Milk Glass Moon (25 page)

“Yes, absolutely. It’s wonderful that you came,” I tell him. “It all happened so fast. She was going to go to college this fall and came over here for a final vacation, and fell in love, and here we all are, and here you are, and oh my God. Where’s Gina?”

“We’re getting divorced.”

“No!”

“It didn’t work out.”

Now, Nonna is listening to all of this, even though she doesn’t speak English. She looks at me, expecting a translation. Instead, I tell her that I am going to go for a walk with Pete. She shrugs and goes back to forming cherubs out of marzipan.

Pete and I walk almost instinctively up to the road beside the chapel of the angels. I try to swerve us up toward the rec center so I can show him the new ice rink, but he takes my arm and leads me to the old stone path that goes up the mountain.

“Where are we going?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. Let’s not plan it.”

“Jack is in Bergamo. He’ll be back tonight.” I say this peppily, though what I’m really saying is, You may be divorced, but I am still very married, so please obey the rules.

“Great. I’d like to see him.”

“So, what happened with Gina?”

“You can’t get married to get married. You have to want it badly. I really think that’s what makes it work.”

“Who wasn’t it working for?”

“Both of us. I travel a lot, and it seemed that whenever I left and returned, we started all over again, instead of picking up on what we had built. It was strange. I thought I loved her, I hoped she loved me, but we both found out that marriage is another matter entirely. It has to work separately from love, almost. Don’t you agree?”

“I do, I guess.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“The older I get, the more I believe in luck.”

Pete and I catch up on his work as we climb the path. He keeps one foot in the marble business and one in academia at NYU. He finally took an apartment in New York City near Washington Square Park (and, therefore, Theodore). He comes to Italy a lot, mostly because he loves it, but often on business.

“Where are we going?” I ask, but I can tell where we’re going from the direction we’re taking. He’s climbing up toward the field of bluebells.

“You know.”

“This is a bad idea.” I stop on the path.

“What?” he says innocently.

“The altitude is bad up there. Makes me do things I shouldn’t do.” Then I breathe deeply. “Things I don’t want to do,” I correct myself.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I love my husband. He’s really the man for me. Of course, it’s taken me almost twenty years to figure it out. No matter what happens, no matter what I do, he stays true. He was there when I went through menopause and had hot flashes so bad I almost drove my Jeep into Powell Valley Lake to cool off. When my friend Spec died, it was like losing my father, and Jack was there to comfort me. When the call came that our eighteen-year-old daughter was getting married, he held me together when I was falling apart. Maybe I have limited experience in these matters, but I don’t think it gets any better than Jack MacChesney.”

“I understand,” Pete says quietly.

“So, the truth is, I’ll never go back up there. Not with you, not alone. Not with anybody. I want to remember what it was, how it was, with you. We can have that, but that’s all we can have. Okay?”

“Okay.”

As we walk down the path back to town, I am thinking one thing, and one thing only: wait until my daughter gets home.

I help Giacomina clear the dinner dishes. The crew returned from Bergamo, happily surprised to find Pete Rutledge at the dinner table, but then thrilled as the wine flowed and stories of Etta’s first trip to Italy when she was little and Pete’s trip to Big Stone Gap were told in Technicolor detail amid much laughter.

Theodore comes up behind me at the sink. “We need to talk,” he whispers.

“I’m almost done.”

“Now.” Theodore takes my arm and pulls me out the kitchen door. “Are you trying to sandbag me? Why didn’t you tell me you invited Pete? You shouldn’t scare me in this high an altitude.”

“I didn’t invite him. Etta did.”

“Why would he come, even if she invited him? What does he want?”

“Me,” I joke. “I thought I’d tell Jack that it’s over between us at Etta’s wedding and then I’d ride off on a donkey down the Alps with Pete.”

“The way he looks at you, he wouldn’t mind it.”

“That’s all in the past.”

“Yeah, well, this is the Land That Time Forgot, so you better be careful.”

Etta turns in early so she’ll be rested for her wedding day. I give her a few moments to get ready for bed before I go in to say good night. She is sitting up in bed reading.

