The Shoemaker's Wife(10)

Mama smiled. She had grown to appreciate Enza’s wry sense of humor. Her eldest daughter had a mature view of the world, and she was worried that Enza was overly concerned with adult problems.

Enza went to the fire to check the iron kettle suspended on the spit and filled with bubbling hot water, melted down from snow. A second pot, resting on the hearth, filled with clean hot water, was used to rinse the clothes. Enza lifted the pot off the fire and placed it on the floor. She picked up a wooden basket full of nightshirts and placed them into the kettle to soak, added lye, and stirred the laundry with a metal rod, careful not to splash the lye onto her skin. As she stirred, the nightshirts turned bright white.

Enza poured off the excess water into an empty pot and hauled it to the far end of the kitchen, where her father had made a chute in the floor, feeding into a pipe that released water down the mountainside. She wrung the nightshirts by hand and gave them to her mother, who hung them on a rope by the fire, mother and daughter making quick work of a big chore. The lye, sweetened with a few drops of lavender oil, filled the room with the fresh scent of summer.

Giacomina and Enza heard footsteps on the landing. They ran to the door, opening it wide. Marco was on the porch, brushing the snow off his boots.

“Papa! You made it!”

Marco came into the house and embraced Giacomina. “Signor Arduini came for the rent this morning,” she whispered.

“What did you tell him?” Papa lifted Enza off the ground and kissed her.

“I told him to wait and speak to my husband.”

“Did he smile?” Marco asked his wife.

“No.”

“Well, he just did. I stopped at his house and paid him the rent. On time, with thirty-five minutes to spare.”

Enza and Giacomina embraced Marco. “Did you girls think that I would let you down?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Enza said truthfully. “That’s a big mountain and there’s a lot of snow, and we have an old horse. And sometimes, even when you do a good job, passengers only pay the first half of the fare, and you get stuck for the rest.”

Marco laughed. “Not this time.” Papa placed two crisp lire and a small gold coin on the dining table. Enza touched each bill and spun the gold coin, thrilled at the treasure.

Giacomina lifted a warming pan from the hearth filled with her husband’s dinner. She served her husband a casserole of buttery polenta and sweet sausage, and poured him a glass of brandy.

“Where did you take the passenger, Papa?”

“To Domenico Picarazzi, the doctor.”

“I wonder why she needs a doctor.” Giacomina placed a heel of bread next to his plate. “Did she seem ill?”

“No.” Marco sipped his brandy. “But she’s suffering. I think she must have just become a widow. She had just placed her sons in the convent in Vilminore.”

“Poor things,” Giacomina said.

“Don’t think about taking them in, Mina.”

Enza noticed that her father used her mother’s nickname whenever he didn’t want to do something.

“Two boys. Around Enza’s age: ten and eleven.”

Giacomina’s heart broke at the thought of the lonely boys.

“Mama, we can’t take them,” Enza said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s two more children, and God only plans to send you one more.”

Marco laughed as Enza stacked the laundry pots and kettles next to the hearth. She kissed her mother and father goodnight and climbed the ladder up to the loft to sleep.

Enza tiptoed in the dark past the crib where Stella slept and over to her brothers and other sister, who slept on one large straw mattress, their bodies crisscrossed like a basket weave. She found her place on the far side of the bed and lay down to sleep. The sound of the gentle breathing of her brothers and sisters soothed her.

Enza prayed without making the sign of the cross, saying her rosary, or reciting the familiar litanies from vespers in Latin. Instead she called on the angels, thanking them for bringing her father home safely. She imagined her angels looked a lot like the gold-leafed putti holding sheaves of wheat over the tabernacle at the church of Barzesto, with faces that resembled that of her baby sister Stella.

Enza prayed to stay near her mother and father. She wanted to live with them always, and never marry or become a mother herself. She couldn’t imagine ever being that brave, courageous enough to stand away from all she knew to choose something different. She wanted to live in the same village she had been born in, just like her mother. She wanted to hold every baby on the day he was born and bury every old person on the day he died. She wanted to wake up every day to live and work in the shadows of il Pizzo Camino, Corno Stella, and Pizzo dei Tre Signorei, the holy trinity of mountain peaks that she had been in awe of her whole life.

Enza prayed that she could help her mother take care of the children, and maybe one more when God sent him. She hoped the new baby would be a boy, so Battista and Vittorio would feel less outnumbered. She prayed for patience, because babies are a lot of work.

Enza prayed for her father to make enough lire to buy the house, so they wouldn’t have to live in fear of the padrone any longer. When the first of the month arrived, so would Signor Arduini. Enza dreaded it, as there were times when Marco could not pay the rent. So Enza used to imagine her father’s empty pockets filled with gold coins. Her imagination helped her avoid despair; the things that frightened her could be willed away. Enza imagined a satisfactory outcome to every problem, and thus far, the world had obeyed her will. Her family was warm, safe, and fed tonight, the rent was paid, and there was money in the tin box that had been empty for too long.