Catarina's Ring

by Lisa McGuinness

  As she lay on the bed and dozed, she could hear laughter from the kitchen mixed with the sound of baby noises, chopping, and cooking. She sighed with deep relief, so grateful to be here at home instead of being on the street with Gregorio and making the worst decision of her life. A decision she would have never been able to undo.

  She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  When she awoke hours later, it was to the sound of her doorknob slowly turning.

  “Hello,” she said in a sleepy voice as her husband sat on the bed next to her.

  He brushed the hair off of her face and she put her arms around his waist.

  “Are you ok?” Franco asked. “Mama said you have been sleeping all afternoon and that I shouldn’t disturb you.”

  “I’m fine,” she smiled. “I just felt tired. I’m good now.”

  He bent down and kissed her forehead.

  “Franco?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, mia bella moglie, beautiful wife,” he said and lay down with his arms wrapped around her.

  “Thank you for bringing me here and marrying me.”

  “You were always the one for me, Catarina.”

  “As it turns out,” she smiled, “you were the one for me, too.”

  Chapter 26

  JULIETTE, A DIFFERENT KIND OF PAINTING, A STORY, AND A LOSS

  Juliette, donned in baggy, paint-splattered jean shorts and an equally splattered white, V-neck T-shirt, pried open a can of paint and poured it into the roller pan. Construction was to the painting stage and Juliette had insisted on helping. She had been painting walls since she was in third grade. In elementary school, she had become tired of the bubble gum color she had chosen during the earnest pink phase she’d gone through but her mother had been busy with the shop and her father had been working on a paper he was writing about some ancient civilization, so she had roped Nonna Catarina into coming over and helping her. Together they chose a rich gray-green for the walls, which was Juliette’s favorite color for years. For the restaurant, she was going with ochre. It would set off the brick sidewalls, and the black iron in the windows would stand out boldly against the warm brownish-yellow hue in the front.

  She had climbed the ladder, roller brush in hand, when Ian yelled from below.

  “Wait, Juliette,” he waved thin plastic gloves. “I got these for you so you don’t ruin your ring.”

  “You’re so nice, but don’t worry. I left it at home for once, so I wouldn’t get paint all over it. Have I ever told you the story of my ring?” she asked.

  “Nope. I just noticed that you always wear it.”

  “You’re very observant, for a guy.”

  “I don’t know whether to be appreciative of that comment or insulted for men in general.”

  Juliette laughed. “Take it as a compliment. That’s how I meant it. Anyway, the ring has a very long history. It was actually given to my grandmother, Catarina Pensebene,” she said with an Italian-accented flair, “when she arrived here as a mail-order bride from Italy.”

  Ian stopped shaking the can of paint he was about to open and looked up at her. “That’s not your run-of-the-mill ‘how we met’ story.”

  “I know, right? My granddad gave it to her when she arrived here as a symbol that he would be a good and faithful husband. And he was. They were so sweet with each other. Even as a little girl, I could tell they loved each other so much. She arrived here when she was seventeen and he was twenty-six. How crazy is that? They were married almost sixty years. She told me the ring saved her life once.”

  “It’s hard to imagine what would make a girl of that age leave her country and marry someone she didn’t even know,” Ian said.

  “I’ve wondered the same thing many times, but Nonna always said that she had met him once when she was a small girl and that their families were friends—things were different then. She told me that her father wanted her to go because the war was coming and he wanted her away and safe, but the way she said it, I don’t know . . . I could tell there was something more,” she paused. “I never knew the whole story until I read her letters. They’re fascinating. I’m almost done with them all.”

  “Anyway, when Nonna passed away, she left the ring to my mom. My mom was part of a huge Italian family. There were five boys—her older brothers—and then along came my mom years later. Nonna always said my mom was the pleasant surprise of her life. She was forty-two when Mom was born, which was a bit scandalous at the time.”

  “She sounds like an interesting woman.”

  “Yeah, she was. I miss her. That’s why I wear the ring all the time. It’s a way to keep her and my mom close to me,” Juliette paused. “My nonna and granddad lived in San Francisco, but they bought a little house in Napa, where they would go to get out of the city. It’s still in the family. If you want, I’ll take you there sometime. We all get a weekend up there now and then and everyone congregates there on Thanksgiving. I have about a million cousins, as you can imagine. I love my uncles and aunts. It’s crazy, but fun.”

  “It sounds great. I’d love to go.”

  “You’d like it from an architectural standpoint, too. It’s been added on to a couple of times, but for the most part, it’s as it was when it was built at the turn of the century.”

  “Count me in.” Ian smiled, holding her eyes for a long moment. When she went back to painting, she could picture him there with her family. Her uncle Dante always hosed down a big patch on the side of the orchard so they could play mud football. It was ridiculously filthy and fun.

  They worked together silently for a while—both ignoring the growing chemistry between them.

  Several hours of painting, in addition to the shift she’d pulled as a barista earlier in the morning, had worked some kinks into Juliette’s neck, so she decided to call it a night and left Ian to finish up. As she drove up the hill to her in-law studio, she noticed that the sky was turning the golden hue that told her fall was just around the corner, and realized she’d noticed the same thing while she was walking out of the restaurant with her mom just before the accident. How could that have been almost a year ago?

