now she found herself headed to a husband she'd never met, seated beside a man who, despite her best defenses and all good sense, stirred in her strange and unsettling emotions. One whose compliments and attentions she craved when she should have berated herself for even thinking about him. The more she tried to remember that she was married to a good, kind-hearted man and must uphold the family honor, the more she was drawn to Tonio.
She'd never known a man who had affected her in any stirring way. She knew she possessed the ability to fluster them and turn their heads and she reveled in their attention, as much as was permissible under the tight constraints of the society she came from.
Life in her home village of Santa Croce had been simple, bound by tradition and social stature. Each day her father, Pasquale Di Maria, left when the sun rose to work in the fields of the rich landholders in the surrounding countryside, sometimes traveling for hours upon the family donkey to reach his destination. He was not a skilled worker, like the grafters who traveled the country carrying small black tool cases resembling doctors' bags. He was an ordinary field hand, poorly paid because of his lack of skills.
Angelina, her sisters, and mother attended to the domestic duties. Their house was a small one, located in the village with all the others packed tightly together like row houses. In front and in back of the house were narrow cobblestone streets. There were no yards, but each family had a garden plot located across the stone bridge just outside the boundaries of the village. Angelina and her sisters tended the garden where they raised lentils, peas, fava beans, tomatoes, and herbs. On a warm spring day, her sisters would walk through the streets inhaling the smells of clay, warm straw, and sweet herbs. If it rained they would splash in the puddles that pooled in the holes left by missing cobblestones.
It was down these same streets that her mother had walked her and the two sisters nearest her in age, the three considered old enough to marry, to the town square, the chiazza, as piazza was pronounced in dialect, to do the shopping or go to church on Sunday.
The church was located at the far end of the chiazza from her home. Simple by Italian standards, it was made of aged gray stone. Inside it had a domed ceiling, a huge statue of the Christ and the Virgin Mary, and crucifixes hung or were placed in every available nook. On the walls were paintings of the Stations of the Cross. She and her family attended mass every Sunday; not to do so was a sin and would subject one to social condemnation. Besides, it was the social event of the week.
She and her sisters dressed in their finest for these strolls to mass, hoping to attract the attention of the single young men. It was a tradition centuries old, this strolling along the streets and there were well-defined, though unwritten rules. Men walked with men, women with women, unless a man accompanied his wife. A man never spoke to a woman walking alone, or even stared at her, for she could uproot him with a glance. A woman was not greeted unless her husband was present. But the discreet, admiring sidelong glances Angelina received as she walked along behind Mama and Papa were not lost on her. And though that was as close as she was ever allowed to a single man not of her family, it had been a titillating experience. But it, and the stolen pecks on the cheek at carnevale last year, paled next to the maelstrom of emotion she felt as she sat next to the undeniably handsome Tonio.
He folded the letter he was reading and returned it to its faded envelope with unexpected reverence. The gentle crinkling of paper caught her attention and she turned to watch him as he replaced the bundle of letters in his duffel.
"You seemed entranced by the scenery," he said, "Anything interesting out there?"
"I wasn't really watching. I was thinking."
"About what?"
She considered for a moment before speaking. "What happened to the girl?"
"What girl?"
"The one you almost married."
"She died."
His look gave nothing away. She couldn't tell whether he was sorry or not.
"The baby?"
"He died with her, in childbirth."
"Oh! I'm sorry." She felt herself color. Perhaps she'd been too bold in asking. She looked down and played nervously with the finely