them to bed. I had kite string to untangle, and I wanted that job instead, because that I could do while chatting with my sister.

It wasn’t until late that night that all the pieces clicked. Michael was lying across the Boppy, playing with me in between nuzzling the breast. You can’t really call it nursing anymore; he just wants to cuddle. He likes the one-on-one time with Mommy, and he doesn’t want me multitasking. Even my neck stretches sometimes raise objections. He wants me to play with his hand, tickle his ribs, and trade silly proto-words with him.

For once, I was doing it. No reading Thomas Merton, no reading Eragon to Alex, no brainstorming or making mental lists. I was simply there.

And it was fun.

This Lent I’ve been Powering Down along with my critique partner and blog friend Amy. It’s been very good for my writing: closing Gmail, closing Facebook, turning off the internet altogether if the temptation grows too strong. My fiction productivity has soared, and I fully expect this week, when I’m on deadlines, that it’ll serve the nonfiction side of things equally well.

The part I haven’t figured out is the personal powering down. The part where I nourish my family and spousal relationships, and my soul. I can’t simply stop doing everything else. I’ve tried cutting back, doing less work-related stuff, passing off volunteer commitments to others in the local organizations, but somehow the monologue inside my head doesn’t seem to diminish. When I’m with my kids I’m always thinking about how much I still have to do. And not just “me” things, either; some of it is about responsibilities to them. Grr! I still haven’t done homework with Julianna! We’ve got to be better about that! She needs our help to excel! Man! I still haven’t helped the kids finish their dream catchers. Oh, crap! I promised I’d listen to Alex play his festival pieces!

But I can’t turn off Michael, either. He’s always clinging to my leg, wailing if I put him down because I need both hands to use the salt grinder or carry plates with food. (Because I know what will happen if I try to carry him AND the food; he’ll simply smack it and the food will be on the floor.)

This is life with four kids close together.  There’s so much to do, I’ve placed my top priority on multitasking to try to get through as much as possible. But what am I giving up, with my brain powering through every day, all day, and every night, all night? I even struggle when I wake up to use the bathroom, to force it not to start up again.

The answer is: I’m giving up Presence. Presence in my own life.

It’s not an acceptable trade. There’s all the platitudes about kids growing up fast and regretting what you didn’t take time for…but there’s also the part where their overarching memory is of a mom who was never really fully present to them. They are so important to me. It’s time to act that way.

So although I don’t yet know how–the busyness isn’t going anywhere–I now at least know what I need to do. I have to learn to Power Down my brain.

Related articles

Power Down (kathleenbasi.com)

Sunday Snippets

I’m up late tonight after interviewing The Catholics Next Door, Greg & Jennifer Willits, for a feature in CCL’S Family Foundations, so I’m going to go ahead and link up now so I can sleep in tomorrow morning. (Hey, I can dream, right?) Join us over at RAnn’s This, That & The Other Thing for Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival.

We were all sick this week, so your choices for topic are Sick, Sick, and Sick. Oh, and a missing devotional book:

Free Write (read at your own risk)

Too Polite For His Own Good

Quick Takes on the subject of snow, Alex, and tuna.

One of these days, I promise, I’ll start writing thoughtful posts again. For now, I’m just on survival mode. Maybe that’s what I’m doing for Lent?

Truly Random QTs For A Change

___1___

We’re snowed in today–and yesterday–and although I don’t like being snowed in, I am profoundly grateful for the precipitation we so desperately need. Christian took a ruler outside last night and measured 9 1/2 inches. Those of you who live where snow is commonplace will most likely roll your eyes, but we don’t have the equipment or manpower to handle that amount of snowfall here; we just don’t get much snow. So naturally, the city is crippled. I’m not sure why so many people were out in it–maybe it was all university traffic–but for some reason traffic was backed up for hours all over town. And when I say hours, I mean my critique partner took three hours to drive four miles, and one of my husband’s coworkers spent five hours driving six miles.

___2___

We went outside for a while yesterday morning, but the lightning and thunder did in any attempt to get Julianna to go down the hill on the sled after her first run. Yes, I did say lightning and thunder. Lightning, thunder, and very heavy snowfall. So heavy I shoveled half the driveway and two hours later you couldn’t tell what had been done and what hadn’t.

___3___

Another face of winter in Missouri. This one was mid-January.

