His face had hardened. “What is it you think you want in life, exactly? What do you think I could never give you?”
Stella was at a loss for words. How had she ever been unclear about what she wanted? How many times had she already told him—told them all? “I want to be left alone,” she said finally.
The kitchen was silent for a moment. Carmelo shook his head. “You are a cold woman, Stella.”
As if he had put a curse on her, she felt a chill ripple up her arms and torso. “Maybe so,” she said. “But that’s no business of yours.”
“You think you’re ever going to find someone who would love you more than I would have loved you?” He was staring at her so intensely she had to avert her eyes. “You are a fool.”
After a throbbing moment of silence, Carmelo stood and bowed his little bow to Assunta and Tina. “I tried, Za ’Ssunta,” he said. “I would have liked to have been your son-in-law. But I think I had better go home now.”
Assunta and Tina tried to convince him to stay for dinner, but it was a hollow effort. Carmelo gave Assunta and Tina each a solemn kiss and wished them health. “Stella,” he said to her, nodding his saline good-bye.
Carminantonio Maglieri had left their lives.
ROCCOCARAMANICO DID, IN FACT,survive the war. He was gone for almost four years, like many men who were shipped to the Pacific theater, doing things unknown and wholly misunderstood by their families. Rocco kept a framed photo of his Engineers Chemical Corps unit hanging in his hallway for the rest of his life, but what had happened in New Guinea was anyone’s guess. Had he shot a gun? Had he killed a Jap? Had he seen atrocities, been exposed to hazardous chemicals, watched his friends die? Had he been in any combat at all, had he ever felt any danger? He came back with no exterior scarring, no shrapnel spatter or purple hearts. What had he beendoingall that time? Well, that is the mystery of war. The only thing Rocco made clear was that he would never eat chicken again. Otherwise, he never told anyone anything more than had been in his sterile, correct letters to Tina.
ROCCO ANDTINA BOTH KEPTtheir promises. Rocco returned to Hartford in January 1946, once his unit had been deactivated and he’d been released from a lengthy quarantine. He arrived on a Saturday and the next afternoon, when everyone was back from church, he telephoned Tony and requested permission to visit that evening.
He arrived with his sister at six o’clock. Barbara brought a plate stacked high withmustazzoli. Rocco carried a dozen red roses. Stella, who answered the door, was grudgingly impressed.
The Fortunas gathered around the coffee table, on which Assunta arranged Barbara’s cookie platter and small glasses for wine. Stella could see Rocco was much thinner than he’d been when he left—perhaps thirty pounds thinner. He wore a black suit that must have predated the war, because it was too big on him, but otherwise he was immaculate.
Tina and Rocco greeted each other, after almost four years apart, with a handshake and shy smiles. Tina sat clumsily in a woven-backed chair near the couch, Rocco’s roses spilling off her lap. Stella stood in the doorway, listening silently as Tina and Rocco made bland, compulsory small talk. The lamp on the round table between them had aTiffany-style stained-glass shade, gold with green and purple grapevines; in its tinted light, Tina’s complexion looked particularly tawny, Rocco’s particularly jaundiced. Stella thought of all the things that could have happened to him during the war. How lucky Tina was that none of them had.
Assunta poured wine, then announced she was going to make dinner. Tina stood and followed; Barbara stayed where she was on the couch. She would be part of the negotiations. Stella, who would hardly be expected in the kitchen, took a silent step backward so she stood in the hallway, tucked into the shadow of the doorframe, hoping no one would think to wonder where she was.
“Well, I came back alive,” Rocco said to Tony without preamble. “I would like to ask for your daughter Tina’s hand.”
It was really happening, right now. This was what a man proposing looked like.
“I’m glad to see you, Rocco,” Tony said. “I’m glad it went well for you.”
“I was lucky.”
“God watched over him,” Barbara corrected. There was a lull as they murmured thanks to God, and then as Tony lifted his glass and they drank a toast.
“I would like to marry Tina,” Rocco said again when they had swallowed. “I think she would make me an excellent wife.”
“But would you make her a good husband?” Tony shot back.
Rocco sat up even more rigidly. “I believe I would be a husband any smart, good girl would be happy to marry.”
Tony chuckled. “You would, would you?” Stella wasn’t sure whether he was teasing Rocco or not; Rocco wouldn’t know, either.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, all right, so you think you two would be a match. I think you might be right, myself, from what I’ve seen. Writing letters to each other all this time.”
“So I have your permission to marry her?” Rocco said.
“You have my permission toask. This is—” Tony coughed into his hand. Rocco and Barbara sat at attention as Tony took a sip of wine and wiped his mustache on his wrist. “This is America, boy. I’m not just going to arrange something for her. It has to be her choice.”
One beat of silence. Stella wondered if her mother and sister in the kitchen were straining to hear; she didn’t hear any pot-banging, tap-running, or garlic-frying.
Rocco extended his hand. “Thank you, sir. It will be my honor.”
Tony hesitated, or maybe just waited, before shaking Rocco’s hand. “Well. Good luck.”
