that celebration the most because the girls have a dance competition. Baltic beauties, each more stunning than the one before, line up to tap, kick, and sashay,” Ida assured them.
“I like the dancing for the art of it, Ida.” Emilio winked.
“Now he’s a patron of the fine arts.” Ida shrugged.
“How long have you and Emilio been in Chisholm?” Enza asked.
“Since 1904,” said Ida.
“We were here for the Burt-Sellers mining disaster in Hibbing,” Emilio said. “It was quite a welcome to life on the Iron Range. Hundreds of men died underground. Such a tragedy.”
Enza looked at Ciro, who looked away. An expression of hollow grief crossed his face. He forced a smile. “Emilio, want to join me for a smoke?”
Emilio followed Ciro to the outside of the tent. “Did Emilio say something wrong?” Ida asked.
“Ciro’s father died in a mining accident in 1904 in Hibbing.”
“How awful. I’m sure Emilio didn’t know.”
“He wouldn’t. Ciro never talks about it. It’s such a terrible part of his past, and his mother, poor thing, didn’t handle it very well. She ran out of money, had no family to turn to, and finally had to put her sons in a convent.”
“Iron ore makes steel and widows,” Ida remarked.
Ida showed Enza the wine barrels, set up at the far side of the tent, with easy access from either side. Enza helped herself to a glass and sipped the sweet wine, feeling her mood plummet at the thought of Ciro’s unhappiness. She didn’t know what to say or do; any mention of his father produced either a depressive silence or a quiet rage, never directed at her, but taken out on equipment, tough leather, and himself. She wished there was some way to heal his broken heart. Maybe moving to the place where his father died hadn’t been the best idea.
Ida excused herself to join a group of ladies, leaving Enza to circulate through the tent alone. Suddenly the band began to play and men and women paired off, practically skipping onto the dance floor, planks of wood set into the ground for just that purpose. Enza looked around for Ciro, going up on her toes to look over the crowd. She saw him enter the tent alone and waved to him. He looked around but did not catch his wife’s eye.
A comely young woman of twenty with a long, silky blond braid cascading down her back grabbed Ciro by the arm and pulled him on to the crowded dance floor.
“You better watch your husband,” Ida said to Enza as she passed her on the way to join the cakewalk in the field.
Enza didn’t need any reminders from Ida to look out for Ciro. Plus, Enza could find Ciro in any crowd easily because of his height. She tried to move onto the dance floor to join him, but the surrounding bystanders were too thick, and she couldn’t push through.
She watched as Ciro put his arm around the waist of the Baltic beauty, who was eager to show him the steps of the dance. He laughed as she took his hands, and Enza flashed to Mulberry Street, when he’d entered the shop carrying two bottles of champagne in the delightful company of Felicitá so many years ago. Ciro had the same look on his face that he had then—not a care in the world, just a sense of unfettered joy. The girl was not that much younger than Enza, but suddenly Enza felt a hundred years older. The beauty leaned in and whispered something in Ciro’s ear, and he whispered in hers. Enza felt a flash of pain in her chest, sudden and piercing.
Ciro’s lean build and broad shoulders were an athletic counter to the willowy limbs of the girl, whose own green eyes shimmered like emeralds. At one point, the couples swayed toward the bystanders near Enza, and she tried again to wave to her husband. But he was no longer looking for her. He was laughing with abandon as the girl spun around him, pivoting back as she lifted the hem of her voluminous pale green velvet skirt, revealing her smooth calves and small ankles. Ciro drank the details of her in, and it made Enza’s stomach churn.
“She seems to have no idea he’s married,” Ida said.
Ida’s comment jolted Enza back into reality. “He doesn’t wear a ring. I wear his ring.” Enza twisted the signet ring on her finger.
“You should go out there and break it up right now,” Ida insisted. “There were too many