The Shoemaker's Wife(134)

Ciro’s blue-green eyes stood out against the winter sky as Enza looked up at him. She realized she would never really know her husband; she was never sure what his reaction might be. He was a deeply emotional man, and his physical strength was in no way an indication of a strong resolve. He had lost so much in his life that he didn’t know where to put the grief.

Ciro knelt next to her at his father’s grave in the snow and began to cry like a boy of six. Enza leaned down and put her arms around her husband.

“All this time, I hoped it wasn’t true.”

“You had to hope,” Enza said. “I would have.”

“All my life I was told that I look like him and think like him—” Ciro’s voice broke. “But I never knew him. I can remember small things about him, but I don’t know if those are really my memories, or if Eduardo had told me the stories so often that I claimed them as my own. You would think a grown man wouldn’t need his father or have to hold on to the idea of him. I know it was silly for me to pretend that my father might still be alive, but I wanted him to be. I needed him to be. To admit that he’ll never see the man I’ve become or meet my wife or children . . . it’s almost too much to bear.”

Enza took a piece of pattern paper and a pencil out of her pocket. Asking Ciro to hold the paper against the stone, she rubbed the pencil against the engraving on the granite. Slowly, her father-in-law’s name and years of birth and death appeared on the sheer white paper, a palimpsest, proof that he had received a proper burial. She folded the paper neatly in her pocket, then helped her husband stand. “Let’s go home,” she said.

They walked out of the cemetery and closed the gate. As they made their way back to West Lake Street, they clung together against the bitter winter wind. If a stranger had seen them walk past on that Christmas morning, he would find it hard to tell if the husband was holding up his wife, or if she was shoring him up.

Enza worried Pappina would go into labor and have the baby before Enza could arrive to help her. So Luigi paid a runner in advance to take the trolley from Hibbing to Chisholm at the first sign of labor, to let Enza know that it was time.

For the two weeks prior to Pappina’s due date, not a flake of snow fell on the Iron Range. Though twenty-foot drifts remained from the January snows, the roads were icy, and the temperatures freezing, as long as the trolley tracks remained clear, Enza could be at Pappina’s side in minutes.

Enza had helped her mother and the midwife in Schilpario when Stella was born. Enza hadn’t been allowed to be with her mother for the birth of any of the other children, but by the time Stella came into their lives, Enza was like a second mother to her brothers and sisters. She helped with the wash, the meals, and taught them how to read. Giacomina was so confident in Enza’s abilities that she allowed her to watch the children when she left the house to run errands, or go up the mountain trails to gather herbs.

Giacomina had barely whimpered when Stella was born. In fact, Enza remembered that the room had been quiet and dark, and there was almost a sense of reverence to the way in which the baby slipped from her mother and into the arms of the midwife like a bouquet of flowers.

Enza held Pappina’s hand as she hollered and struggled throughout her long labor, until the moment her son appeared, perfect, long, and squawking. The nurses in the Hibbing Hospital were accommodating, so Pappina was able to recover over the course of several days before going home to the apartment Enza had prepared for her.

Enza fell into the familiar routine of a new baby in the house. She set up the layette, made sure that Luigi had regular meals, kept up with the laundry, bathed and washed Pappina’s hair, and made sure everything in the apartment was tidy. She made a large pot of soup, with tomatoes, root vegetables, orzo, and broth, that would help Pappina regain her strength. Enza felt a rush of giddiness, imagining that Pappina would do the same for her someday.

Enza took the trolley home to Chisholm after five days at Pappina’s side. She smiled as she looked out the window, remembering that nothing made a woman more bone-tired than looking after a baby.

She pushed the shop door open and smiled. Ciro looked up and placed his lathe on the table. “How is young John Latini?”

“Almost ten pounds, and I have the sore neck to prove it.” Enza laughed.

“A Valentine’s Day baby.” Ciro beamed.

“You should take the trolley over to see them.” Enza turned to go upstairs, then remembered she had a message to deliver, “Luigi said to tell you that the baby had a small nose. He said you would understand.”

“Va bene,” Ciro said, bursting into laughter at the private joke.

“He’s a healthy boy, small nose or not,” Enza assured him.

“All that milk she drank was worth it.”

“We’d better buy a cow,” Enza said.

“Where would we put a cow? That patch of ground in the back will yield some tomatoes, and that’s about it.”

“It could be a small cow,” Enza said softly, placing her hands on her hips and then the small of her back.

“Are you—” Ciro looked Enza up and down, in search of the lush fullness a woman carrying a baby would most certainly possess. She was as beautiful as ever; only her hand on her waist indicated a change.

Enza nodded that she was expecting a baby.

A honeymoon baby.