Alex has been home now for three days, since he got sick on Tuesday night and missed school Wednesday as well. And he was off Monday for Presidents’ Day. He played almost a full game of Monopoly. With himself. Well, he began it with the sitter who came while I took Julianna to the doctor, continued playing the Invisible Person (he came up with that, not me), and then Nicholas jumped in and out of the game a few times. My Facebook status Wednesday afternoon:

Alex is cracking me up. The sitter was playing Monopoly with him while she waited for her dad, and now that she’s gone, he’s playing “the invisible man.” “Mommy, what does ‘received for services $50′ mean?” he asked.

“It means you did something for the bank, and now the bank is going to pay you for it.”

Slumping: “Aw, DANG it! That’s for the OTHER person!”

But since I began typing, he has bought Boardwalk, for which he was saving, so I guess he’s fine.

___4___

Last night he was sitting on top of the kitchen heater vent, saying, “Oh, man, this feels so good!” It reminded me that when I was a kid, I used to hate getting dressed in the winter. My room was so cold. We had vents that were vertical in the wall rather than the floor vents of modern construction, and I would take my clothes for the day and pile them up in front of it. Then I’d sit on the floor in front of the heater wearing my nightgown and a robe and I’d dress in stages, starting with whatever had picked up the most radiant heat.

So in adulthood  I find myself quite befuddled to see my boys run around the house completely, totally buck naked for half an hour while they are told over and over to GET DRESSED. I simply don’t get it.

___5___

And now, since we’re finishing the first full week of Lent, you need a tuna story, right?

My mother taught me to make tuna salad with hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, celery and onion. Christian’s mother taught him to make tuna salad by mixing sweet pickle relish into a can of tuna. Although in many cases we have learned to respect and honor each others’ family traditions, this is one area on which we cannot find common ground. The smell of Christian’s tuna salad brought me closer to vomiting in pregnancy than I had ever been. I had to flee upstairs and shout down to him to WASH THAT STUFF UP BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE. My stomach is turning right now just thinking about it.

So last Friday, when Alex came downstairs while Christian was making his lunch and smelled that…ahem…food…under preparation, a completely revolted expression took up residence on his face. “What is THAT?” he demanded, holding his nose.

Yes, he is my child, thank you very much.

___6___

I had a short story accepted to The Storyteller this week. I’ve been doing so much fiction work lately, I’m starting to get the uncomfortable sensation that I’m missing some assignment somewhere….but I have deadlines next week, and more coming in April, so I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

___7___

Because I need a #7, I’ll show you a picture I took a few weeks ago and haven’t found a use for. We have a hawk living in our little strip of woods behind the house, and some mornings it perches for half an hour on an arched branch facing eastward, as if it’s watching the sunrise. The morning I managed to capture it, it had chosen a different branch, higher up, but nonetheless:

Something about that sight just calms my heart. Brings me nearer a sense of holiness than anything else has in the middle of these last, crazed weeks overrun with sickness and frustration. I hope it blesses your weekend, too.

Too Polite For His Own Good

On the floor at Christmas, NOT because he was sick

The fun continues. Having figured out at last what was troubling Michael, we’ve progressed from ear infections and skin rashes to gastro-intestinal viruses in varying intensities. So far the only holdouts are Daddy and Julianna.

The little boys, naturally, milked it for all it was worth. At bedtime last night, Nicholas alternated between throwing up and wailing while Michael stood two feet away, planted his feet on the tile and screamed outrage that Mommy would dare ignore him in favor of someone else. “You are not the most important child right now!” I shouted (not in anger, but simply to be heard). I had to send Alex to the basement to pull Daddy from a lesson to take Michael.

I’m so accustomed to drama surrounding illness that when we heard feet stepping from bedroom to bathroom at 9p.m., I shrugged and ignored it, assuming Alex was going to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I heard a polite voice over the stairs: “Mommy, I threw up.”

Alex sounded so matter-of-fact, so calm. I was putting away my scrapbooking stuff, and I didn’t see any reason to drop everything. After all, Alex is old enough to get to the toilet, and he sounded like he felt better now. “Is it okay if I finish putting things away before I come up? Do you need me right this minute?”

“Well…I guess not.”

