Big Cherry Holler (20 page)

If only my mother could have been a part of these new days, not the old times, when a daughter would shame her family by choosing a man they didn’t approve of. I would have had my parents together. My mother never would have fled and come to America, pregnant with me. And she wouldn’t have had to marry Fred Mulligan. How different our lives would have been! There are several framed pictures of Etta and Joe. This moves me. I feel that we are a part of their daily lives, even though we rarely visit.

On the screened-in porch off the kitchen, where there is a cool breeze, Zia Meoli has set the table with white linen and white dishes. In the center of the table, a cluster of delicate gardenias float in a crystal
bowl. Zia directs my father to the head of the table, her husband to the other. We fill in around the men.

“Madame Vilminore?” a voice says from the doorway.

“Ciao, Stefano. Come. Sit. Eat with us,” she says to him. Stefano comes out onto the porch. He’s around fourteen, with brown eyes, small half-moons that disappear when he smiles. His hair is thick and unruly but beautiful: gold curls that spiral into tight corkscrew ringlets. He has a broad nose, the tip of which lifts up ever so slightly. It’s a big nose, but it suits his face. He walks with his hands in his pockets, more self-effacing than shy.

“I’m Ave Maria. And this is my daughter, Etta,” I tell him. He smiles at us. I hear Etta gasp. Her eyes widen ever so slightly. (Oh, no. Here we go—puberty.)

Stefano takes a seat next to Etta, who is thrilled to have A Boy sitting next to her at her very first sit-down meal in the country of Italy. And I can’t blame her. He is really cute.

“I speak English,” Stefano says proudly.

“Where did you learn it?” I ask him.

“School. I must learn English so I can come to America and make a lot of money,” he announces.

My father laughs. “Did they tell you the streets were paved with gold?”

“Yes. Paved with gold, and you ride on them in gold Cadillacs. But I like a Ford truck better.”

“Then you would like my husband. He has a Ford pickup truck,” I say.

“What color?”

“Bright red,” Etta pipes up, happy to have something to add.

“I like red.” Stefano breaks off the end of the hard-crusted bread Zia has placed by his plate.

“Stefano is a good worker. He helps me in the shop,” Zio tells us.

Zia Meoli explains that Stefano is an orphan who lives up the street
in a boys’ school. Evidently, orphanages aren’t sad in Italy. Stefano paints a picture of a happy place, with good friends and nice rooms. I have to remember to ask Meoli later if this is true. Stefano sips the Chianti my uncle has poured.

“You drink wine?” Etta asks him, unnerved at the idea.

“Every day. What do you drink in America?”

“Milk. Pop.”

“What’s pop?”

“Soda pop.”

“Coca-Cola?” Stefano guesses.

“Yes!” Etta says, thrilled to break through the language barrier.

“Maybe someday I try to come to America and drink your soda pop.”

“Anytime, Stefano,” I tell him. Etta nods in agreement.

Zia Meoli leans in. “He was Antonietta’s favorite. Since she died, he’s come here every day.”

“You were good friends with my aunt?” I ask Stefano.

“
Sí
. Yes. Yes.”

“What did you like about her?”

“She yelled at me all the time.”

“Good preparation for marriage.” Zio winks.

“Zia Antonietta didn’t yell,” I tell Stefano.

“Only at me. She wanted me to cut my hair.” Stefano shrugs.

“That’s a woman for you. Always trying to change the man,” Zio says.

Zia Meoli shoots him a look. But I think about Jack, and how I’m constantly trying to change him. Did I insult him when I suggested he go to college and study engineering? I said it only because I think Jack is smart and could be a great engineer. I remember something Nellie Goodloe said to me when she found out I was to marry Jack Mac. She told me that Jack and I were very different: I ran a business and my husband was a miner—how could that work? But I laughed it
off at the time. I thought I knew what I was getting into; I thought I could handle our differences. Aren’t all marriages a battle of wills and a compromise of different backgrounds?

“
E vero?
” Zio looks at me.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s true. It’s true,” I tell my uncle.

We feast on delicate ravioli filled with leeks and tossed in creamy butter and shallots. The bread and butter and wine is a meal in itself, but the ravioli are so tender, they’re irresistible. The breeze, filled with sweet gardenia, makes everything taste delicious.

