Mario wants to see the neighborhood. We set out for a walk, but you can hardly call it that. No more than five steps from the house, he stops. He looks all around, carefully. He lingers at each house and studies the architecture. He asks me questions about the trees, what sorts of things we grow in our gardens, and what the weather is like from season to season. It’s as though he is trying to place me in the world. How did his child get so far from home? And what is this place that she grew up in? As beautiful as our neighborhood is—and it is, all fresh and green and pink with the dogwood trees in full bloom—I know a better place to take him. I ask him if he’d like to go for a ride. He brightens up and says he’d love to. “Are you sure you’re not tired?” I ask him in Italian. He shakes his head vigorously. Italians really are very expressive. Mario has such deliberate gestures; he is so alive. I am not used to this. I see similarities between us, though. He is stubborn like me. When his mother tried to sprinkle extra cheese on his risotto he waved his hand over the dish in a chopping motion, like he was wielding an ax. I do that sort of thing, and it always surprises people around here. These are the sorts of discoveries I will make with my family, and it thrills me.
Mario climbs into the Jeep. He adjusts the front knot on his sweater, pushes his thick hair back, and nods for me to go. We drive toward Appalachia, our neighboring village and the gateway to all the roads up into the mountains. Mario notices the Powell River immediately and wants to know where it goes and whether it floods. He makes me stop on the side of the road when we get to the coal transom, a long white pipe that transports coal on a conveyor from the top of the mountain, where the mines are, to the rail yard at the foot of them. He looks at the train cars. In his thick Italian accent he sounds out Southern, the name of the railroad company, stenciled on the sides of the cars. I explain that Southern is what we are around here. When we drive down the main drag in Appalachia, Mario wants to stop for something to drink. So I pull up to Bessie’s Diner, the best burger joint in Southwest Virginia. Bessie’s is always packed.
When we enter, the dull roar of conversation trails off to a quiet din of whispers. Can they sense I just brought a stranger into town? What are they looking at? Then I see, it’s not the men; they look up and see us and go back to their eating. It’s the women. They can’t take their eyes off Mario. One woman yanks up her bra straps by her thumbs; another wipes the crumbs from the side of her mouth with her pinky and smiles; another, at the counter, straightens her posture and gives him a sideways glance. I look at Mario. He, in turn, is surveying the women in the room as though they are each individually delectable, like pieces in a box of expensive chocolates. No woman can resist. Even a baby girl in a high chair bangs her spoon for his attention. I remember what Zia Meoli told me about Mario’s reputation. I order a couple of Cokes to go, and Mario asks me more questions about geography. How far are we from Big Stone Gap? Are we going up the mountain? Do I come to Appalachia often?
Once we’re back in the Jeep, I am feeling more comfortable with Mario, so I begin to ask him questions.
“Are you married?” He tells me that he is not, then he looks out the window offering no further information.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” This question makes him laugh for some reason.
He shrugs and lights a cigarette.
“Why aren’t you married?” I ask him.
“Why aren’t you?” he asks me.
I’m sure he didn’t mean that to be as snippy as it sounds. Hasn’t anybody told him I’m the town spinster?
“You are beautiful,” he says simply. “I don’t understand.”
I think it is very sweet that he compliments me, even though it is somewhat to his credit, as I resemble him. I am happy, though, that he doesn’t think his only daughter is a troll. How am I going to explain why I’m not married? I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that question.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “It just never happened for me.”
He throws back his head and laughs.
“What is so funny?” I’m getting annoyed.
“A woman can always, always, always get married,” he says. “She must want it.”
I don’t know how to say “Give me a break” in Italian, so I begin a long-winded speech about all the reasons I’m not married. Right man, wrong timing. Love living alone. Ambivalent about children. Job all-consuming. Other interests. Taking care of sick parents. I go on and on until he stops me.
“Ridiculous,” he says, and waves his hand with a grand gesture of dismissal.
The man is my father, and I cannot leave him on the side of the road. But I have just bared my soul to him, and he has waved it off like a summer fly.
“When a woman wants to marry, she lets the man know she is interested. That is all I am saying.”
Now I feel foolish for being so loud and defensive and yapping on and on. He senses this, too, and redirects the conversation to himself.
“I am the mayor of Schilpario.”
I nod.
“When you come to Schilpario, you will see that we have mountains, too. The Italian Alps. They are much higher and the peaks are sharp. The snow stays on the peaks year-round. We ski in the winter. We rest in the summer. Wild berries grow all over the mountainside—delicious, sweet blackberries. All we do is squeeze a little lemon on them and eat them. No sugar. They are sweet enough. Delicious.” He smiles.
We drive up the mountain in silence. Mario looks all around and seems to enjoy the quiet and the view. He looks over the side of the mountain where there are no guardrails, but he isn’t scared; dangerous heights remind him of home. We drive past Insko and up to a clearing. I want to show him the waterfalls of Roaring Branch.
I park the Jeep. We walk into the woods and up the path. I watch the expression on his face as he sees the falls for the first time. He smiles and stands still and looks at it. He opens his hands, palms up, and stands there just like my mother’s statue of Saint Francis of Assisi in the backyard.