“Okay, I’ll be up in a minute.” I threw away the paper scraps and stacked the books and half-finished pages, then clarified, “You did get it all in the toilet, right? Not on the floor?”

“Well, no.”

“It’s on the bathroom floor?”

“No, my room.”

Ahem: his room, in case you’re wondering, is CARPETED.

I’ll spare you the details. There actually is a point to this story.

Alex sat on the floor looking guilty (I thought) as I gagged my way through cleanup…bear in mind my stomach is none too sturdy at present either…and I scolded and scolded him. After fifteen or twenty minutes, he went back in the bathroom and sat miserably on the toilet lid. Christian came up and attacked the smell with vacuum cleaner and Resolve and baking soda and Febreeze. I made some baking soda water for Alex to gargle with, and he listlessly did so. And only then did I realize my darling firstborn son was still feeling terrible. It’s just that the  plethora of screaming, whining, clinging and wailing from his younger siblings is not his style. He’s so polite. So thoughtful. And he felt so guilty already for making the mess, he didn’t want to put any more demands on me.

Oh, how I love this boy.

I put him to bed on the floor with whatever blankets we could scrounge up: a baby blanket, his Santa Claus Snuggie, and Julianna’s fuzzy robe for extra insulation. “How’s that?” I asked.

“It’s okay, I guess.”

I went into my room and started to get into bed. Then, “Christian, you don’t really need that extra blanket you use, do you?”

“Oh, I suppose not.”

I took it in to Alex. “Do you need one more?”

He took so long to reply, I thought he was asleep already. “It would help,” he admitted.

I folded the blanket in half and put it over him. “I’m sorry I was scolding you,” I said. “You’re so polite about it, I didn’t realize you were still feeling bad.”

He put his arms up and gave me a hug, and I retreated, at last, to my room.

“God,” I said at prayer time, “I’m going to stop asking you for everyone to feel better, because your answer sucks.”

Christian just laughed.

Something is Not Quite Right

Something is not quite right in my nursing corner. Something is missing.

There’s the Bible, and Thomas Merton, my back pillow, my Boppy and my Medela nursing stool…but something is missing. Where is my daily devotional book? It’s not on the floor behind the chair, under the chair, under the stool or the Boppy or the night table or the bed. It’s not hidden in a pile of kids’ books that migrates in at story time and never seems to get put away. It’s not in the pile of stuff taken out of Michael’s hands and placed on the dresser to keep it out of his reach.

Where, oh where is my daily devotional book?

Oh, there it is!

Apparently some little munchkin didn’t learn his lesson the last time he pulled the jewelry armoire down on himself. :/

(Oh, yes: in case you were wondering, it was missing for nearly two weeks.)

Free Write

For weeks, the only time he’s been happy is in the tub.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Michael has spiraled downward, steadily but surely, in his crankiness, plateauing at a point where, for over a week, he was happy with no one, but was least unhappy when he was writhing on my lap yelling at me. In the absence of that privilege, he screamed. He’s teething–one molar poking a sharp point through his upper gum, and hard swellings in the other three comparable places–and his nose has been running for weeks and weeks and weeks…and weeks. Six weeks ago or so, I took him to the doctor because he developed a fever, and he was diagnosed with no ear infection, but a sinusitis. We put him through a round of amoxicillin and got one day’s dry nose out of it; then it started again. I threw my hands up in the air and tried to tell myself it’s his second winter, with three big siblings at three different schools bringing home three different kinds of bugs, and after this year it should all be better.

Put a camera in front of him, and he’s all love. And you can see the beginnings of Julianna’s rash…

In the meantime, Nicholas has developed a new reaction to being crossed: ear-splitting shrieks that continue as long as the provocation continues, and for some time thereafter. You can’t even get him to shut up long enough to find out what’s wrong and whose fault it is (the answer, of course, is usually “both”). Michael’s developed a habit of hitting, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s with the hand or some hard wooden toy–the level of trauma to the victim is the same….at least, if you judge by the reaction. Toy conflicts and not getting his way in pretend play with Alex? Dittos.

Then of course, Julianna’s developed a mystery rash on her face, which looks…well…let’s just say as I type, I’m also dialing and redialing the doctor’s office.