Federica shows us to our room after lunch. It’s my mother’s room, the very room that Jack and I stayed in on our honeymoon. Federica has pulled out the trundle for Etta. Etta pokes at the bed piled high with fresh linens and blankets and pillows full of soft goose down.

“Mama, the coverlet is full of marshmallows!”

“Wait till you sleep on it.”

“Sleep now,” Federica tells us. We’re ready for a nap, ready to follow any orders given us on Via Davide. She closes the door softly behind her as she goes.

I help Etta into the trundle. “Can we get me one of these back home?” she asks.

“We’ll see.” I climb up onto the bed.

Etta sighs. “I love Italy.”

I lean over the side of the bed so I can see Etta. “You do?”

“It’s not like anywhere I’ve ever been.”

“Honey, you’ve only been to Tennessee and Florida.”

“I know. But I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“That’s how I felt when I first came here.”

“Mama?”

“Yeah?”

“Someday I’m going to marry Stefano.”

I’m glad I’m in the big bed up high, where my daughter can’t see me, because my jaw is on my chest. Instead of laughing, I take a deep breath.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

I wait for Etta to tell me more, but she doesn’t. She falls asleep, no doubt to dream of the cute Italian boy with the crazy hair. Part of me wants to wake her up and tell her to stay a little girl forever. I have to remember to tell her that love is not enough. Don’t be like your mother and your grandmother whose name you share. Do better.

After a day of touring Bergamo, meeting neighbors, and going out to dinner, Etta sees
la passeggiata
for the first time. Folks leave their homes to walk around the fountain in the middle of town until the sun sets. Not much happens. Just conversation. A few laughs. Card games. Chess. Checkers. Or they simply stroll and catch up. Etta is invited to play pick-up sticks with some kids from across Via Davide. Papa and Giacomina know lots of people in town, so they walk about and greet their friends.

Zia Meoli finds a place for us on a bench under the fountain, so I can keep an eye on Etta.

“What do you think of her?” Zia Meoli points across the piazza to Giacomina and Papa, who are talking in a small group.

“Giacomina is very nice,” I tell her.

“Too young for him,” she says.

“At least he’s settling down.”

“We shall see.” She shrugs.

I am happy for my father. He seems content with Giacomina. She fits into his life perfectly. She owns a shop in Schilpario that sells ski equipment. My father likes the fact that she can turn a key in the front door and close the place in a flash. He likes to pick up and do things.

“We’re sorry Jack could not come,” Zia Meoli says.

“I am too. I wish he could see Etta’s face. She loves it here already.”

“She’s a beautiful girl,” she says sincerely.

“Thank you.”

“I am sorry we never met Joe.”

“I know. I always intended to bring him here.”

“What was his funeral like?” my aunt asks me.

In most countries, this would be a strange question, but in Italy, a funeral is an art form. It is the last public gathering to honor a life, and therefore, it must tell the story of that life. So there are prayers and music and speeches. They even take pictures of the deceased in the casket and make copies for all to have after the funeral. It sounds macabre, and maybe it is, but it is also tradition. When Zia Meoli asks me about Joe’s funeral, she isn’t trying to upset me, she just wants to know.

“It was very simple. No wake. Just a Mass and burial. His friends from school came. You know that Papa came too.”

Zia Meoli sits quietly as I play the morning of Joe’s funeral over in my mind. And then I remember something I haven’t thought about, not during the funeral and not since.

“Remember the story of Aunt Alice Lambert?”

Zia Meoli nods and makes a gesture that indicates Alice was not a nice person. I had written to her about how Alice Mulligan Lambert tried to take the Pharmacy and house away from me.

“I just remembered something. Alice Lambert came to Joe’s funeral. She was sitting in the back row on the aisle, and at the end, when we were processing out of the church, I looked down at her, and I guess I looked surprised. She was the last person I expected to see at my son’s funeral. But she looked me square in the eye and said she was sorry. And that was it.”

“How strange that she came at all,” Zia Meoli muses.

“I know. And how funny that I didn’t remember it until now.”

