The Shoemaker's Wife(17)
Enza hoped the moon was a sign that the angels were present, hovering over Stella, ambivalent about whether to take her sister’s soul or leave her behind on earth. Enza kneeled at the head of the bed, wove her fingers together, closed her eyes, and prayed. Certainly the angels would hear her and let her sister stay on the mountain. She wished she could shoo the angel of death away like a fat winter fly.
Marco and Giacomina sat on either side of Stella’s makeshift bed in the main room, never taking their eyes from their daughter. The boys, unable to sit still, stayed busy doing chores. Battista, tall and lean, stooped over and stoked the fire, while Vittorio hauled the wood. Eliana and Alma sat in the corner, knees to their chests, watching, hoping.
The local priest, Don Federico Martinelli, was an old man. He had no hair and a long face whose expression did little to comfort them. He knelt at the foot of Stella’s bed through the night, praying the rosary. The soft drone of his voice did not waver as he pinched his shiny green beads one after the other, kissing the soft silver cross, and beginning the Hail Marys anew as the hours passed.
Marco had gone to Signor Arduini as Stella grew weaker, begging for any help he might provide. Signor Arduini sent for the doctor in Lizzola, who came quickly by horse. The doctor examined Stella, gave her medicine for fever, spoke with Marco and Giacomina, and promised to return in the morning.
Enza tried to read the doctor’s face as he whispered with her parents, but he gave no indication what the outcome would be. There appeared to be no urgency, but Enza knew that didn’t mean anything. Doctors are like priests, she knew. Whether it’s an affliction of the body or the soul, there is little that surprises them, and they rarely, if ever, show what they are thinking.
Enza grabbed the doctor’s arm as he went through the door. He turned to look at her, but she could not speak. He nodded kindly and went outside.
Enza peered out into the night through the window slats, certain that if Stella made it until sunrise, she would live; the doctor would return as promised, declare a miracle, and life would be as it always had been. Hadn’t this been true for the Maj boy, who was lost on the road to Trescore for three days, then found? Hadn’t the Ferrante baby, sick with jaundice for sixteen days, eventually recovered? Hadn’t the Capovilla family survived after four children had the whooping cough in the winter of 1903? There were so many stories of miracles on the mountain. Surely Stella Ravanelli would become one of those stories told over and over again in the villages, assuring everyone who lived so high and close to the sky that God would not abandon them. Years from now, when Stella was grown and had her own family, wouldn’t she tell the story of the night she survived the terrible bruises and the fever?
Enza couldn’t imagine their home without Stella, who had always been special. Stella wasn’t named for a saint or a relative like the rest of the children, but for the stars that had shimmered overhead on the summer night she was born.
Enza pictured Stella healthy, but she could not maintain the image, her mind filling with doubt. She battled helpless feelings of injustice through the night. In her mind, Stella’s dilemma was unfair. After all, her family had paid their marker in this life. They were poor, humble hard workers who helped others and lived the gospel. They had done everything right. Now it was God’s turn to reward them for their piety. Enza closed her eyes and imagined the angels and saints surrounding her sister, making her well.
Enza even pictured her family in the future. She imagined her mother and father as grandparents and her brothers and sisters with families of their own. Battista would teach the children the trails, Eliana would show them how to balance on the stone fence on one foot, Alma would instruct the girls in sewing, Vittorio would teach the boys how to shoe the horse, Stella would show them how to paint, Mama would keep the garden, and Papa would hitch the cart and take the children for rides. Their lives on the mountain would go forward as they always had; they would grow old together and happily in greater numbers, with a homestead that they owned free and clear.
La famiglia èterna.
Enza was mystified as she watched Stella’s labored breathing. She had taken the medicine from the doctor. Why was her sister getting worse?
Stella’s color was all but gone, the pink of her cheeks now an odd gray and her lips turned chalky white. When she opened her eyes, they were unfocused, the pupils like two black rosary beads.
Giacomina dabbed her daughter’s lips with a damp cloth and stroked her hair. Occasionally the soft din of Hail Marys said in unison was cut by a moan from Stella that sent a knife through Enza’s heart. Finally, unable to take another moment of watching her sister wither away, Enza stood and ran outside.
Enza ran to the end of Via Scalina. She buried her face in her hands and wept for Stella. There is no worse feeling than being unable to assuage the suffering of the innocent. Enza could not erase Stella’s expression of fear as she grew weaker, and the helpless look on her mother’s face. Giacomina had been through many fevers and long nights of worry for her children, but this time was altogether different; it had a velocity of its own.
Enza soon felt her father’s hands on her shoulders. As she turned, Marco took her into his arms and wept with her.
God had abandoned them, the angels had taken their leave, and the saints had turned away. Now Enza understood the truth of those terrible hours. They had not been waiting for Stella to get well; they were watching her die. For the first time in her life, in almost sixteen years of surviving blizzards, spring floods, and want, Enza was unlucky. The strong arms of her father could no longer protect her, and her mother’s touch had lost its power to heal.