So as the weeks have gone on, my nerves have gotten more and more frayed, my fuse shorter and shorter. Christian got irritated with me for losing it so completely so quickly, and then we had the whole “BUT I DON’T EVER, EVER GET A BREAK FROM THIS, YOU AT LEAST GET TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE”/”BUT I HAVE DIFFERENT STRESSES AT WORK” argument. And then an old acquaintance lost a baby, and I felt guilty for my profound ingratitude.

Handprints where Michael finishes his morning nursing every day by staring out at the woods. That’s a cute moment if there ever was one.

I wince at sharing it all on my public forums (Facebook and the blog), because I’m keenly aware that among my acquaintance and loved ones are not only those who empathize, but those for whom these sorts of stories are the stuff of nightmares, that make them determined NEVER TO HAVE KIDS. Or at least, so my paranoia tells me. And I feel obligated to focus on the cute, the bright, the lovey-dovey, for the sake of that demographic.

But then another part of me thinks that if all we do publicly is make believe that the whole parenthood experience is rainbows and unicorns, then we’re doing an equal disservice to that same demographic.  And when they reach this point, they’ll feel betrayed, and failures.

And of course, Lent started last week. We’re supposed to be reflecting and doing activities to break open the themes of Lent. Easter Tree, a slowdown of craziness, a simplification and a return to focusing on what’s most important. Instead, I’m floundering, dog-paddling, running on emergency batteries and still barely staying afloat. I intended to go to Julianna’s Valentine party because I missed her Christmas one; instead, Michael didn’t sleep that morning, and I had to stay home so he’d get a nap during the party.

It all climaxed on Saturday, when Michael finally developed the fever that made me realize this wasn’t a teething problem–but not until both the doctors offices and Urgent Care had closed for the night. Rather than an ER trip for an ear infection, we decided to push through the night on painkillers and hit urgent care first thing Sunday morning. It was a miserable night for the adults and the baby, of course–perhaps the just rewards of being a cheapskate–and then, of course, the only pharmacy open Sunday morning is the one that DOESN’T take our insurance plan, so I couldn’t even fill it until after church.

However, there is hope in this long “bleeding onto the page.” After the first dose of antibiotic, Michael took a 3 1/2 hour nap, which allowed Christian to get some work done at home and me to take Alex out on a “date” to the pottery painting place. And a bike ride. Dinner was not a panic-inducing screaming match in which the baby turned his nose up at ten different options; he actually ate and drank, and I felt sufficiently rejuvenated to actually pull out Welcome Risen Jesus and do a devotional with the kids as part of our mealtime prayer. The mail this weekend helped, too: I got an acceptance on a short story.

Well, I’ve wandered aimlessly past 850 words this morning, so I can’t go on any longer. I haven’t even showered, and I have lessons and play dates and doctor appointments today, not to mention the usual business of writing projects and housekeeping. (Not sure how much I’m going to accomplish on that today, with all four kids at home.) Onward and upward. Hope the pictures, all of them taken during the Hell Weeks, make up for the depressing topic. Maybe someday all I’ll remember is that…but I hope I don’t ever succumb to that oversentimentalization. Sometimes it sucks. But love remains. That’s the important truth of family.

Sunday Snippets

Joining you bleary-eyed after a white night with a child who, we finally decided forty minutes after urgent care closed, probably has a bad ear infection…time marches on, and we’re getting together at RAnn’s place for Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival.

My offerings this week are on…

…thoughts on Julianna’s kindergarten re-eval

…a book announcement, along with the usual chaos that accompanies ev.er.y.thing that happens in this house

…a short fiction work on the power of smell and memory

…and of course, Lent

Lenten Reflections (A 7QT Post)

___1___

I’m not a very good Catholic blogger this week. It’s Lent and I haven’t even acknowledged it. Well, we’ll fix that today.

___2___

Does it bother you every year that the Gospel on Ash Wed says “take care not to perform righteous deeds for other to see,” and we immediately follow it up by getting big honking ashes on our foreheads to show off all day?

___3___

This brings up a pretty big topic, actually: how does one weigh the balance between evangelizing, whether by silent sacramentals or by overt speech and actions, and Jesus’ aforementioned admonition to do your good deeds in private? I mean, most evangelization by words, outside church at least, ends up pushing people away rather than drawing them in. And yet Jesus also says “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Can’t do that without a little overt religious display. The whole thing seems like a conundrum to me.