This happened to me the last time I was in Italy. I remembered details, moments, that for some reason never crossed my mind in Big Stone Gap. When I came here the first time, I was able to see my life from a different perspective. It’s as though I left myself at home in the
mountains of Virginia and invented this new person to have Italian adventures abroad. I can’t do that now. This time I’m on assignment, and the job is to write the plan for the second half of my life. I’m not going to be able to invent it as I go along, because Jack won’t let me. He wants to know where I stand. I’m not here on vacation, and every now and then, a pain shoots through my gut to remind me of that fact. I have to make a decision. Sometimes, when I think of my husband, I get butterflies; a surge of emotion goes through me, and I long for him. Other times, I’m glad he’s home, where I don’t have to deal with the sadness and the stress of us. This makes me feel selfish, and I hate to admit that I haven’t lived my life generously. I’ve sold myself on the idea that I am a magnanimous person, but it was false advertising. I always do what’s good for me—what makes me comfortable—and then I dictate to my family how things will go down. Usually, they play right along. I keep telling my relatives that I wish my husband were here too. But Papa could see that I was lying when I said Jack was too busy to get away. So maybe there’s another element to my summer in Italy. This is the summer I tell the truth. I will begin with Zia Meoli.

“Jack wanted me to come alone with Etta.”

“Why?”

“We’re having problems.” There. I said it. That’s not so hard.

“I am sorry.”

“You don’t have marital problems here in Italy, do you? The love center of the universe.” I wave my hand in front of me—every age of love is in the piazza: teenage lovers speed by on their motorbikes; a young wife splashes her husband as he passes the fountain; an older gentleman buys his wife gelato. Tonight, it seems, everyone is in love in Bergamo.

Zia Meoli throws back her head and laughs. “Yes, we have problems. Lots of problems.”

“Well, you’re spoiling my romantic notions, but I guess that actually makes me feel better.”

“Problems can be good. You solve them, and they bring you back together again.”

“That would be nice.”

“You’ve had a lot to cope with. Sometimes you take things out on each other. No?”

“I guess.”

“I have a friend who got a divorce. Here in Italy, that is rare. But she was unhappy, so she divorced him. She married a new man, a very nice man. And she told me that she thought she left the problems from the first marriage in the past. But it turned out that she packed them up and took them with her into the second marriage. Sometimes it’s not them. Sometimes it’s you.”

“Oh,” I say, “I know it’s me.”

“Don’t worry.”

“All I do is worry.”

“You are just like your mother.”

“I am?”

“She thought love was enough.”

She’s right. I did think love was enough. Until my husband told me it wasn’t. I am like my mother in so many ways. She invested herself in me, all of her time, all of her care. I’m sure Fred Mulligan knew that. Mama kept a beautiful home and made good meals, but she didn’t love her husband. Her marriage was a safe place to raise me. I wanted so much more for Etta. But how do I change? It seems I always slide back on my bad habits, my repression, my cold core, so I don’t get hurt. But I am hurting everyone around me. Just like my mother did. Fred Mulligan didn’t feel her love, she saved it all for me. But it hurt me to see her hurting Fred, even though I didn’t like him and he surely didn’t like me. But whose fault was that? I didn’t have a chance with Fred because I was the obstacle to his happiness. And Mama put me there. A marriage based upon financial security and social acceptability is not what I want for my family, yet isn’t that what I have? Am I my mother?

Meoli pats me on the hand, and we get up to stroll in the piazza. The night air is chilly, and I shiver. The sound of the water spilling over the marble seashells in the fountain makes soft music as we walk. The lights above us in Alta Città are dim lavender sparks behind the black trees. I am glad the sun is sinking low behind the hills of Bergamo—I don’t want Zia Meoli to see me cry.

W
ith Papa at the wheel, we take the curve up the mountain road, out of Bergamo, north to Schilpario. Once again I am in the mountains; whether it’s the Italian Alps or the Appalachians, it seems I can’t escape them. As we speed up into the peaks, I am not afraid, as I was on my first visit. I look at Etta, who doesn’t flinch as we climb higher and higher or even when trucks whip past us and force us over to the gravel edge of the road, our wheels inches away from the perilous edge above gaps several miles deep. I guess my kid is an old pro, having flown around the curves of Cracker’s Neck Holler all of her life.