The Family(47)

“You can do it, you know,” says Antonia. A small flame of fear singes the inside of her chest. If Sofia is afraid, Antonia is afraid.

“Tonia, I’m not sure—I’m not sure I want to.” How astounding, Sofia thinks. To hear it echo in the room, like a gunshot.

Antonia does not tell Sofia, well, it’s a little too late for that. Instead, she catches Sofia’s hand in hers. “I want our babies to be like us,” she says. “I want them to grow up together. I want them to have each other.” She does not know what it is like to be scared of motherhood but fear itself is familiar to Antonia, who recognizes in quaking Sofia the silence that comes before either revolution or resignation. She has heard stories of women who leave their babies for Broadway or for Greyhound buses, women who do unspeakable things to avoid bringing their families shame. Antonia pictures herself, fifteen years older, burdened by children’s bodies and Paolo’s ironing and weighted down by the love of family, and she shivers at the possibility of Sofia not being there. Want this, she imagines screaming at Sofia. Please want this with me.

Sofia sees the narrowing light of her life, beckoning from the end of a long corridor. She looks at Antonia. If you can see me, I must be here.

You can do anything if you decide to want it, Antonia does not tell her.





BOOK FOUR



1942–1947





As summer turns hot, deadly hot, and the asphalt softens and the buildings collect the sun so even through the night they radiate a thick warmth, Sofia and Antonia grow their babies and sweat rivers down their spines, in between their breasts. Antonia walks with a hand to her low back but Sofia refuses, standing up straight, as dignified as she can manage. They spend every moment together, like they did when they were children, only now they spend their days draped over furniture at one of their apartments, laughing as Saul and Paolo try to put together cribs. When Paolo and Saul take their hands from the fragile bassinette frame in Antonia’s bedroom, the whole thing crumples to the ground. Paolo hops on one foot, swearing. Saul melts into a frustrated puddle and Sofia and Antonia weep with laughter. They feel each other’s babies kicking. They tell each other secrets.

The raging war reminds them that they are impermanent, they are fragile, they are balancing on the surface tension of a giant ocean of catastrophe. The sky bends and contracts with madness. They feel desperately out of control. They cling to one another for balance, for reassurance. They all feel the weight of having been entrusted with something sacred, and the necessity of staying close together. They hold hands as they listen to the radio. They worry if they don’t hear from one another for more than a day. They deliver bread and wine to one another’s apartments, tracing well-worn paths along the blocks between their homes; the neighborhood becomes a map of their family. As they walk, they can picture themselves in relation to the others at every moment.

They trade weathered and folded recipes, briefcases, hairbrushes, casserole dishes, dog-eared paperbacks, wedding linens, loose change, throw pillows. The more of themselves they can leave with the others, the more real they all feel.

There is a time when the summer sun is at its peak where Antonia, Sofia, Saul, and Paolo seem to live in two apartments each: their belongings scattered evenly, their sleep interrupted often by the ring of buzzer or trill of telephone.



* * *



—

At night Antonia promises with a hand on her stomach that she will do a better job than her mamma did. I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of you, she repeats as she falls asleep. Antonia makes lists. Glass bottles, stacked diapers, fresh knit hats in a row. A memory that is all sensation, all wordlessness, of Lina cradling her on the couch when she was a baby. I’ll take care of all of us.

With her hands pressed to the cool brick at the head of the bed she shares with Saul, Sofia feels the same as she did when she was six, when she was eleven. She lets fear make a home in her throat, in her chest. It steals her air and chokes her. I can’t even take care of myself, she prays. In response, the animal in her belly presses against her lungs.



* * *



—

Sofia wakes in the middle of the night. There is a low ache in her back that pulses in time with her breath. It rises and falls, spreading out across her hip bones and then receding to a bright point at the base of her spine.

She watches the long summer sun rise and glow against the morning clouds. The room around her is painted with shadows. The pain grows. It stretches its arms around her belly and it holds her so she twists the bedsheet between her hands. She breathes. The pain crawls up her spine, around her hips, locks the bottom of her rib cage in its fierce hands. Exhale. The pain fades. The blood pumps in her fingers and face. Sofia, lover of big feelings, is not surprised by the beast of labor. She feels herself swell toward the dawn and then away. Sofia is made of a roaring heat. She breathes the sun over the horizon. And then she wakes Saul. “It’s time,” she tells him.



* * *



—

In a private room at the hospital, Sofia wishes she could have brought Antonia with her. She wishes she could smell her mamma’s hair. She wishes she could kneel on the roof of her apartment building and howl. The room is all spinning figures in white, all stainless steel and well-intentioned bustle. Sofia feels small.