“I didn’t think you would,” he says quietly.
“Jack, you have to explain to me what you’re feeling. Because I don’t get it. Please help me understand.”
“When I married you, I wanted to make you happy.”
“You did.”
“I took it on because I wanted to.”
“Took what on?”
“You. Your ways.”
“Nobody is simple, Jack. We’re all complicated. That’s how people are. And anyone out there who you think is easy, believe me, they’re not.” I want to come out and say, “If you think Karen Bell is a cakewalk, you’re crazy.” But I can’t. I will not say her name in this house.
“I knew it was going to be hard. I know a good marriage is more work than not. But I thought at the time that you would dig in and work with me. I thought that no matter what happened, we would share it.”
“Haven’t we shared everything?”
“No.”
“I thought we had.” I’m lying. We haven’t shared everything, and I know it. “You’re talking about Joe.”
“My heart broke too when he died.”
“I know.” Jack takes my hand.
“And it’s still broken. I’ve felt ready to talk about it, but you seem distant so I give up. The only time you dealt with it, with me, was at the cemetery last Christmas. And I had so much hope that it was the beginning of a new time for us. I felt like maybe you were going to share with me. Grieve with me. But that one day came and went, and that was it.” Jack lets go of my hand.
“You shouldn’t attack me for the way I handled our son’s death. That’s not fair.”
“I’m not attacking you,” he says quietly.
“There isn’t a manual out there that tells you how to handle your child’s death. Even other parents who went through this, the ones I talked to, couldn’t help me. Us. I didn’t handle it well. But how do you handle something like that well? Is it even possible?”
Jack Mac looks at me. He closes his eyes to think for a moment, then he opens them and looks at me. “I know he came through your body, and that’s something I could never understand, but you pushed me away.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Let’s be clear. You did mean to. You think that there’s only one person in the world who can do things right, and that’s you. You’ve never really trusted me.” I start to object, and he interrupts me. “You don’t think I’m capable of taking care of our family, of you. In some way, you think that I’m not up to the task. Now, maybe you’d be that way with any man, but I only know how you are with me. And you can flit around here and smile and pretend that everything is fine, but you and I know the truth. Underneath this perfectly nice surface is a lie. I really believed in us, and you never did. It’s unrequited love. I love a woman, you, who doesn’t love me in the same way. A thinking man would end it all right here. A thinking man would just say, ‘It’s over.’ But I have always let my heart rule my head. I think you need to take the summer to think about what you want to do. And I need the time to think about what I want to do. And I say we talk after you come back from Italy and we decide how we’re going to proceed.”
“You want a …” I can’t, won’t, say the word “divorce.”
“I didn’t say that. I want you to think about what you want. You may decide that you don’t want to be married to me anymore.”
“And you’re willing to take that chance?”
He shrugs. “I can’t live like this.”
I look at Jack MacChesney, and he is in pain. He doesn’t want to say these things. He doesn’t want to believe them, yet he knows that they are true. I am not really here. When we got married, I thought happiness would come naturally. I thought he could fill me up in the way that love fills people in storybooks. I thought passion would rule us, that love would overcome any problem we had, that love itself was communication. But it’s not. I haven’t worked on this. I’m afraid to tell him that I don’t know how. And where would I learn it at this late date? He is unhappy. I am not the woman he thought I was. I have turned out to be a disappointment to him. Remote. Private. Unwilling to share. I know myself well. I’ve always been able to take care of people and call it work. But the real work is being honest. The real work is admitting that what I came from had a deeper effect on me than I knew. That when our son died, it was worse for me. Maybe it wasn’t, but that was what I felt. Maybe I believe that mothers are more important than fathers, and Jack sensed that. Sensed it? He downright laid it out plain for me. He has given this a lot of thought. He thinks about this all the time. How much time in a given day do I think about him in this way, if ever? I usually think about him in terms of myself. I do things for him, sure. But I do them because I’m supposed to, out of duty. The same way my mother did things. If the home was orderly and the meals were prepared, she’d provided stability. But my husband doesn’t want stability. He wants a real partner. Someone who is going to dig down deep and work things through with him. I have failed him. I need to own up to it.
