omega, the bookends that held all the family stories from start to finish as well as the various shades and hues of personality and temperament. As Enza held Stella closely and rocked her, the children silently gathered the lunch, cleaned up the napkins, and repacked the basket. Enza could feel Stella’s warm breath in the crook of her neck.
The boys hoisted the food hamper, while the girls helped Stella onto Enza’s back, to carry her back down the mountain. Eliana followed, keeping her hand on the small of Stella’s back, while Alma led them, kicking away any rocks or sticks on the path that could trip Enza as she carried Stella. A small tear trickled down Enza’s face. She had prayed for spring to come, but now she was afraid it had brought with it the worst of luck.
Chapter 4
A POT DE CRÈME
Vasotto di Budino
There was a strange moon the night after Stella got the bruises. Filmy and mustard colored, it flickered in and out of the clouds like a warning light, reminding Enza of the oil lamp Marco used when he traveled by cart in bad weather.
Enza hoped the moon was a sign that the angels were present, hovering over Stella, ambivalent about whether to take her sister’s soul or leave her behind on earth. Enza kneeled at the head of the bed, wove her fingers together, closed her eyes, and prayed. Certainly the angels would hear her and let her sister stay on the mountain. She wished she could shoo the angel of death away like a fat winter fly.
Marco and Giacomina sat on either side of Stella’s makeshift bed in the main room, never taking their eyes from their daughter. The boys, unable to sit still, stayed busy doing chores. Battista, tall and lean, stooped over and stoked the fire, while Vittorio hauled the wood. Eliana and Alma sat in the corner, knees to their chests, watching, hoping.
The local priest, Don Federico Martinelli, was an old man. He had no hair and a long face whose expression did little to comfort them. He knelt at the foot of Stella’s bed through the night, praying the rosary. The soft drone of his voice did not waver as he pinched his shiny green beads one after the other, kissing the soft silver cross, and beginning the Hail Marys anew as the hours passed.
Marco had gone to Signor Arduini as Stella grew weaker, begging for any help he might provide. Signor Arduini sent for the doctor in Lizzola, who came quickly by horse. The doctor examined Stella, gave her medicine for fever, spoke with Marco and Giacomina, and promised to return in the morning.
Enza tried to read the doctor’s face as he whispered with her parents, but he gave no indication what the outcome would be. There appeared to be no urgency, but Enza knew that didn’t mean anything. Doctors are like priests, she knew. Whether it’s an affliction of the body or the soul, there is little that surprises them, and they rarely, if ever, show what they are thinking.
Enza grabbed the doctor’s arm as he went through the door. He turned to look at her, but she could not speak. He nodded kindly and went outside.
Enza peered out into the night through the window slats, certain that if Stella made it until sunrise, she would live; the doctor would return as promised, declare a miracle, and life would be as it always had been. Hadn’t this been true for the Maj boy, who was lost on the road to Trescore for three days, then found? Hadn’t the Ferrante baby, sick with jaundice for sixteen days, eventually recovered? Hadn’t the Capovilla family survived after four children had the whooping cough in the winter of 1903? There were so many stories of miracles on the mountain. Surely Stella Ravanelli would become one of those stories told over and over again in the villages, assuring everyone who lived so high and close to the sky that God would not abandon them. Years from now, when Stella was grown and had her own family, wouldn’t she tell the story of the night she survived the terrible bruises and the fever?
Enza couldn’t imagine their home without Stella, who had always been special. Stella wasn’t named for a saint or a relative like the rest of the children, but for the stars that had shimmered overhead on the summer night she was born.
Enza pictured Stella healthy, but she could not maintain the image, her