the worktable. He stood, picked up the work boot he had been working on, flipped the switch on the brushing machine, and commenced polishing the boot. Enza was mystified, her excitement and impatience slowly giving way to anger. She went to the machine and turned it off. “What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t want it.”
“Why? It was your father’s. You always tell me that you wished you had something of his. This stock was given as reparations for his death.”
“And it wouldn’t change a thing, now, would it, Enza?”
“He would want you to have it.”
“Buy furniture with it. Or send it to my brother for the poor. That stock is blood money. It could have meant everything fourteen years ago, when my mother had to sell all our belongings to pay off our debts forcing her to leave Eduardo and me in the convent. But now she’s gone, and my brother is a priest, and I don’t need it.” He put down the boot and looked up at the shelves he had built, loaded with boots, laces tied together, each pair affixed with a small tag showing the customer’s name and a pick-up time. “This is my legacy. My hard work. You. Us. The rest of it doesn’t matter. It’s just money. And it isn’t money that I earned. It will just remind me of all I lost and will never recover.”
Enza stood for a moment, holding the certificate. She folded it and placed it in her pocket. She didn’t bring up the subject again. Instead, she cashed the stock and opened a bank account in Chisholm in their names. Then, like Ciro, she put it out of her mind.
Luigi opened the door of his apartment in Hibbing, festooned with fresh greens, tied with a bright blue bow. “Buon Natale!” Luigi embraced Enza and then Ciro. He helped Enza with the packages she carried.
Pappina had set their holiday table with candles and white china. The scent of butter and garlic simmering on the stove wafted through the three-room apartment. An empty bassinette in the corner was covered in small white ribbons. Pappina was in the kitchen, very pregnant and cheerful and delighted to see Enza and Ciro.
“What are you making?” Ciro asked.
“Escargot in butter and garlic.”
“Did you put the nickel in?” Ciro asked.
“Go ahead,” said Pappina.
Ciro fished in his pocket for a nickel and dropped it into the pan where the snails, in their copper-and-white shells, simmered.
After a few moments Pappina sifted out the nickel, still a shiny silver, returning it to Ciro. The Italians never eat escargot if the coin turns black. It means the snails are rotten. “They’re good.”
“They better be. We’re starving,” Enza said, pitching in to help Pappina with the pasta. Luigi poured Ciro a glass of wine in the living room, and they joined their wives in the kitchen.
“Ciro came to mass with me this morning.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Luigi.
“We went to Saint Alphonse,” Pappina said.
“We have to. If we want the baby baptized, we have to tithe,” said Luigi.
“Oh, you make it sound like all the church wants is your money,” Pappina said.
“They don’t mind your money, but they’d prefer your soul,” Ciro said.
“Your brother is a priest, and you talk like that?” Enza gently slapped her husband’s cheek. “You know you enjoyed it—you liked the kyries and the hymns. Right?”
“I did. And looking at the statues brought me right back to San Nicola. It’s funny how the things you do as a boy never leave you.”
“I hope some of the things you did left you,” Luigi joked.
“I’m a happy husband now. I only have eyes for Enza.”
“Smart man.” Pappina laughed.
“It’s difficile for a statue to change its pose,” Luigi said.
“I’ve changed for the better, brother.” Ciro smiled.
“We’ll take your word for it,” Pappina said to Ciro. “Would you take the platter to the table? I need a strong man, I left the bones in the turkey.”
Ciro lifted the platter and turned to take it to the living room. Enza watched him go. He seemed to get more handsome as time went on, and she imagined that when he was old, he would become even more attractive to her as his light brown hair turned white. She saw how other women looked at him, and knew that they were seeing on the surface what she had always known: there was no one else like him. She followed him into the dining room, where he placed the platter on the table. He stood up