The Sunflower Girl

by Rosanna Chiofalo

  “I’m sorry I pushed you, Cioccolato. And I’m sorry, Chiara.”

  “That’s all right, Anabella. We all get mad from time to time, even your mother. That doesn’t mean she loves you any less. Remember that.”

  Anabella thought for a moment before saying softly, “I’ll try to remember.”

  “What do you say we go water the roses that haven’t been watered yet? And then we can have lunch together?”

  As Anabella and Chiara walked to the rose gardens that had not been watered today, they spotted Signora Ferraro coming from the house, holding a tray with glasses and a pitcher of water containing rose petals. Setting the tray on the table that sat on the front porch, she looked up in Anabella and Chiara’s direction and waved, motioning for them to join her.

  Once they reached Signora Ferraro, she said, “It’s so hot today. I thought we could take a break and have some rose water.” She smiled, but her voice cracked a little as she spoke.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, signora. Thank you.” Chiara placed her hand on the small of Anabella’s back, prodding her forward. She was taking small steps toward her mother, still frightened by her mother’s earlier outburst.

  Mamma always kept a pitcher of water with rose petals in the refrigerator. Anabella had been drinking rose water since she was a little girl. “It’s very good for you,” Mamma had always said. She poured the water through a strainer so they wouldn’t swallow the rose petals, but when Anabella was three years old, she had wanted to see what the roses tasted like and had eaten a few of the petals. They didn’t make her sick like Mamma had warned. But they didn’t taste as good as Anabella had thought they’d taste. Anabella was surprised. She thought roses were perfect—from their intricate shape to their breathtaking shades and intoxicating fragrance, and of course, their astounding beauty. They tasted good in the rose water, so it had only surprised her more that they didn’t taste good once consumed. She thought about all of this now as she drank her glass of rose water. The roses weren’t perfect as Mamma had always led her to believe. So if Mamma thought the sunflowers were bad, maybe she was wrong about them?

  * * *

  Later that night, Mamma tucked Anabella into bed. She read to her from her favorite book—a collection of fairy tales by Italo Calvino. When she was done, she kissed Anabella on the forehead and whispered, “Mamma is sorry she was upset with you earlier. Are you still mad at me?”

  Anabella had barely spoken to her mother since her mother’s outburst in the morning. She shook her head and managed a small smile for her mother.

  “Brava! You are the best daughter in the world. I am so blessed to have you. Now get some rest. Buona notte.”

  “Buona notte, Mamma. Ti voglio bene.”

  “I love you too, my dear daughter.”

  Mamma turned off the overhead light, but kept on the night-light Anabella liked to have so she wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. Anabella was tired, but she wasn’t sleepy yet. She stretched her arms over her head, yawning. When she lowered her arms back down to her sides, she noticed something bounce off the bed onto the floor. She sat up and looked to see what had fallen. A sunflower seed! She quietly got out of bed and bent down to pick up the seed. But she froze when she saw there were numerous seeds under her bed. Whoever had cleaned her room earlier had failed to notice all the seeds that had fallen there. Her heart raced as she stared at the door. Quickly, with one hand she scooped up the seeds, and, with her other hand, she held up the hem of her nightgown so she could place the seeds inside. She then carefully walked over to her dresser and took a small china bowl that her mother placed chocolates in whenever it was Anabella’s birthday or the Feast of the Epiphany. Anabella emptied the seeds into the bowl. She then placed the bowl in the back of one of the drawers in her dresser. After she shut the drawer, she waited for a few seconds, then opened it again. Reaching for the bowl, she took out one of the seeds and placed it in her mouth. She chewed on its shell until she reached the seed. Chiara had told her she was supposed to spit out the shell, but Anabella was too afraid her mother would find them if she threw them into the wastebasket in her room. So she swallowed the seed and the shell. Except for the slight scratchy feeling it made as it passed her throat, she didn’t mind the shell. She ate a few more seeds. They were good—unlike the rose petals she had eaten that time. But she supposed if she tried eating the sunflower’s petals, they probably wouldn’t taste good either. Still, she wondered.