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all.”

“What are you reading?”

“Shakespeare’s
As You Like It
in Italian.”

“Why did you pick that one?”

“Stefano gave it to me. It’s about these characters who are displaced and find their way by falling in love.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“You know, all of Shakespeare’s plays end in either a funeral or a wedding?”

“I remember that.”

“It’s almost as if the two most important days in your life are when you’re murried and when you’re buried.” Etta smiles.

“We never did have our big talk about sex, did we?” I ask my daughter.

“Sure we did. In bits and pieces, here and there, over the years. I got the facts, Ma. Don’t worry.”

“You know, there never is a perfect moment to have that discussion. Believe me, I’ve been working on
that
one for seven years.”

“You did great, Ma.”

“I didn’t come in here for you to tell me how great I am. I came in here to tell you how wonderful
you
are. It’s been a great privilege to be your mother. I was thinking that I always made a big deal out of everything you did wrong, instead of honoring all the things you did right. And now I know what a waste of time it is to focus on the things that really don’t matter. It took two children to teach me that. I’m just glad I got the lesson before you checked me into Heritage Hall Nursing Home to live out my days.”

Etta throws back her head and laughs. “I won’t put you in a home.”

“Never promise your mother
that.
I may very well end up there making fudge with the Tuckett sisters.”

“You’re young, Ma.”

“Thank you. I never thought I’d think that was a compliment, but by God, I’ll take it.”

“Ma, I love Stefano so much.”

“I know you do.”

“We know we’re young, but we feel ready.”

“Then it will work, honey. It works when you make it work.”

“Would you marry Dad again?”

“Absolutely. We’re very different, but somehow we admire our differences instead of letting them annoy us. And the real truth is, he’s a great man. They don’t make them any finer than your father, so why would I choose anyone else?”

Etta looks at me for a moment as though she wants to ask me something; and I’ve known this girl since the day she was born, so I know what she wants to know.

“Why did you invite Pete?” I ask her.

“He’s such a part of Italy to me. That summer we were here. I remember the trip to his marble quarry and when he took us to Florence on the train.”

“You remember all that?”

“Oh yeah. He made you happy again, Ma. After Joe died, you hardly ever laughed. And when we came over that summer, you started to smile again. And one night, you even danced. That’s when I knew you
could
be happy.”

“Pete was, he is, a good friend.” I look at Etta. “And that’s all he was. A friend.”

“I figured that, Ma.”

“It’s true,” I tell her. “It was nice of you to ask him to come. Dad likes him too.”

“I know! See, even that was meant to happen. Dad made a good friend because you did.”

“Is that what the stars tell you?” I ask her.

“I don’t need stars to tell me that.” Etta looks at me seriously. “Do you have advice for me, Ma?”

“You really want my advice?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I would just be patient with Stefano. He grew up very differently from you. He didn’t have a mother and father, and that created a void in him that no one can fill. I know this because I went through it. When my mother died, leaving behind a letter that told me that Mario Barbari was my father, not Fred Mulligan, it took me a long time to understand what had happened and what it meant. And Stefano will spend much of his life trying to understand why things happened to him the way they did. And if you’re smart, and you are, and if you’re like your father, and you are, you’ll know how to handle it.”

“How did Dad handle it?”

“He let me be sad about it. And he listened. And he never tried to make up for what I didn’t have, he just loved me for who I am, knowing that my sadness was part of me.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Ma, do I have everything?” Etta asks me.

“You did a more thorough job packing than Aunt Iva Lou did when she came to Italy when you were fifteen.”

“That good?” Etta smiles.

“That good,” I tell her. “You’re going to have the best honeymoon. Rimini is perfect.”

“Thank you for everything, Ma. For coming over and for your support.”

“I have something for you.” I give Etta a package wrapped in white paper with a pink satin ribbon.

Etta tears into it. “An empty book?” she says, flipping through the leather-bound journal.

“Your dad and I—”

“It’s my own anniversary book! Isn’t it, Ma? I always loved that you and Dad wrote to each other every year.”