“It is beautiful!” he says. “Wonderful!”
I take him on the path that leads up the side of the falls and show him the way the water cascades over the rocks, leaving caverns of dry space in the overhang.
Then Mario kneels down next to the stream just like I did when I was little and Mrs. White took our second-grade class up to Huff Rock and taught us how to drink of the stream. My father cups his hands the very same way, and without disturbing the sediment he skims the surface of the clear water and then takes a drink. He motions for me to do the same. I kneel next to him and drink from the stream.
There is a place above the waterfalls where folks sit and have picnics. You can see the creeks connecting that feed into one small river that spills over and creates the Roaring Branch. We sit on the rocks and are quiet for a long time. In my mind I rehearse several ways to bring up the subject of my mother, but as I try them out, they don’t seem right to me, so I don’t say anything. Again, he senses something and solves my problem.
“Tell me about your mother,” he says.
I really don’t know where to begin. And I don’t want to get emotional. It’s too late for all of that now because it can’t change anything. I want to know his side of things, but the lump in my throat won’t let me make words.
“Perhaps I should tell you what I remember,” he says kindly.
“Please.”
“Fiametta Vilminore was a very beautiful girl from a very good family in Bergamo. She was a hard worker. I fell in love with her when I saw her at her father’s shop in town.” He shrugs as though this is the most natural thing in the world, to meet a beautiful girl and to fall in love. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt; he offers me one, which I decline, then he lights his own.
“She was strong-willed. Once, when I drove her up the mountain, she gave me orders about how to handle the horses. I just laughed at her. I think she liked that.”
“Why did you end your romance with her?”
Mario’s face ch
anges from a slight smile to no expression whatsoever. He thinks about his answer.
“I had to,” he offers. “I had a wife already.” He looks at the water. His eyes follow it as it seeps over the rocks and down to the falls.
“I thought you said you weren’t married.”
“I’m not married now. I was then.”
“Did my mother know?”
“Yes. I told her in a letter.”
This explains why Mama panicked when we were ready to go to Italy. She was afraid she would see him again, and he would reject her again. And what if he rejected me? She wouldn’t have put me through that. She wanted more for me. She didn’t want me to be the child of a brief affair with a woman he hardly remembered. What mother would? Of course she couldn’t go back there.
“What happened to your wife?”
“She went home to her parents. I wasn’t a good husband.”
No kidding. Somebody should tell this guy you’re not supposed to date after you marry. But what good would it do now? One look at this man, and you can see that he would never change for anyone. Mario does not pretend to be a man of great virtue; I don’t even get the sense he cares about that. He seems a little vain, but what great-looking man isn’t? He is comfortable with himself and accepts himself, including whatever this thing is he does with women. If he weren’t my father, I’d be fascinated by him. He knows himself, and he’s not about to let anyone, any woman that is, possess him.
As we walk back down the mountain to the clearing, we don’t say much. I wish I could hold Mario responsible for everything that has happened, but I can’t. He was a seventeen-year-old boy. My mother was just a girl. I think of her; she spent her whole life pining for her first love. She was so loyal to Mario Barbari. I remember when she had a few minutes to herself, she would stack several records on the stereo, sit in her chair, close her eyes, and listen. She did not nap; she was dreaming of someone. I am sure that it was Mario. He is too compelling for her to have ever forgotten him or replaced him in her heart. For the first time in my life I am not sad for my mother. She had a beautiful dream. A dream of a faraway land and a dashing man who made love to her and gave her a baby. Maybe she knew he could never live up to what she imagined him to be. Or maybe when she realized that he was never going to come and rescue her, she did what all strong women do: She found a way to save herself. Very practical. So very much my mother’s way.
I wish my mother could have told me this story herself. I find myself angry with her, not him—even though he is here and I could express my anger to him. I don’t know him well enough yet to do that. My mother and I were so close, practically inseparable. It hurts me that she could not tell me the truth. Even shameful mistakes can be rectified, healed, and forgiven once they are dealt with. How sad for us that Mama could not let go of her shame.
As we drive back to the Gap, I picture the three of us: Mama, Mario, and me. What if we had been able to reunite as a family after Fred Mulligan died? What if she had told me the truth? What if we had gone to Italy, found him, and knocked on his door? Would we have fit in his life? Mama knew there was no place for us there. She knew she must stay in his memory, where she was young and beautiful and the thing men love best: undemanding. She would be the best lover in his mind’s eye: the uncomplicated great love of his youth. How did she know that those memories are what warms old age? When my father speaks of my mother, a look of contentment settles into his face. He has had many, many women since. I wonder if he really cared about her.
“Did you love her?”
He does not answer me.
“It’s okay, Mario. I can handle it.” I pat his shoulder.
“I never forgot Etta,” he says.
No one ever called my mother Etta; I am so happy he had a special name for her.
I cannot ask him any more questions right now, because I understand, just from the few short hours I have known him, that he does not have much of an attention span. He asks a lot of questions, but he doesn’t stay on any one topic for very long. I can see that he is tired of this one. I change the subject as we drive through town. This pleases him.
