Free Restoration: A Novel (Contemporary / Women's Fiction) by Elaine D Walsh

your mind has
retained.”
    “I hated chemistry in school,” Tess grumbled, walking over
to her worktable to grab her overcoat. 
    “Do not fret.  You do not have to master chemistry.  In
Florence, Gisela runs the chemical analysis, but it is good for you to know how
the process works.”
    Francesca slipped her bifocals back on and sifted through
some papers on the corner of her worktable until she noticed Tess hovering by
her.  “Yes, Tess.”
    “I’m just waiting for you to finish up.  I’ll walk with
you to the door.”
    “You go on.  I am a long way from stopping for the day. 
There are project updates and proposals I promised Gianni I would review.”
    She grimaced looking at the papers on Francesca’s desk. 
“I kept you from your work.  Francesca, I am so sorry.”
    “No, do not be sorry.”  Francesca waved a finger at her. 
“I am happy to help you.  You dream of Florence, and someday you will be
there.  When you are, I will smile for you.  Now go.  Rest.”
    Tess’s footsteps echoed through the abandoned studio.  The
only other conservator working had left more than an hour before, and silence
replaced the soft murmuring of a half-dozen conservators toiling patiently over
their projects.  In the dimly lit lobby, she saw Gianni Mazzaro’s closed office
door.  No light shone through the crack at the bottom.  He was gone as well.
    She scanned Sharon’s empty desktop.  Before leaving,
Sharon always cleared it, shoving all papers, notepads, pens, and pencils into
her drawers.  And just as she did every night before she left, Sharon dimmed
the lobby lights and locked the front door so any remaining conservators could
work undisturbed.  To any passerby, Mazzaro Brothers was closed.
    Tess slipped her key in the dead bolt.  Artificial light
illuminated the sidewalk and street.  She hated this time of year when she came
to work in the dark and left in the dark.  Tess pushed open the door.  A whoosh
of cold air pinched her face.  The mercury dipped with the sun.  This was when
she missed her home in Florida.  She wondered how much farther the mercury
would drop by the time Francesca finished her work.
    Shivering, she raised her overcoat’s collar, hoping it
wouldn’t be like this every day; not the cold, but leaving Francesca behind to
wallow through work she’d sacrificed to help  Tess earn an assignment in
Florence.  As she raised the lapels on her jacket and covered her throat with
them, she thought about repaying Francesca in some way.  What could Tess give
her in exchange for knowledge?  Quid pro quo.  She hated feeling indebted. 
    She wished there was something she could teach her mentor,
but there was nothing Francesca could learn from Tess.  Hell, Francesca
couldn’t even learn about Tess’s life.
    She stepped back into the warm lobby, yanked the door
closed and locked it again.  She bustled through the studio’s entrance, her
footsteps moving fast and hard across the wood flooring. 
    Hearing Tess marching in her direction, Francesca looked
up.  “Forget something?” she asked.
    “Yes!”  She was still shivering.  “I forgot to tell you
how Raphael inspired me.”
    Francesca set down her paperwork and rested her hands in
her lap.
    “I forgot to tell you about the exhibit I saw in high
school of artists through the ages who’d painted their interpretations of the
Madonna and Child and the one particular painting Raphael had created.  I
forgot to tell you about the impression that painting had on me, of Mary’s
expression as she gazed upon her child and how I understood in that look how
Raphael had captured love.
    “I forgot to tell you it was the most beautiful expression
I’d ever seen and how I thought what a shame it is for babies to grow up and
lose the mother-infant love Raphael captured on canvas.
    “I forgot to tell you I don’t think mothers outgrow their
love for their children as they grow, at least not most mothers.  But there