  She pulled into her driveway and stopped short.

  Her front door was ajar.

  Her mind raced. Had she forgotten to lock the door? She tried to remember locking it behind her when she left. Had she? Of course she had. In fact, she remembered locking it, then having to go back for her cell phone, which she’d left on the table. She’d come back out and had definitely locked it again.

  She parked the car and walked cautiously to the door.

  “Hello?” she paused, listening. “Dad? Gina?”

  She gently opened the door wider and made a bunch of noise. Her heart was racing.

  “Not today, not today,” she whispered. “Not the one day when my only entirely irreplaceable item is not on my finger.”

  She peeked in and saw that the cottage had been ransacked but she didn’t hear any noises coming from inside, so she cautiously walked in with her heart hammering in her chest. She had hidden the ring in the paper towel tube, putting it back on the holder with the ring inside. She had thought it was ingenious, but when she saw the roll on the floor, her heart lurched.

  “No! No! No!” she yelled, and grabbed her phone to call the police.

  She raced up to the main house to see if it had been broken into as well, and it had.

  Once the officers were on the way, she sat down on the porch with her head in her hands.

  She reached for the phone again and dialed.

  “Dad,” she cried. “My studio had been broken into, and they took Nonna’s ring.”

  “What?”

  “It’s gone.” She choked on a sob. “Why today of all days?”

  “Are you home?”

  “This is exactly why I never take it off.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Why was I so stupid? I could have just worn a plastic glove, lik
e Ian said”

  “Are the police on the way?”

  She didn’t care about the stuff she had, when it came right down to it. Only the ring. It was her connection to her mother and grandmother. It was the perfect flawless stone Franco had given Catarina.

  “Juliette!” Alexander yelled. “Are you at home?”

  “Yes,” she exhaled, and dejectedly sat down on her front stoop.

  “Hold tight, Sweetie. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Ok.”

  “Call Gina, too,”

  “I will,” she said.

  Juliette took a deep breath and exhaled before dialing again.

  “Hi Gina,” she said more calmly when her sister was on the line. “Are you driving?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because I have some terrible news. My studio was broken into and Nonna Catarina’s ring was stolen.”

  “What? Why would anyone break into your place when there’s a ton of big, nice houses so close by?”

  “They broke into the Scotts’ house, too. My guess is that they just hit mine as an afterthought. Shit,” she added. “I’ve got to call them. They don’t even know that they’ve been burglarized yet.”

  “I’m coming over. Have you talked to Dad?”

  “Yeah, he’s on the way.”

  “You’ll get the ring back, don’t worry.”

  “That would be a miracle.”

  “I’ll make you a new one. Just like it.”

  “You’re sweet, but it wouldn’t be the same,” Juliette said dejectedly.

  “I know. Jeez, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it. I . . .”

  “I know, me too,” Juliette looked at her empty finger. “Listen, I have to call the Scotts and the sheriff should be here any minute, so I should go, but I’ll see you when you get here.”

  The evening was spent going over what little she knew of what happened, first with the Scotts who owned the in-law studio she lived in and then with the police. They followed her as she recreated getting home and exactly what she did from there. They took a report of everything that she found missing and gave her a copy with their cards so she could contact them if she realized other things were missing as well.

  “Sometimes you won’t even notice until you reach for something that isn’t there,” the officer told her. “If that happens, even months from now, contact us, because you never know which item is going to turn up and give us the unexpected lead.”

  “What about the ring?” she asked the officer. “What are the chances of finding it?”

  “Truthfully, the chances are slim,” he said. “I’m sorry. But don’t give up hope. You never know.”

  After the police were gone, they surveyed the mess before cleaning up.

  “It really creeps me out that someone was pawing through my drawers and searching through my stuff. They used a crowbar on the front door, for God’s sake.”

  “I know, Sweets, you told us.”

  “Sorry. I’m just upset. How could someone just come into my home and take my things? I hate that. I feel so . . . I don’t even know how I feel, but I can tell you it’s awful.” She plunked down on her couch.

  “I’m going to make tea,” her dad said.

  “Thanks Dad, but you stay on the couch and put your leg up. I’ll make tea,” Juliette said, to give herself something to do.

  “While you do that,” Gina said, “I’m going to get us a shot of lemoncello, unless the fuckheads stole that, too.”

  “Gina!”

  “Sorry Dad, but how could they do this to Juliette? Besides, I can let fly with an F-bomb once in a while,” Gina told their dad. “And, while we’re waiting for tea,” she poured them each a cordial of the liquid sunshine, “let’s drink this.”

  “Cheers,” they all said.

  “Here’s to catching the fuckheads,” added Juliette’s dad in a mock British tone.

  Juliette laughed for the first time since she drove up to her studio.

  “Absolutely,” she said, and tossed back her shot. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Both her father and Gina had wanted to spend the night, but once they had cleaned up the mess, Juliette found herself wanting to be alone. The police had left her with a special metal bar that would temporarily lock her door until she could get the broken one repaired.