  Returning the bowl to its hiding place, Anabella tiptoed back to her bed and climbed in. For the first time ever, she was keeping a secret from her mother. Mamma had always told her it was bad to keep secrets, but Anabella knew she could never tell her about the sunflower seeds.

  CHAPTER 5

  Signora Ferraro

  Pienza, 1954

  Signora Ferraro kept her eyes fixed on the road in front of her. She was doing her best not to glance at the fields of sunflowers that blanketed the road on either side. How she hated this weekly hour-long drive north to Siena, but she sold many of her flowers to the vendors in the city’s Piazza del Campo. She could not do without this large source of income, even though she also delivered her roses to flower shops in many of the smaller towns surrounding her home of Pienza. She had thought about having one of her workers make the deliveries to the flower vendors in the Piazza del Campo, but she didn’t fully trust them to bring back all of the earnings. The workers had been loyal throughout the years, and for the most part she knew they were honorable. Still. She’d learned the hard way a long time ago to always keep her guard up.

  Her thoughts drifted to the previous morning when she’d found the ceramic pitcher of sunflowers on the windowsill in Anabella’s bedroom. At first she had thought she was losing her mind and had imagined seeing the pitcher there. But no, the image had been only too real. Reacting swiftly, she had stormed over to the pitcher and, with one stroke of her hand, knocked it over. Shards of porcelain had flown everywhere. And if that weren’t bad enough, she had stomped on the flowers over and over again. Sobs had escaped her throat and tears swam fiercely down her cheeks as she closed her eyes, desperately struggling to keep at bay the dark thoughts that were threatening to break through.

  When Chiara and Anabella had entered the room, she was no longer crying. At the sound of their voices, she had suddenly realized with horror what she’d done and that her daughter would be witnessing this bizarre scene. But she’d pushed her mortification aside, focusing instead on unleashing her anger at Chiara and Anabella. Though she later regretted her outburst, she knew they had to realize this could never happen again. Her sanity depended on it.

  Signora Ferraro took a deep breath. Sadness suddenly filled her heart. She hadn’t always despised sunflowers. Signora Ferraro remembered a time when she had loved them as much as the other people who grew up in Tuscany. Suddenly, her mind flooded with happy memories—memories she hadn’t thought about in a very long time. Her parents used to take her and her brother, Michele, to neighboring sunflower fields and let them run free when they were children. They would play hide-and-seek, their little bodies hiding behind the sunflowers that towered over them. Mamma used to clip sunflowers and fill her straw basket to take them home and place them in vases throughout the house. Papà loved them so much that he had decided to plant a sunflower garden behind their house. By the time Maria had reached her teens, the garden had grown quite large. How she had loved that garden! But that was another time, another life—one that seemed so far away now.

  Her father’s sunflower garden was where she’d met the love of her life—Franco Ferraro, Anabella’s father. It had been in June 1943, at the height of World War II. Then, she was simply known as Maria Rossi, and she had been an entirely different person than the one she was now. That woman had died long ago. And whenever she saw old photographs of herself, it felt as if she were looking at a stranger.

  She veered slightly to her left as a vehicle came dangerously close. Righting the car back into her lane, sh
e ignored the angry wail blasting from the other driver’s horn. Her hands were shaking as she pulled over to the side of the road. She took a few deep breaths, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. Once she felt calmer, she lifted her gaze. For a moment, she allowed herself to glance at the sunflowers that still surrounded her on either side of the road. Soon, her thoughts traveled back to her hometown of Florence, where every summer she walked through her father’s sunflower garden.

  CHAPTER 6

  Maria Rossi

  Florence, Italy, 1943

  Maria was weaving in and out of the sunflowers in her father’s garden. It was another exceptionally beautiful summer day in Florence. One almost forgot that there was a war going on and all wasn’t right with the world.