I try not to cry, but I realize now that she noticed everything, including the good stuff. All these years we watched Etta closely, and the whole time she was watching us. Maybe she is ready to write her own story. “I got the one with the extra pages, since you’re getting married so young,” I joke. “Dad and I went with a slimmer volume, since we got married later in life.” Etta and I laugh.

“And one more thing. I don’t want you to be scared about having children. We lost Joe, but it was out of our hands. I still don’t understand why, but even if I knew why, I wouldn’t trade one day of the time we had with him.”

“Me either,” Etta says quietly.

“If you can, don’t make any decisions based upon fear. Try to choose the big things out of love, and I don’t think you’ll ever go wrong.”

Etta and I hold each other for a very long time. Parenthood, the least permanent job in the world, just ended for each of us, and a new story begins tonight. This next chapter ought to be a doozy.

Etta and Stefano’s wedding day, September 3, 1998, is the most beautiful day I have ever seen. The cobblestones on Via Scalina, on the way to La Capella di Santa Chiara, glisten. The sky is aquamarine blue without a cloud, and the air is cool enough to wrap yards of silver taffeta over my shoulders like a countess. My husband looks so handsome in his Italian-cut navy blue pin-striped suit with the red handkerchief. We didn’t say a word as we got ready this morning. He just kissed me every chance he got.

Zia Meoli and Zio Pietro are sitting in the front row of the chapel. Before the procession begins, I go up the stairs to the tiny choir loft and say a prayer by the stained-glass window of the Blessed Mother that my great-grandfather designed and installed so many years ago. I pray to my mother and to Ave Maria Albricci, who took care of my mother when she was alone with only me inside of her to keep her company. Jack comes up the stairs to tell me it’s time for the service to begin.

Don Andrea, the priest who married Jack and me, stands at the altar. The alpine air must be good for him; he seems as robust as the day he married us. Etta has asked her father and me to walk her down the aisle. We are preceded by Federica’s daughter, Giuliana, who wears a pink tulle dress and carries a small bouquet of edelweiss and is followed by Chiara, in a simple pale green silk sheath with a small wreath of boxwood.

Giacomina is the matron of honor, and Papa is the best man. Stefano, in a black Edwardian suit with a pale blue tie, never takes his gaze off our daughter as we walk down the aisle. When we reach the altar, I kiss my girl and step away. My husband kisses her and holds her for a very long time. Only I could know what these two mean to each other, because I have seen from the moment she was born that she felt understood and heard by her father, treasured by him. They have always been the best of friends, and it gives me great comfort that she has the very thing I was missing all of my life.

I expect to cry through the ceremony, but I don’t. I listen carefully to the instructions that the priest gives my daughter and my son-in-law. He tells them that love is central to a marriage, but forgiveness is the one element that makes a marriage last. Jack takes my hand when he hears this, because he and I know from experience that it is the truth.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” my husband whispers to me. I nod. And truly, in all of my life, I have never seen a woman so lovely. Etta’s long brown hair is twisted into a low chignon and set in place with tiny clusters of edelweiss. She is tall and slim, almost her husband’s height, and as they stand beside each other, I see that she is every bit his equal. Her eyes are the same deep green as her grandma MacChesney’s, the Scottish freckles peek through the pressed powder, and her rosebud mouth is set with determination.

Theodore must know what I am thinking. He reaches over the back of the pew and takes my hand. I don’t let go. I turn around and smile at him. A couple of rows behind Theodore is Pete Rutledge, who smiles at me. Here, under one roof, are the most important men in my life, who have loved, accepted, and changed me. What sort of fate has brought us all together? What strange karma? Why does it feel that we have all been here before, in this chapel that smells of frankincense and white lilies? What connects us all is in some cases a blood tie, but more often than that, it’s some centrifugal force that throws us together for reasons we can never understand. Did my mother have to leave these mountains to go to the hills of Southwest Virginia so I might find Jack MacChesney? And why, after all of that, does my daughter return to the very place where her grandmother was born to find her true love? I almost laugh, but I catch myself. We Vilminore women, we always take the long way home.