The Shoemaker's Wife(81)

As she handed out the fruit, Enza imagined that these young faces were her own brothers and sisters. She saw Eliana in a girl with a torn brown apron, Vittorio in the tallest boy of the group, who went barefoot even in the cold, and finally Stella, in the little girl with the black curly hair, left in her sister’s care, although the older girl couldn’t be more than eight years old. Enza fought back tears when she thought about her baby sister, and how the little girls who wandered the streets of Hoboken were reminiscent of Stella’s spirit. They were unlucky, and so was Stella.

One by one, she placed an orange in every outstretched pair of hands, a small sign of hope in a place where there had been none for so long, the children couldn’t remember what it felt like to receive a treat. Elated, the children shouted, “Grazie mille,” a million thanks, for one small thing, one bright, sweet orange apiece. They would eat the pulp, the juice, and the peel.

As she packed, Enza felt the full weight of having spent an irreplaceable stretch of her youth in a place undeserving of it. The bandage over her eye tugged at her skin, but she was already thinking of the scar she’d carry, the marker that signaled the end of her old life and the start of a new one. Enza refolded her clothes neatly, arranging them in her satchel. She flipped the top of the duffel and buttoned it, pulled on her sweater and then her coat.

The basement door swung open, surprising Enza and filling her with a dread she knew she had felt for the last time. She smiled to herself.

Signora Buffa stood at the top of the stairs. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m leaving your house, Signora.” Enza climbed the stairs and pushed past her.

“No, you’re not! You can’t!” Signora barked.

“My debt to you is paid in full. I prepared every meal, scrubbed every dish, washed, hung, pressed, and folded every article of clothing for three households and for you for six years,” Enza said calmly.

“Make my lunch,” Signora sneered.

“Make your own lunch, Signora.”

“Enza, I am warning you, I will report you!”

“I already have my papers. You can’t compromise them.”

“You ungrateful girl—”

“Maybe. But there’s plenty of that to go around here.” Enza went through the kitchen to the living room, buttoning her coat with one hand as she went.

“What do you mean? Answer me!” Signora sounded weak and pathetic. “I said, answer me.”

Enza realized her father was right: a bully backs down when you stand up to her.

Enza heard the footsteps of Dora, Jenny, and Gina on the stairs behind her. They lined up like train cars, Gina carrying her infant, Dora balancing her toddler on her hip, Jenny tightening the belt on her robe, long past the appropriate hour to be wearing one.

“She’s leaving us!” Anna moaned.

“You can’t go!” Dora sneered.

“The diapers!” Gina groused. “Who will do the diapers?”

“You were to bake bread today,” Gina complained. “Where are you going?”

“None of your business.” Enza turned to Anna. “Signora, you live in a tenement, and yet you behave like the entitled rich. You have airs of privilege without the pedigree or education that define them. You’ve indulged your sons, and to your surprise, they married shrews—”

Gina lunged forward. “Who are you calling names?”

Enza held up her hand, and Gina stepped back. Enza continued, leveling her gaze upon Anna: “You’ve earned an old age of misery. Your daughters-in-law are lazy.” She turned to the women of the house. “You breed children in this house like animals, and expect me to cook, clean, and pick up after all of them. Now it’s your turn,” she said as she pushed the front door open.

“You get back here right now, Enza,” Signora Buffa shouted.

Enza walked through the door. “You’re a drunk, and it’s no wonder your husband stays in West Virginia.”

“He’s working! You ungrateful girl!”

“You kick a dog long enough, and eventually it will bite. I would say thank you, but for all these years I have never heard you utter the words. So let me say this to you for the last time, Signora: ‘Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.’ How does that make you feel, Signora? Ah. Now you know.” Enza looked up at the others. "Now you all know.”

Enza walked out on to the porch, leaving her life of indentured servitude behind, the awful women, the howling babies, the filthy cribs, the stagnant baby bottles, mounds of dirty diapers, the dank, dark basement, and the broken cot.

Laura Heery beamed as Enza skimmed down the stairs with her duffel. Soon the porch behind her filled with the Buffa women, who called out to Enza and over one another in high-pitched squawks:

Puttana!

Strega!

Pazza!

Porca i miserable!

Doors opened up and down Adams Street as prying eyes peeked out. Neighbor women hung out the windows, turning toward the caterwauling at number 318. Still others took seats on their stoops, ingesting the theatrics with relish, happy for once that the misery visited upon this street was not their own.

Enza felt the first delicious rush of freedom. Good, kind Laura looped her arm through Enza’s, carrying her suitcase and hatbox with the other.

The Buffa women continued to call the girls names from the porch as the two friends walked proudly together up the block in lockstep. As the neighbors joined in the taunts, Enza and Laura deflected their curses. They held their heads high, and kept moving, as the insults fell around them like grounded arrows, missing their marks.