The Shoemaker's Wife(9)
“Your boys should do very well there.”
“I hope they will.”
“Many years ago, when I was a boy, the nuns of San Nicola gave me a remembrance card. I still carry it with me.” Marco reached into his pocket and handed her a small illustrated card trimmed in gold.
“A talisman.” Caterina’s father used to print cards like this one, depicting the Holy Family protected by angels. They were distributed on feast days or at funerals, often with the name of the dead embossed upon the back. Her eyes filled with tears at the memory of the boxes of them in her father’s print shop. “I understand why this gives you comfort. Are you a believer?”
“Yes, I am,” Marco said.
“Not me. Not anymore.” Caterina handed the card back to Marco. If only the image on the card were true. She had long given up on the angels and saints. Their power to soothe her had died with her husband. She climbed back up into the carriage without Marco’s help, suddenly impatient with the length of the journey. “How much longer is the trip?”
“We’ll be in Bergamo by nightfall.”
They continued down the Passo Presolana, over Pointe Nossa, through Colzate, past Vertova, for a final rest stop in Nembro, where Signora Lazzari changed out of her traveling clothes and into a proper dress before arriving in Bergamo. Marco surmised the appointment Signora was to keep must be important. She fixed her hair, her hat, and her gown, which once had been stylish but now was worn along the hem and cuffs. The coachman and his customer did not exchange another word.
Enza closed the wooden shutters on the window at the front of the house. As she threw the latch, cold wind whistled through the slats. With the hearth crackling behind her, stoked with wood and a few pieces of coal, and the laundry kettle about to boil, the kitchen was filled with a warm and welcome mist.
This was Enza’s favorite time of day, when night had fallen in Schilpario and the children were in bed. Baby Stella slept in a woven basket draped with a soft white blanket. Her face looked like a pink peach by the firelight.
Giacomina, Enza’s mother, a capable woman with a sweet face and soft hands, stirred a pot of milk on the fire. She wore her long brown hair with a center part and two braids, wrapped neatly in a bun at the base of her neck.
Giacomina stooped over the flame until the milk foamed and placed the pan on a stone trivet. She lifted two ceramic cups from the shelf, placing them on the table, dropped a pat of butter in each cup, and poured the milk on top. Reaching up to pull a small bottle of homemade brandy from the shelf, she put a teaspoon in her cup, a couple of drops in Enza’s. She stirred the mixture and ladled the foam left in the pan on top.
“This will warm you up.” Giacomina gave Enza her cup. They sat down at the end of their dining table, made from wide planks of alder, with matching benches on either side. How Enza wished she could buy her mother a dining room suite made from polished mahogany with fabric seats, and a new set of china to dress the table, just like Signora Arduini had at her house.
“Papa should be back by now.”
“You know the trip back up the mountain is always longer.” Mama sipped her milk. “I’ll wait up for him. You can go to bed.”
“I have wash to do.” Enza shrugged.
Giacomina smiled. The laundry could wait, but Enza wanted an excuse to be awake when her father returned. It was always the same. Enza couldn’t sleep until all the members of the family were safe inside, asleep in their beds.
“Mama, tell me a story.” Enza reached across the table and took Giacomina’s hand. She spun her mother’s gold wedding band around her finger, feeling the grooves of the tiny carved rosebuds etched into the gold. Enza believed it was the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the world.
“I’m tired, Enza.”
“Please. The story of your wedding day.”
Enza had heard the love story so many times that her own mother and father had become as magical to her as figures in her favorite book, drawn in exquisite detail and eternally young in the telling. Enza studied the photograph of her parents on their wedding day as if it were a map. In a sense it was, as they were creating a destination, a life together. The bride and groom sat stiffly in two chairs. Mama held a bouquet of mountain asters tightly as Papa rested his hand on her shoulder.
“Your papa came to see me one Sunday when I was sixteen and he was seventeen,” Giacomina began the familiar story. “He drove the governess cart—at that time, it belonged to his father. It was painted white in those days, and that morning, he had filled it with fresh flowers. There was barely room for your papa on the bench.
“Cipi, just three years old, had pink ribbons braided through his mane. Papa arrived at our house, threw off the reins, leaped off the bench, came into the house, and asked my papa if he could marry me. I was the last daughter in my family to marry. My papa had married off five daughters, and by the time it was my turn, he barely looked up from his pipe. He just said yes, and we went to the priest, that was that.”
“And Papa said—”
“Your father told me that he wanted seven sons and seven daughters.”
“And you said—”
“Seven children will be enough.”
“And now we have six.”
“God owes us one more,” Giacomina teased.
“I think we have enough children around here, Mama. We barely have enough food as it is, and I don’t see God showing up at the door with a sack of flour. “