“Jack MacChesney.” I whistle low and long.
He looks at me and smiles.
“Lordy mercy. I hear what you’re saying.” I collapse on the chair.
“Don’t kid around.”
“I’m not kidding around. And it doesn’t matter if I agree with everything you’ve said, which, by the way, I don’t. It’s how you feel. And I honor that.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not going to cut you loose.”
“Ave?”
“What?” I sound annoyed when I say this, but come on, how much more am I supposed to take?
“Don’t stay in this marriage for me. Do what is right for you.”
“Okay. But I want to tell you something. And it’s not to dump guilt on you in any way. But I was looking forward to being together in Italy, like we were on our honeymoon. I was hoping that this trip would be a new start for us. I just want you to know that I know you’re not happy. And I wanted to change that.”
Jack comes to me and puts his arms around me. “We can’t go back to a magic place and hope it fixes us. It don’t work that way, baby,” he says simply, then he kisses my neck.
“As long as there’s one spark here, just one, maybe we can make it work,” he says to me. I smile at him, then I bury my head in his shoulder. One spark. My marriage rests on the notion of one spark. What a delicate, tiny, insignificant little thing. A spark. One glint of light. Is that enough to see with?
Etta walks between Jack and me, holding our hands as we walk through Tri-Cities Airport. When we get to the gate, Jack hugs Etta for a long time.
“Etta, wait for me by the door,” I tell her.
“Okay, Dad, that’s enough,” Etta says as she gives her father a final hug. She adjusts her backpack and goes to wait for me.
“Jack. Look at me.” My husband looks at me. His eyes are full of pain. I can see that he is torn, that he would like to go with us. But he too has a plan, and he is sticking with it.
“Not here,” he says softly.
“No, I have to say something to you. You told me last night that you want me to decide if I want to be married to you. And I promised you that I would think about it while I was in Italy, so I will. But I want you to understand something. I may always be, I don’t know … awkward. Maybe I didn’t leave that spinster behind when we got married. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t express the love I feel the way I should. And maybe I don’t know how to love you like you need to be loved. But I believe that even with all my shortcomings, and there are many, I am still the right woman for you. Please wait for me. I think I deserve another chance.” And with that, I kiss my husband on the cheek. I hoist my duffel bag on my back and join Etta by the gate. I hand the tickets to the nice man by the door, and we follow the other passengers to the puddle-jumper plane, then climb the steps. When we get to the top step, Etta turns around and waves to her daddy.
“Mommy, wave.”
“You wave for me, honey.” I can
’t look back. I won’t.
My daughter’s sadness at Jack’s absence gives way to the excitement of international travel in a matter of minutes. Our flight from Tri-Cities connects into Charlotte, North Carolina, we make a quick change, and head on to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Etta is shocked at how many people race through JFK from one terminal to another. “Mama, they look like ants!” she says, pointing to the crowd of travelers, which surges at a central point where the international terminal merges into one big space. “Stay with me,” I tell my daughter cheerfully. She latches her finger on to my belt loop lightly as we walk through the throng. I’m excited by the hub of activity too. I love the way the airport smells: of soap and leather and perfume from the duty-free shop. This is just what we needed, I think as I look down at Etta.
Everything about the transatlantic plane ride enthralls her: the pretty flight attendants with their long, shiny taupe nails and perfect haircuts; the Coke in small glass bottles on her seat-back tray; the kit of amenities, including navy blue cotton booties with Italian flags embossed on them. Etta sheds her small-town, Blue Ridge Mountain reserve and sits high in her seat. She is not missing one detail of this flight. How thrilled she is when they bring her dinner in courses.
“Mama, why is it so black out there?”
“That’s the ocean underneath us.”
“But shouldn’t there be ships with lights on them?”
