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“You'll soon know, Alberto. Soon. . . .”
Chapter Sixteen
The night sounds in this state of Illinois were peaceful and serene. Wrapped in her velveteen cape, Maria paced the front porch of her new home. She shivered in the chill, clasping her arms around her, hugging herself, looking into the distance, listening. A whippoor-will was echoing across the stretches of land that lay on all sides of her and crickets hummed along, it seemed in unison. But it wasn't these sounds that had brought Maria to the porch in the wee hours of the morning. She had heard the sound of a wagon's wheels and horse's hooves, sounding almost like those of the wagon that she had called her own, but was now only her Papa's and Alberto's.
Thinking it to be Alberto returning to apologize for his nasty behavior, Maria had rushed to her wardrobe and had pulled the cape from inside it and wrapped it around her chemise, hoping to meet Alberto just as he stepped from the wagon, headed for her front door.
But nothing. When she arrived at the front door and looked toward the road, all she had seen had been just a bit of dust in the air, swirling upward from the road, the only signs left of any wagon having just passed by.
Maria continued to pace, sighing heavily She knew that she could return to bed, but she hadn't been able to sleep. Closing hereyes in the new surroundings, beautiful though they were, had become an absolute impossibility. She had lain there, listening for the familiar steps of Nathan, fearing his return would carry him right to her room, to demand more from her body. Did she have a lifetime of dread ahead of her? Wasn't there any way out of this complication she had gotten herself into?
She feared not, for it seemed that Nathan was even more powerful than she had at first suspected. How many wives had there been before her? How could Mama Pearl not have grown suspicious before now? But maybe Mama Pearl was being held against her own will, and being forced to pretend such joviality.
Maria knew that she would have to agree to anything Nathan would demand of her now. The thought of possibly being taken and left deep inside the bowels of the earth frightened her so. Would he truly add her body to those that she suspected he had already taken to the coal mines and left to die?
She shook her head, trying to make her mind quit traveling in such vicious circles. She was letting her imagination run wild. This wasn't the time. She needed her rest. Hadn't Michael said that he would meet her this very next day? She needed to be fresh, to make him love her even more.
Sighing, she turned and went back inside, walking quietly up the steepness of the stairs, on to her room. She tossed her cape aside and stretched out on her bed, resting her head on her hands as her elbows pushed against the mattress. She gazed out the window, suddenly feeling as though she was in Italy. Didn't the setting outside the window resemble Italy? Beneath the soft velvet rays of the moon, row after row of grapevines sat in clusters, as though they were people, stooped, with rounded backs. Only by daylight did they show their true forms, which then resembled fingers, as their tendrils reached out to the next cluster of vines.
A deep sadness cre
pt through Maria's heart. She missed Italy. She missed her Gran-mama and her Aunt Helena. And she now missed Alberto and her Papa, and they were only a stone's throw away. “One doesn't have to be across the ocean to be separated,” she whispered, settling down onto a pillow, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. She reached up and lifted her hair from beneath her head, letting it drape across the pillow behind and beside her, then let herself drift off into a restless sleep. She dreamed of Michael, his lips, his hands, his voice, and then she was awakened abruptly when she heard a noise outside her door in the hallway. She tensed, thinking it was Nathan, seeking her out in the dark. She rose, pulling a night robe around her shoulders, then crept to the door, opening it slowly.
“Maria .. . ?” a voice spoke from somewhere beside her.
Maria put her hands to her throat, turning on her heel, peering through the darkness. “Alberto . . . ? God Alberto, is that you? How . . . ?”
Alberto moved to her side and took her hand in his. “Maria, I've got to talk to you. Now. Tonight.” he said thickly. He glanced quickly around him. “Where's Hawkins?”
Maria was in a state of semi-shock. “Alberto, how did you get in here? Why . . . ?”
“The front door was unlocked. I just walked in. I had to see you.”
“But what if Nathan had been here? What if he had heard you? Wouldn't you be afraid of him shooting you like a thief in the night?”
“I had to take that chance,” Alberto grumbled, taking her by an elbow, guiding her back into her room. Once inside, he shut the door behind them. “Now. You must tell i.ie. Where is Hawkins?”
“How did you know he wasn't even here in this room where I slept. . . ?”
Alberto laughed hoarsely. “Maria, if Hawkins had been in that room with you, I know you would've steered me away from it long before now.” His eyes moved around him, seeing what was possible beneath the dim rays of the moonlight streaming in through the one window.
“I still cannot believe you would enter this house as you have done,” Maria whispered.
“I can feel my way around any house. Especially if it's to find you, Maria.”
Maria went to her nightstand and turned on a light, flooding the room in shallow yellows. Alberto went quickly to the light, looking beneath its shade. “Electric,” he said. “So Hawkins has brought you to a house of riches, huh?” He began to walk around the room, touching the softness of the upholstered chairs, and then the bed. He bounced onto it, laughing shakily. “God. What a bed. Now I can understand why you would agree to live here.”
Maria went to him and sat down beside him, taking a hand in hers. “Alberto, that is not the reason at all,” she said sternly. “Now that you're here, you're going to hear all the true reasons. You shall not leave this house until you listen.”
Alberto ran his free hand through the thickness of his beard. His face became serious. “Maria, I already do know,” he said thickly.
Maria's face paled. She rose, moving around the room, hugging herself. “How do you know, Alberto?” she said. She swung around, facing him. “Only two people know besides myself. Papa . . . and. . . .”
Alberto rose and moved toward her. “And Michael?” he grumbled, tilting her chin with a forefinger. “And Michael Hopper? Is that what you were ready to say? That you had also told Michael Hopper?”
Maria swallowed hard, seeing much in the depths of Alberto's dark eyes. It wasn't a mockery. It was an understanding. “How did you .. . know . . . ?” she whis-pered.
He walked away from her and slouched down into a chair, stretching his long, lean legs out before him. “It's the damnedest thing,” he said, laughing amusedly.