  But when it was time to change her clothes and get into bed, she felt on edge—as if she were being watched, or at any moment the door was going to burst open again with the sound of splintering wood.

  She washed her face with her phone sitting right next to the sink, in case she had to quickly dial 911. She then closed herself into her room and hastily changed into her pajamas. Her heart was racing so she tried to make herself calm down with some deep breathing.

  She had taken two deep breaths and then almost screamed out loud when the neighbor’s dog barked.

  Her hands were shaking as she walked through the studio turning off the lights and making sure everything was locked up. Once she clicked off the last light, she ran and jumped onto her bed in the same way she used to when she was a little girl afraid of monsters hiding in her room.

  She turned her bedside table lamp on and picked up the box of Catarina’s letters because she knew she wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

  The last letter had revealed the secret of Gregorio. When she read it, Juliette had felt a renewed kindred spirit with her grandmother. The thought that they had both fallen for cads somehow helped.

  Catarina had gotten over Gregorio, and that fact had helped Juliette close the door on her feelings for Roman. Catarina had chosen to make an amazing life even when she had to leave the hope of Gregorio behind when she first arrived. Later, she got the benefit of closure when she met him and got to know of his deceitfulness. Juliette thought about that. Maybe knowing that Roman had been untrustworthy was actually a blessing in disguise. Better to have been heartbroken now then end up with a selfish, dishonest husband later. She wanted someone who was salt of the earth, like her dad and grandfather. Ian’s face flashed through her mind as she picked up the next letter and began to read. Catarina’s words kept her company, and thinking in Italian helped her focus on something other than burglars pawing through her things.

  And then, in spite of her jumpiness, she slept.

  Chapter 27

  CATARINA, THE APARTMENT, THE WAR, INCESSANT WORRYING, AND MATEO

  “One of the most difficult things I’m learning about painting,” Catarina told Franco, “is knowing when I’m finished. Capisci?”

  “Si, capisco,” her husband said with an indulgent smile.

  She had moved the landscape she was working on from room to room in their new apartment to view it in different lights. She wanted to add a bit of vermilion when the painting was in the living room and then she added a brush stroke or two of eggplant when it was in the bedroom. Finally, she asked Franco to hold it up directly in front of the window so she could see it yet again. She felt that it needed something, but what? She thought perhaps more texture in the sky. She wished she would become a better painter faster, but she knew that she had years and years of practice ahead of her before she would be able to paint anything that truly pleased her. But she didn’t mind. She loved taking painting classes and learning skills slowly but surely.

  She bit the end of the brush handle and considered her work, completely forgetting that her husband was holding the large canvas painting until his arms began to tremble. She had already reused the canvas numerous times, because spending their hard-earned money on paints and art supplies was an expense they could barely afford.

  “Oh, mio Dio! Franco, I’m sorry. Here, put it down.” She tried to take it from him, but her large, pregnant belly got in the way.

  Catarina had been painting more and more since she received news that the war had reached the border towns in northern Italy. Her father had been right. Hundreds of thousands of young Italian men were forced to fight for a cause she was still confused about. Why did politic
s have to come to shedding blood?

  When she received the letter from her mother with the news that Mateo had been forced to leave home to fight, the conflict became much more real to her. She couldn’t imagine her witty, humorous, gangly brother with a weapon in his hand. She prayed he would somehow be able to stay out of it. She asked the Virgin for a miracle. She heard news of young men coming home missing limbs or being terribly scarred and permanently damaged. She was terrified for Mateo’s safety, and her family was living on scant provisions because they were required to give their surplus to the occupying soldiers. She hated to think of Mateo in danger and her family hungry, but painting the landscapes of her youth made her feel a connection to home. She wanted to send money, but her mother insisted that the mail was unreliable and that whatever she sent would probably not make it. Her family was even considering moving to her aunt’s farm to wait out the fighting because it was tucked further away in the countryside.

  For now, she painted the sunlight of Italy, the vines, the olive orchards. She prayed that Mateo and her sisters’ husbands would stay safe and that she and Franco could go visit as soon as the conflict ended. She felt a need to hold her family in her arms.

  The piece she was working on featured the stone wall, bordered in lavender, that separated her family’s kitchen garden from the vineyard in the foreground, and the vines gently sloping uphill in the background. It was the wall she had sat on, contemplating her future, the evening before she left to marry Franco. On the canvas the image didn’t look as accurate as it did in her mind’s eye because her talents were still taking shape. But for her, it was home.

  Catarina had made friends in her painting classes. She and Franco had taken to hosting small groups of them for dinner in the apartment they rented shortly after Catarina became pregnant. She loved those evenings because her painting friends came from all different backgrounds, each with varying levels of artistic proficiency, and each with an interesting perspective on life. Most were men, who came to dinner with their wives or girlfriends, but there was one other woman she’d met in her class. She had the most amazing views about life and Catarina was entranced with her perspective. She talked about wanting to vote in elections and knew about politics, an entirely foreign concept to a young woman raised in a strictly patriarchal Italian family.