“I don’t think ships come out this far.”
“If we crash, would anyone know?”
“Let’s not think about crashes.”
“We better not crash. What would Daddy do?”
“We won’t crash.”
“Daddy told me to be careful.”
“He did?”
“He told me that you and me were his life. And that I was to watch out for you and make sure that you had a good time.”
“You and Daddy talk about me?”
“There’s only the three of us,” Etta says, looking off down the aisle as though I am the biggest idiot in the world. Maybe I am.
Milan is a city of crisp vertical stripes, navy blue, gray, and black. Everything here is angular, from the architecture to the bone structure on the serious faces that brush past us. Even the Milanese bodies are simple and spare and thin; no Sophia Lorens here. No curves. Just straight, lean, no-nonsense shapes. Etta and I, in our cotton and denim, stick out like American tourists. (Forget that we actually are American tourists, we just don’t want to look like it.) So before we board the train for Bergamo (there is one every hour), I take Etta into a small women’s clothing shop. Lightweight wool trousers, navy blue with a flat placket and straight legs, a white cotton blouse with a gold hook and catch at the collar, and a beige cardigan are exactly what I’m looking for. I am not getting on that train with this Italian face in these American clothes. I need a uniform. And here it is. Etta thinks I’m nuts. My daughter likes her American jeans just fine and has no need to be anything but a MacChesney from Virginia, U.S.A.
As the train clicks north through the Italian countryside, low mossy hills of a deep green so rich it’s almost midnight blue give way to a deep and endless pink skyline, and I am amazed at how quickly we leave modern Milan behind. Soon the world chugging past turns ancient, untouched. The sun hangs low and golden, resting on peach clouds just like it does in Tiepolo’s painting on our guidebook.
I look down at Etta, who gazes out the window with an expression of wonder. I’ve seen that expression before, on her father’s face. God, she looks just like him. Even if I wanted to leave Jack Mac behind in the mountains of Virginia, I can’t. As long as she is with me, her father is here too. She is so much like Jack, even though my friends say she is just like me. She is so steady and true. Even if you hurt her feelings, she forgives you and doesn’t seem to store up grudges. That’s not to say she doesn’t suffer; she does. She feels things deeply. But like her father, she doesn’t like to linger too long on things that hurt her. There is no victim in my daughter. She is wide open and yet very private. I fold my arms across my chest and lean back, placing my legs on the seat across from us. I look down at my long legs; I could work a farm here.
A man passes by our glass-enclosed car and peeks in. He drinks me in from the tip of my toes to the top of my head and then looks into my eyes. His brown hair and mustache make him seem young, but he is around fifty. He winks at me. I smile politely, quickly look away, and sit up. I grip my knees with my hands, wedding-ring-side up. He couldn’t care less about the ring; I shoot him a look that he should move on. He does.
As our train chugs into Bergamo, Etta stands in awe. I have told her the story of my honeymoon many times, and how I felt when I first saw this place, my mother’s hometown in all its detail: the carved wooden bench at the train station, the fountain of angels, and my first ride on cobblestone streets. How the air smells like clean straw and lemongrass.
Etta presses her face against the window, knowing that in seconds she will be with Nonno; at last she will meet her great-grandmother (to whom she has written letters since she could write); all her cousins; and of course my mother’s people, the divine Vilminores of Bergamo. I have shown her pictures of them many times, and she starts rattling off things she remembers. Some of the first words she learned were their names from the “flash cards” we made of our honeymoon pictures. Etta wants to visit the magical Alta Città and see the priests in their wide-brimmed black hats and cassocks, and the post where my grandfather used to hook his donkey named Cipi and his old wooden wagon before he made deliveries up into the Alps. I want to stand and jump up and down like she is, but suddenly, I see Joe’s face as he lay dying, and I cannot be happy. Quickly, I erase the picture. I’m a terrible mother. I don’t focus. Focus on Etta. She’s alive and well and thrilled to see Italy. Don’t think about all the things you didn’t do for Joe. Don’t think about how he would love this train. Don’t think about how you made him frozen waffles in the toaster instead of fresh pancakes on the stove. He’s gone. Etta is here. Focus on Etta.