Theodore is being a real doll and arranging all sorts of side trips for the relatives. He borrowed the school van to take my family around. Nonna loved Cudjo’s Caverns. Her favorite local cuisine is soup beans and corn bread; she has eaten it every day. Mario and I are becoming good friends; everywhere we go, people tell me I look like him. We convinced Gala to stay for the four-day visit. Even though she is American, Big Stone Gap is like a foreign land to her. Worley has a crush on her, but he doesn’t know it. He just follows her around like he’s never seen a woman before.
Theodore and I plan a doozy of a final night for the family. We’re going to take them to the Carter Family Fold. I hope we haven’t built it up too much. My aunts can’t wait to try clog dancing and eat their first chili dogs.
When we arrive at the Fold, the parking field is packed with cars, as usual. As we pile out of the van, my Italian relatives move slowly, like they are disembarking a spaceship. They look all around at the cars, the people, and the old barn, twinkling in the field against the blue mountains.
Iva Lou and Lyle are dancing when we get there. I take sweaters and purses and stake out a row of hay bales. Theodore takes Gala and my aunts in one direction. Fleeta takes Mario, Nonna, and my uncle to the food stand.
Sitting on the bale of hay, I realize that this is the first time since they’ve arrived that I’ve been alone and had a chance to think. It has all been so crazy—their arrival, our talks late into the night every night, the touring. I’m glad I live in a place I can show off easily in four days. The Fold is pretty much the grand finale of tourist sights around Big Stone Gap.
Nonna asked me to spend the summer with them in Schilpario. I think I will. I’m happy my new family has had the chance to visit Big Stone Gap before I move away entirely. They were able to stay in my mother’s house. Even without furniture, my mother’s spirit is very much alive there. Pearl and Leah will take good care of it. The fall will be a perfect time for me to relocate and find a job. Doesn’t everyone start new projects in the fall?
Iva Lou and Lyle come off the dance floor. She gives him a quick kiss, and he’s off to get something to eat. She waves to me and climbs up to our row of hay.
“What did you do with the Eye-talians?”
“They’re having their first chili dogs.”
“Good for them. Hope they like ’em.”
“They’ve liked everything they’ve eaten. I can’t believe it. My father likes fried chicken, and my aunts love collard greens. Imagine that.”
The folks on the dance floor shift in a large circle, revealing Jack MacChesney and Sarah the schoolteacher waltzing gracefully. Iva Lou catches me looking at them.
“I hate that woman,” she decides.
“Who?”
“The bony schoolteacher.”
“Why?”
“She’s workin’ Jack Mac over. I don’t like it one bit when a woman takes advantage of a vulnerable man. Unless it’s me, of course.”
“He likes her,” I say matter-of-factly.
“It’s more than that. She’s going after him big-time. She was over at the beauty parlor today chatting me up about all the things they do together. They’ve even gone camping. It makes me sick.”
“Why?” I have to admit the camping part makes me a little sick too. You can take one look at Sarah and know she is not the outdoors type. Old Jack Mac better get a lot of camping trips in before he marries her because that’ll be the last time he sees her frying steaks in the great wild. She’s a bait-and-trap type. Once the trap shuts, no more bait.
“You know why.”
“No, I really don’t. She’s not in your business. You’ve got Lyle. So why do you care?”
“Don’t do this,” Iva says, annoyed.
“Do what?”
“I think it’s terrible how you’ve treated Jack Mac. He sold his truck to bring your fam
ily over here, and you haven’t even thanked him properly. What is wrong with you?”
“Iva, I’ve got a house full of company. I was planning on going over to his house tomorrow night. Okay?”
“You should have chased him up the street when he left your house that day!”
“He stormed off.”
“You didn’t even holler after him to stop him. He’d have come back.”
“You don’t know what he said to me.”
“It couldn’t have been bad. The man is crazy about you.”
Poor Iva Lou. She believes in love. I want to shake her and say, Wake up! It’s me you’re talking about. No man is crazy about me. How much proof do you need? I’m alone. Instead, I turn defensive. “You don’t know the whole story, so don’t assume this is all on me because it’s not.”
“Fill me in, girl.”
I whisper, “A few months back, he felt sorry for me and came over and proposed. He was supposedly broken up with Sweet Sue, but after I said no, hardly the weekend passed and he was out with her again. So it wasn’t love or apple butter that drove him over to my house, it was pity. Okay?”
“Pity? Who in their right mind would ever pity you?”
“You don’t know what he’s like. He’s very confused.”
“He doesn’t strike me that way, but all right, if you say so.”
“I tried to thank him. I went to hug him. I couldn’t believe what he had done. But he pulled away, he actually stepped back and didn’t want me to touch him.”
“It didn’t look like that from the porch.”
“I’m not lying to you, Iva.”
Jack Mac follows Sarah outside to the food stand. He guides her with his hand on her lower back. She reaches back with her right hand and pats his leg. Iva Lou sees this, too, and she makes a disgusted clucking noise. “Somebody needs to tell her that flats are a no-no for girls with thick ankles.”
“Let’s just say he did love me once. He sure as hell doesn’t anymore. Let it go.”