  The sun was at its highest in the sky on this sweltering June afternoon, but Maria didn’t care. It was the only time of the day she could escape unnoticed, after their midday meal when the entire Rossi clan would be taking their siesta and would not notice her absence. She would rather be out in nature, alone with her thoughts, than idly sleeping. And while she loved her family, it was rare that she had some time alone in the house that she shared with Papà, her brother Michele, and his wife Enza.

  Maria’s mother had died ten years earlier of influenza. Since then the duties of the household had fallen strictly to Maria until Michele had married and brought his wife to live with them in the second-story apartment of their home. Maria couldn’t have asked for a better sister-in-law than Enza, who was kind and good-natured and helped with the chores. Sometimes, Maria thought Mamma had sent Enza to them, and she thanked her mother in heaven for doing so. It had been hard living in a household where Maria had been the only woman after her mother had died. Her views were rarely taken seriously whenever she participated in the political discussions her family had. She would get so angry, wondering why women had been cursed to have this inferior role in society. But naturally, she knew the answer. It had all started when that cursed Eve had tempted Adam with the apple all those years ago. Although Maria’s father and brother contested her opinions vehemently, she still offered them and would continue doing so, if only for the fact that they seemed to irritate her family immensely, much to her pleasure.

  At twenty-eight years old, Maria had accepted that she was considered an old maid and would probably never leave home. But she’d never been like her starry-eyed classmates and friends who could dream of nothing else besides finding a man to marry and having children. She enjoyed living with her close-knit family, and the thought of leaving them someday had never sat well with her. Although she adored seeing babies at the hips of other women, she was at peace with the fact that God had other plans for her and motherhood wasn’t one of them.

  Maria lowered herself to the ground and lay back in the garden, shielding her eyes from the sun by draping her arm over her forehead. Her father’s sunflower garden took up most of the property that their house sat on. Sunflowers were the only flowers her father grew, even though Mamma had tried in vain to convince him to grow other flowers. He did grow tomatoes, zucchinis, and peppers, but where flowers were concerned, sunflowers were the only flower that mattered to him. Her father had always wished he’d been born in one of the Tuscan towns south of Florence that were known for their abundant fields of sunflowers. “Pienza! That’s where I want to be born if I come back in another life,” he would often say.

  Maria laughed softly to herself as she thought about her Papà and how funny he could be. But lately, he hardly ever joked. And no one in her family had to ask why. With the world at war and events growing worse in Italy, it was becoming nearly impossible to take joy in anything. Papà’s sunflower garden continued to give Maria comfort and reminded her that there was still beauty left.

  Closing her eyelids, she focused on the sounds and sensations that surrounded her—bees buzzing, birds chirping, the gentle breeze that swayed the sunflowers, the warm sun on her face. She was beginning to drowse when suddenly a noise caused her eyes to flash open. Had she been dreaming? She waited a second. There it was again. It sounded almost like a dragging sound followed by a soft grunt. Maria gasped. She wasn’t here alone. Perhaps it was a child playing just the way she and Michele had often played in the sunflower garden when they were growing up. Still, she couldn’t ignore the slight unease she felt in the pit of her stomach.

  Slowly, she sat up and scanned the garden, trying to see if she could spot anyone. But the garden was vast, and, if someone was crouched low to the ground, she would never see him or her. Though she was nervous, she was also extremely curious. Before she could change her mind, she stood up, exposing herself fully. She was being silly. It was probably just a child. She’d always felt safe here and had no reason to begin feeling differently. This was and had been her home for her entire life.

