sense it was, as they were creating a destination, a life together. The bride and groom sat stiffly in two chairs. Mama held a bouquet of mountain asters tightly as Papa rested his hand on her shoulder.
“Your papa came to see me one Sunday when I was sixteen and he was seventeen,” Giacomina began the familiar story. “He drove the governess cart—at that time, it belonged to his father. It was painted white in those days, and that morning, he had filled it with fresh flowers. There was barely room for your papa on the bench.
“Cipi, just three years old, had pink ribbons braided through his mane. Papa arrived at our house, threw off the reins, leaped off the bench, came into the house, and asked my papa if he could marry me. I was the last daughter in my family to marry. My papa had married off five daughters, and by the time it was my turn, he barely looked up from his pipe. He just said yes, and we went to the priest, that was that.”
“And Papa said—”
“Your father told me that he wanted seven sons and seven daughters.”
“And you said—”
“Seven children will be enough.”
“And now we have six.”
“God owes us one more,” Giacomina teased.
“I think we have enough children around here, Mama. We barely have enough food as it is, and I don’t see God showing up at the door with a sack of flour. “
Mama smiled. She had grown to appreciate Enza’s wry sense of humor. Her eldest daughter had a mature view of the world, and she was worried that Enza was overly concerned with adult problems.
Enza went to the fire to check the iron kettle suspended on the spit and filled with bubbling hot water, melted down from snow. A second pot, resting on the hearth, filled with clean hot water, was used to rinse the clothes. Enza lifted the pot off the fire and placed it on the floor. She picked up a wooden basket full of nightshirts and placed them into the kettle to soak, added lye, and stirred the laundry with a metal rod, careful not to splash the lye onto her skin. As she stirred, the nightshirts turned bright white.
Enza poured off the excess water into an empty pot and hauled it to the far end of the kitchen, where her father had made a chute in the floor, feeding into a pipe that released water down the mountainside. She wrung the nightshirts by hand and gave them to her mother, who hung them on a rope by the fire, mother and daughter making quick work of a big chore. The lye, sweetened with a few drops of lavender oil, filled the room with the fresh scent of summer.
Giacomina and Enza heard footsteps on the landing. They ran to the door, opening it wide. Marco was on the porch, brushing the snow off his boots.
“Papa! You made it!”
Marco came into the house and embraced Giacomina. “Signor Arduini came for the rent this morning,” she whispered.
“What did you tell him?” Papa lifted Enza off the ground and kissed her.
“I told him to wait and speak to my husband.”
“Did he smile?” Marco asked his wife.
“No.”
“Well, he just did. I stopped at his house and paid him the rent. On time, with thirty-five minutes to spare.”
Enza and Giacomina embraced Marco. “Did you girls think that I would let you down?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Enza said truthfully. “That’s a big mountain and there’s a lot of snow, and we have an old horse. And sometimes, even when you do a good job, passengers only pay the first half of the fare, and you get stuck for the rest.”
Marco laughed. “Not this time.” Papa placed two crisp lire and a small gold coin on the dining table. Enza touched each bill and spun the gold coin, thrilled at the treasure.
Giacomina lifted a warming pan from the hearth filled with her husband’s dinner. She served her husband a casserole of buttery polenta and sweet sausage, and poured him a glass of brandy.
“Where did you take the passenger, Papa?”
“To Domenico Picarazzi, the doctor.”
“I wonder why she needs a doctor.” Giacomina placed a heel of bread next to his plate. “Did she seem ill?”
“No.” Marco sipped his brandy. “But she’s suffering. I think she must have just become a widow. She had just placed her sons in the convent in Vilminore.”
“Poor things,” Giacomina said.
“Don’t think about taking them in, Mina.”
Enza noticed that her father used her mother’s nickname whenever