“Oh, you’re back,” Antonio’s mother said. She proffered her cheek for a kiss, then she gestured them into the house, where without further comment she sat down at the table and picked up an in-progress sewing project. Assunta was disconcerted by this unemotional reunion. After her son, flesh of her flesh, had been away at war for years? Had she not feared for his life, prayed for him every day, the way Assunta had?
The Fortunas’ house was old, the kind of house they didn’t build anymore for fear of bad ventilation, with a ceiling so low Assunta could reach up and touch it. There was only one window, facing the street. On the bed that filled half the interior sat a girl jiggling a baby siblingin her lap. Assunta recognized the girl as Mariangela, Antonio’s sister, who must be thirteen by now. Antonio kissed Mariangela’s cheeks and touched the baby’s head, then left to find his father in the garden a little ways down the mountain.
Assunta unwrapped the Squillace ceramic and showed it to the elder Mariastella, who set aside her sewing long enough to place it on a shelf. Then, feeling clumsy in the silence, Assunta said, “Did you see how big my Mariastella is?”
It was the baby’s cue to show off a little, but she was shy. Stella clutched her skirt in both hands and twisted from side to side, staring at the floor.
“Stella, go salute yournonna,” Assunta said. “Can you go give her a kiss?”
Stella crossed the room obediently and her grandmother Mariastella stooped to receive the baby’s shining wet lips on her cheek. “Did you know,” Assunta told Stella as the little girl rushed back toward the safety of her mother, “you are named after your Nonna Mariastella, thisnonnaright here?”
Stella put a finger in her mouth to cover her bashfulness. The elder Mariastella waved jerkily to the little girl; Assunta felt a pang of compassion for this age-toughened woman who was so awkward, even with her grandchildren.
“And this is your Aunt Mariangela, Stella,” Assunta said, turning Stella by her shoulders to face her adolescent aunt and the infant she was rocking. “Can you say hello to yourzia?”
“Ciao,Zia,”Stella said.
Mariangela smiled. Her hair was greasy and there was a red splatter of pimples over her forehead and chin, but her large, dark eyes were beautiful, Assunta thought.
“What’s this one’s name?” Assunta asked, pointing to the baby, who she guessed to be three or four months old.
“Angela,” Mariangela said.
“Oh, almost like you,” Assunta said, wondering why the sistershad been given such similar names. “Stella, see the little baby? That’s your Aunt Angela. Isn’t that funny, that you have a little auntie who is even littler than you?”
Stella laughed and then hid her face in her mother’s skirt. Assunta cupped her daughter’s round head, feeling the heat radiating from Stella’s scalp. “Don’t be shy,” she said. “Someday your Auntie Angela will be bigger and you can play together.”
“Not Angela like me,” Mariangela corrected Assunta. She lowered the sleeping baby so Stella could see her. “She’s named Angela for my mother who died.”
Assunta hesitated, looking at her mother-in-law for clarification, but the older woman was busy with her piece of linen and didn’t make eye contact. “Your mother who died?” Assunta repeated.
“Yes, she died when I was little.” Mariangela watched Assunta intently. “I was only three. But I can remember her. Only a little bit, but I can remember.”
Assunta’s mother-in-law stood suddenly, dropped her sewing on the bed, and walked outside, letting the bottom half of the split door bang heavily behind her. She did not like this conversation.
“I didn’t know,” Assunta said. “I’m so sorry.” The girl said nothing further, so Assunta asked tentatively, “How did she die?”
Mariangela looked down at her baby sister in her lap. “Giving birth to a baby, who also died.”
“I’m sorry,” Assunta said again. “What a shame.” Was Mariangela saying that the elder Mariastella was not actually her mother? Did that make her Antonio’s stepmother, too? Was that why she seemed so cold with him?
Assunta thought of one of her mother’s proverbs:I guai da pignata i sapa sulu a cucchjiara cchi c’è vota,the problems inside the pot are known only by the spoon who stirs it. In other words, only a family can know all its own secrets. Assunta should mind her own business, her mother would have scolded her. But her husband’s family was also her daughter’s family; didn’t that make it Assunta’s business?
“Where are your brothers?” Assunta asked Mariangela carefully.
“They must be playing in thechiazza,I think.”
“What about the big ones?” There were two teenage boys, Assunta knew; she wished she could remember their names—now it seemed to her strange that Antonio never spoke of them. “Are they working?”
“They went to l’America last year,” the girl said after a long hesitation. “Mamma didn’t want them to get called to war like Tonnon.”
Now Mariangela had called Mariastella “Mamma” despite having just said the woman wasn’t her mother. Was it possible the girl was crazy, or confused?
Assunta let the matter drop.
The visit passed slowly. It was the feast of San Nicola, and they all went to evening mass at the tiny Tracci chapel, a relief for Assunta because it was a way to make the tedious hours with her in-laws pass. After, they returned to the Fortuna house and Mariastella boiled water for pasta, a holiday treat for which she used the last of a precious sack of flour. The woman was finally warming up to the idea that this was a special occasion. Nevertheless, as the sun set and Mariastella Callipo cut dough into strips to twist intogemelli, Assunta regretted that it was too late for her and Antonio to take the baby home to Ievoli.
THAT NIGHT WAS THE WORST,long hours of boredom and anxiety during which Assunta was unable to keep her eyes closed. They all lay together in the one wide bed: Mariangela against the wall, then infant Angela with Mariastella the elder, then Assunta’s father-in-law, then Antonio, and finally Assunta, rigid so as not to fall off the mattress. Stella lay on her mother’s chest and was restless all night. The little boys, Luigi and Egidio, made room for the guests by sleeping on the floor.