  Walking through the garden, she gazed down to see if she could spot anyone hiding. This was madness! She should head back home instead of playing detective. After about five minutes, Maria decided to do just that. Maybe it had been a child who was now lying still, not wanting to be found by her or any other adults who might be looking for him or her. Not taking any chances, she quickened her pace. But after a few steps she let out a soft yelp as a man suddenly came into view, rising up on his knees and blocking her path. He placed his index finger over his lips. Maria took a step back, her heart thrashing wildly against her chest. She glanced around, but no one else was in sight.

  “Please, do not scream. I will not hurt you,” he whispered just loud enough so she could hear him. “I have been hiding here for the past hour. I heard you walking through the fields, and I was afraid you were one of the police officers who are looking for me.”

  Maria was alarmed. This man was a fugitive? What had he done?

  “Where are the police now?” Her eyes looked off into the distance, as she hoped the police were indeed nearby.

  “No, I’m pretty sure I lost them before I reached your property, but one can never be too careful with the OVRA police skulking about everywhere.” His eyes scanned the garden.

  OVRA stood for the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism, the secret police that Mussolini had formed in 1927 to stop any anti-Fascist activity or sentiment. Maria could see fear in the man’s eyes.

  “May I ask what you did exactly?” Maria did her best to keep her voice even.

  “Mi dispiace. They are looking for me because I publish an anti-Fascist newspaper. That is all.” He gave her a soft smile. There was something almost boyish or naïve about him, even though she could tell he was in his thirties.

  “Mi chiamo Franco.” He held out his hand, which was bandaged.

  Maria paused for a moment before taking his hand, giving it a light squeeze to avoid causing it further injury. “Maria.”

  “Piacere. My mother’s name was Maria.” He smiled, and their eyes locked.

  Maria let go of his hand, immediately feeling self-conscious. Her face had probably broken out in the tiny white blisters she often got when she was out in the sun for too long, and her hair had come free from its bun. She ran a hand through it, but she knew it was no use to try to calm her curls, which had a mind of their own and often broke free of her attempts to tame them.

  “What happened?” Maria gestured with a tilt of her chin to his bandaged hand.

  “Ah! Trust me, you do not want to know. All I will say is that I was in jail last night, and they got a bit rough with me when I wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. Bastard Fascists! This morning, I was able to escape when the guard on duty opened the door to my cell to take a prisoner and forgot to lock it. Once I stepped outside, I was greeted by two guards who were returning to the jail. I managed to punch one of them and get away before the other guard came after me. Soon, there were a dozen soldiers chasing me. But all is well now.” Franco gave Maria a reassuring smile.

  “Surely they could not have kept you for long just for publishing a newspaper that goes against our government?”<
br />
  “Ah, they have not only been jailing people who oppose Mussolini and his regime, but they have also been exiling many antiFascists to remote Mediterranean islands. And of course, others have even been sentenced to death.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder.

  “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking with my earlier comment. I have heard of the horrible things that have been going on.” She’d made a fool of herself with her earlier naïve statement. Her cheeks reddened. Hoping to cover her embarrassment, she said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”

  “May I ask why you are out alone? I assume this is your property and that is your house, but this garden is enormous, and as you saw it’s quite easy for someone to hide here. It’s not safe for any woman or even man.”

  Maria was surprised he had included “man” in his sentence. Everyone always noted how a place wasn’t safe for women. One rarely, if ever, heard the reference made for men.

  “Si, this is my home. It is absurd that I should not feel safe here. Besides, I am not voicing any anti-Fascist opinion.” She gave a soft laugh before adding, “But thank you for your words of caution.”

  “Ah! They cannot be trusted to leave alone people who support the regime. Promise me you will always have someone by your side when you are out in your garden. I know you feel it’s safe because it is your home, but these days one cannot exercise enough caution. Surely your husband can spend time with you.” He glanced at her left hand.

  “I am not married. My father, brother, and sister-in-law live with me at the house. I do not need to have a babysitter shadowing my every move.” She could not hide from her voice the irritation she felt and added, “If I decide to stop spending time alone in my garden, it will be my decision. But thank you for your warning.”