___4___

Fasting was really hard this Ash Wednesday. I mean, I haven’t really had to do it in quite a while. Pregnancy and breastfeeding excuses a lot of fasting when your kids are as close together as mine! I’ve always tried to do something, but this year it’s time to do it for real. Only…what is considered a fast when you’ve already cut 15-20% of your caloric intake for weight loss? I decided to try to keep the count under 1200 instead of 1600. I managed it, but…I confess that I had half a graham cracker for a snack, because hunger was morphing into a blood sugar imbalance.

___5___

Leave the TaxCut software out of it, and this is pretty much me this week. (Photo by

This is one of those Lents that I just wasn’t–still am not–prepared for. In the last three days before Ash Wednesday, I came up with half a dozen really hard spiritual disciplines for Lent. Each of them seems as necessary as the next….because each of them arose from its own unique moment of deep, unpleasant self-recognition. They’re all things I need to address to become a better reflection of God in the world. But I know I can’t do them all. I’ll self-destruct and end up even farther away. I’m still trying to work out how to honor all that self-revelation at once.

___6___

Which makes it hard for me to to start doing Lenten activities with the kids. My own journey seems overwhelming at the moment.

___7___

This looks like a nice countdown for a Lenten activity to use with kids, don’t you think? Maybe something like this is just what I need this year…. :/

Bonus: a morning add-on. When I was leading music for Life Teen at our local Newman Center, oh, twelve-thirteen years ago, there were two brothers named Ike and Kemi who were just rock-my-world awesome people. Beyond high school they’ve gone on to become Life Teen musicians–Ike with his own band, Kemi with Matt Maher. Last night on FB we got word that Kemi’s wife had delivered their baby at 23 weeks. They had three hours with her. Donations are being accepted here to help with hospital/funeral costs.

Fiction: Smell/Elixer

Those two words are Write At the Merge’s prompt for this week. For a change I knew exactly where I wanted to take this one: back to Carlo & Alison.

*

Photo by Luke Stearns, via Flickr

Alison and her husband sat in the basement, sorting the overflow of three decades. They worked quietly. The weight of a thousand unspoken hurts piled between them, utterly transparent, utterly insurmountable. She wished for music, for talk radio– anything to keep her mind from dancing ever closer to the conclusion that her marriage was over, and had been for years before she realized it.

Amid the piles of memorabilia and forgotten holiday decor, the past seemed very near. It began with news clippings about prizewinning wines and tiptoed backward: Jeremy’s fatigues, the box of personal belongings that had accompanied his body home. She still wasn’t ready to open it. Instead, she shoved it aside and reached into a deep crevasse the box’s removal had revealed. Her palm brushed against rough wood. She pulled the box out, and her hands stilled. “Carlo,” she said softly. “Look at this.”

He turned. She slid the lid off the top. Inside a single bottle of wine nested in shredded newspaper. Its handwritten label proclaimed Everlasting Love, 1973. “Is that…?” His voice was tinged with awe.

“I think it is,” she whispered. “I thought they were all gone.”

He took the box from her and lifted the bottle. They had made this wine together, from start to finish, in the first year of their marriage, back when they still lived in New York, when life was lived hand to mouth and James Summerhill hadn’t yet begun to think about finding a partner in a winemaking venture.

“Do you remember the nights we spent in the basement, babysitting this vintage?” he asked.

The smile opened every vein in her body, flooding them with heat. There had been much more than babysitting wines to that week. She could smell it now, that distinctive combination of yeast and grape and basement and desire. “I remember.” She brushed at his hair. “Your hair was black as night. And your eyes…” She swallowed. “It was like they saw right through me.”

Carlo took her hand. It felt warm. Strong. She had forgotten how much she liked holding his hand. “We were good together in those days,” he murmured.

How was it possible for memory to recreate a smell so perfectly? The desire in his eyes set her nerves to singing. Five minutes ago she’d been contemplating the end, and now… She dropped her gaze and saw something that made her gasp. “Oh, Carlo.” She touched the crumbling cork, which had begun to darken as wine soaked through it, allowing the aroma to swirl around them in bewitching tendrils.

Carlo surveyed the age-damaged seal, and a tiny, mysterious smile played on his lips. “Well, there’s only one thing to do now,” he said. Taking her by the hand, he led her out of the room, to the bar in the main part of the basement, and pulled down two glasses.