Carefully, I pull our luggage off of the wooden rack above our seats as Etta smoothes her hair. Even the luggage racks in the Italian train cars are works of art. The lush cherry wood is curved and polished smooth. Etta runs for the steps to the platform and stops short of hopping off, turning around to wait for me. My father greets us at the foot of the stairs. He pulls Etta off the steps like he’s gathered a bunch of flowers and swings her around the platform. How youthful and strong he is, though his hair has more white in it now. His eyes, a clear, dark brown, dazzle against his golden skin. I feel instantly safe around him. He wears black pants (the cuffs hit his gray suede loafers in a perfect crease) and a gray cashmere pullover sweater. Papa puts Etta down and embraces me.
“How was your trip?”
“Glorious.”
“You’re tired.”
“A little.”
“I want you to meet Giacomina.” My father turns to find the woman in his life. She is a few steps behind him, smiling, with her hands clasped in anticipation. Trim and small with clear gray eyes, she has a simple beauty and thick, straight brown hair that she wears in a ponytail. Her lips are full and even, her teeth white and perfectly shaped. She has a small, delicate nose with a narrow bridge. She is dressed like the Milan version of me, except she’s in beige from head to foot. In English, her name is Jacqueline—it suits her.
“Ave Maria, we are so happy you’re here.”
“I’ve heard wonderful things about you.”
“Thank you. I feel as though I know you. Your father talks about you all the time.” Giacomina loads my bags onto her shoulders and arms without wrinkling her silk blouse.
“Where is Jack?” Papa wants to know.
“He had too much work.”
“He needs a rest, though.”
“Yes, he does. But you can’t tell my husband anything.” I say this all so gaily that my father looks at me curiously.
“The Vilminores are expecting us a
t Via Davide.”
Etta shrieks at the mention of Via Davide, Mama’s family homestead on the side street. She has heard all about the poofy beds and the hard biscuits and coffee with sweet, hot milk for breakfast. She wants to see the tiny handmade chocolates on a silver plate that Zia Antonietta left on our pillows each night.
“Giacomina and I will stay in her apartment nearby. You and Etta will stay with Meoli. Sound good?”
“Sounds great.”
“When I told her you were coming, Meoli didn’t want to wait until after you stayed in Schilpario. She wanted you first. Very bossy.” Papa clucks. “But I don’t argue.”
“Schilpario will be there tomorrow,” Giacomina says, and smiles.
Via Davide has not changed. The houses are close together and painted soft corals and blues. Long shutters flap against the houses in the breeze. Small, shiny cars are parked on the street.
“It’s just like the postcards,” Etta exclaims.
When we get to Zia Meoli’s house, I jump out of the car and race for the front door. Zia Meoli, in a simple navy blue pocodotte shirtwaist dress, greets us. Her beautiful black hair is streaked with white, and she wears shiny gold hoop earrings. Her daughter, Federica, joins her at the door, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her red hair a mop of curls and her brown eyes crinkled at the corners. Zio Pietro walks around from the side yard, having heard our noisy reunion. He brushes his thick white hair from his forehead, takes a final drag off his cigarette and tosses it into a rosebush. When I introduce Etta to them, they fuss over her like a new toy. They feel as though they know her from my letters; I am so glad that I write to my family here regularly. It’s as though they live an hour, not an ocean, away. We have a bond that connects us at the soul; we don’t have to be neighbors. Zia Meoli touches Etta’s hair and her face and holds her hands, examining them, all the while shooting questions in all manner of Italian—fast, slow, dialect—and broken English.
“She looks like her papa,” Zio Pietro decides.
“I think so too,” Zia Meoli agrees.
“Where is Zia Antonietta hiding?” I ask my aunt.