Sophie went inside with Daisy to collect her mail, thankful that her neighbor didn’t force her to elaborate on her earlier visit to Sophie’s house.
“Is your Thomas going to be staying with you for a while?” Daisy asked when they eventually retired out onto the front porch and both sat on the large white swing. Sophie smiled at Daisy’s turn of phrase. Her Thomas? Thomas didn’t belong to anything much, at the moment, aside from his grief, she thought sadly.
She glanced out at the dock, where Thomas was now kneeling and nodding his head as Sherman gesticulated toward his fishing pole. Obviously it hadn’t taken Thomas long to win over Sherman, as well. Sherman never could resist anyone who would converse with him on his two favorite topics: fishing and golf.
“I expect he’ll stay for a few days at least,” Sophie murmured as they began to sway gently on the porch swing.
“And am I right in calling him ‘your Thomas?’ ”
Sophie blinked and turned to face Daisy, who grinned at her knowingly. Her return smile was a little wistful.
“For a few days, at least,” Sophie repeated before her gaze returned to Thomas, who was now poking his hand in the depths of Sherman’s tackle box while Sherman enthused, undoubtedly about some fish story.
When the two men came up on the front porch later, the first words out of Sherman’s mouth were, “Thomas is going fishing with me tomorrow morning.”
Sophie’s eyebrows went up as she met Thomas’s stare. His only concession to her amused glance was a sparkle in his green eyes and a slight quirk of his lips.
They ended up spending a relaxing hour with the Dolans, sitting on the front porch and sipping sweet tea while Thomas, Sherman, and Daisy reminisced about the Morgan Park/Beverly neighborhood.
On the way home Thomas grasped her hand as they walked next to the gently swaying Queen Anne’s lace and orange tiger lilies that lined the road. She met his eyes and they shared a smile.
“You didn’t have to agree to go fishing with Sherm tomorrow morning. He gets up before dawn, you know. Just an apology would have been sufficient,” Sophie said.
He shrugged. “I wanted to do it. He’s a nice guy. Besides, I’m usually up early.”
At least lately, anyway, Sophie thought to herself as she considered his insomnia.
“You remember a lot about Morgan Park,” she prompted softly, referring to his and the Dolans’ reminiscences about the close-knit, Southside Chicago bordering neighborhoods. Thomas had lived there until his parents’ deaths, when he was ten years old.
“Some,” Thomas murmured as he tracked a huge bumblebee with his eyes as it moved over some honeysuckle.
“And what about your parents?” His head swung around. “Do you remember them very well?” Sophie asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. I remember them.”
For a tense few seconds, Sophie thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he surprised her.
“My mom grew up in Morgan Park, the only daughter of an Irish bricklayer. She met my dad during the Southside Irish parade; he was a rowdy teenager, a first generation Italian who didn’t know what to do when he stood in front of revolving doors for the first time. What he lacked in polish he made up for in street smarts. And in good looks, at least from my mother’s perspective, I’d guess.” He flashed her one of his rare grins and Sophie felt her heart leap in her chest.
“They used to listen to Elvis Presley. I remember my mom would tease my dad, saying that he looked like Elvis. I think there must have been some truth to it, too, because that’s how I remember him—dark, wavy, slicked back hair, dark complexion, a serious expression that completely vanished when he grinned—it was like the sun coming out after a storm.”
Sophie smiled.
“What?”
She shook her head. “If it weren’t for the ‘dark hair’ that would be a pretty good description of you, Thomas.”
He looked a little taken aback by her compliment, but then his grin widened. “Thanks.”
A pang of something powerful went through her when she saw how genuinely pleased he was to be compared to his biological father. Perhaps no one had ever told him that he resembled James Nicasio?
“You’re welcome. Do you have any pictures of your father?”
“I didn’t when I was growing up, but after I left the Navy and came back to Chicago, Rick and I did a little investigative work and were able to unearth a picture of him from an old Teamsters photo.” They paused on the narrow road while Thomas dug his wallet out of the cargo shorts he wore. Sophie couldn’t help thinking that it was odd that the Carlisles hadn’t supplied him with any photos of his parents; that he’d had to go searching for one as an adult.
He removed an aged newspaper clipping from his supple leather wallet and unfolded it, his long, blunt-tipped fingers moving with an agility and tenderness that belied their obvious strength.
Sophie took the piece of paper when he offered it and stared at a black-and-white photo of dozens of men. A man in the front row held a black-and-white sign that proclaimed them the Teamsters Local 126. When Thomas pointed, she drew the paper closer and examined the face of James Nicasio.