Choices of the Heart
Page 16
He took her hand, and together they ran to the oasis that surrounded the park, trees and brush that caught their hair as they charged through. They could still hear the sounds of the children, but they were hidden from sight. He gently pushed her back to a tree and, his hands on either side of her hair, leaned in to her.
“You heard what I said before.”
She shook her head. “Vittorio Rossi, I did not.” But her eyes betrayed her.
He played with a wayward wisp of her hair. “You must always tell the truth.”
“And if I don’t?” She jutted her chin, repressing the urge to shout with joy.
“Then I will have to lock you up and keep you all to myself.”
Her heart was a butterfly. “And if I do?”
“Then I will also have to lock you up and keep you all to myself.”
The sun was behind him, fiery and beautiful. He leaned over and kissed her, and she felt a passion as hot as the sun.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I love you.”
With his arms around her, he lifted her off her feet. Their kiss was full of passion and promise.
When they returned, hand in hand, Dermot looked from one to the other as they stood close together, gazing at each other.
“What?” he said. “Tell me.”
“Nothing, Dermot,” she said.
He grinned shyly. “Vittorio, you love Kitty.”
“You’re absolutely right. I love Kitty.”
“And, Kitty, you love Vittorio.”
She smiled. “Yes, I love Vittorio very much.”
Dermot looked uncertain.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Kitty asked.
“Will you still love me?”
They rushed to hug him, the three of them smiling, turning their eyes to the sky, then back to touch each other’s faces.
****
On the walk home, the reality of war intruded on their golden day. Vittorio stopped to buy a newspaper. “Allies Retreat After Battle of Mons,” the headline announced. They stood in the street reading the unsettling news. In Europe, the summer had been one of threats and alliances and political posturing. Now Great Britain and France were allied on the side of Serbia, while Russia and Germany had sided with Austria.
They read: “The highly-trained British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) joined French troops to cross the border of Northern France to Mons, Belgium, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the German advance. The first warning of the nearness of German troops along the twenty-seven-mile front was from the civilian population fleeing their advance, carrying bundles on their backs and despair in their hearts.
“British troops, under the command of Sir John French, were forced to follow French troops, commanded by General Charles Lanrezac, in retreat, but not until a fierce day of battle. It was superior German artillery that finally overpowered the valiant allied troops.”
The looked at each other in alarm.
“What about Italy?” Kitty said.
“What about America?” Vittorio replied.
“Here’s an article that quotes President Wilson.” Kitty pointed to another page one article. They read it in silence until she burst out, “He wants us to continue to be neutral, but I still think about the Lusitania and all those innocent lives lost. The President himself called it a ‘violation of many sacred principles…’ ”
“ ‘Of justice and humanity.” Vittorio completed the phrase that had been repeated in newspapers so often that the two of them, both avid readers, knew it by heart.
“If America goes to war, I go.”
“I go with Vittorio,” Dermot announced.
Suddenly, her anger vanished. She impulsively reached out to touch both their faces. For the first time in her life, she was thankful for her brother’s diminished capacity. He would never fight. But Vittorio! She was gripped with a fear that was to haunt her dreams. How could she bear being without him, knowing he was in a foreign land, in mortal danger.
Even though the dinner hour approached, Kitty lingered, looking in every shop window. She wanted every moment with Vittorio. In a few short months, he had come to mean everything to her.
She chose an unfortunate night to be late. As Vittorio walked her and Dermot to their door, Liam was walking toward them, his sleeves rolled up, a newspaper under his arm. When he noticed them, his jaw set and his blue eyes turned wintry.
“Papa!” Dermot exclaimed. “Vittorio took us to the park.”
Whether it was the look on his father’s face or the sudden remembrance that he had promised secrecy, Dermot looked at Kitty. She put her arm around his shoulder.
“Yes, it was good of Vittorio to take us.”
“Good evening, Mr. Dwyer,” Vittorio said.
Liam nodded curtly and started up the steps. He turned and addressed his daughter. “It’s dinner time, and you’d best be coming in.”
Kitty gave Vittorio’s hand a squeeze that was meant to reassure him, though she felt no confidence herself. As she followed Dermot up the steps, she threw an apologetic glance over her shoulder.
Liam hovered around the stove. “Dinner is nowhere ready.”
“It’s leftover lamb, and I can slice it and have it ready quickly. But that’s not the issue, is it?”
When he didn’t respond, she persisted. “It’s about Vittorio. Someone good enough to be a true friend to Dermot, but not good enough to court me.”
“I will not discuss that I-talian in this house.” He slammed the newspaper on the kitchen table and turned from her.
“What have you got against him?”
“He’s ignorant. I’ll wager he can’t read a word. His family surely doesn’t speak English. They’re too busy sitting around drinking Dago red and eating macaroni.”
“He’s intelligent and kind, everything to make me happy.”
“What do you know about happiness? It’s a leprechaun that promises you everything and then disappears, leaving you sadder because you had a glimpse, only to have it snatched away.”
“I’ve had my glimpse of happiness, and I’m not going to watch it pass by and disappear. I’m not going to spend my life thinking ‘What if…’ and I’m not going to give my family the impossible burden of trying to make me happy. My happiness is my responsibility.”
He lifted his eyes to heaven. “The good Lord gives and the good Lord takes away.”
“While I’m alive, I’ll pursue the happiness He provides. I’ll not turn my back on it. The Lord doesn’t take away to cause us pain but to show us there are other things, and other people that he gives.”
“I’ll not hear any more of my seventeen-year-old daughter’s philosophy. You will not see him again.” He looked her coldly in the eye. “I forbid it!”
Kitty whirled away from him and noisily dug out pots and dishes. She did not want him to see the angry tears that welled up, making the table in front of her a watery blur.
She was too upset to eat but slipped into Dermot’s room to call him to dinner. He sat in a corner, his knees drawn up to his chin, and rocked silently. He barely looked up.
“Oh, Dermot!” She rushed to him and wound her arms around him. Wordlessly, they clung to each other in the dimness of the room.
For Dermot’s sake, Kitty resumed talking to her father, but she continued to see Vittorio whenever she could.
“I want your Papa to accept me. It’s important,” Vittorio said as they discussed her father’s rejection.
“Hush now, it makes no difference to me what that man thinks.”
“He is not ‘that man’; he is your papa. He and Dermot are your family, the most important thing in the world to you.”
“You’re wrong, darling Vittorio. You are the most important one.”
Vittorio seemed not to hear Kitty’s protest, so obsessed was he with losing her.
Ottavia noticed her son’s restlessness. In the middle of a conversation, he would not answer a question she asked. When she gently prodded him, he seemed not
to hear.
“Vittorio,” she said one evening, “I know something is bothering you. It must be very important to you, because you are so troubled. I know you love Miss Kitty Dwyer. It is about her, isn’t it.”
Though his mother had gone to school for just a few years, he knew she had a knowledge of minds and souls. “You are right. It is about Kitty, and her stern papa. He will not accept me, and I am terrified that if she obeys his wishes, she may not see me again.”
“Oh, I know how strong a sense of duty can be—duty to family, duty to the Church. You must not let anyone come between you and your love.” Her dark eyes glittered with a vehemence he had never seen. “Otherwise you will pay a great price.” She sat across the table from him, silent for a while, reliving a long-kept memory that he was not a part of. When she spoke again, she was emphatic. “You must invite her here to dinner. This Sunday. I will meet Miss Kitty and she will meet our famiglia in America. After all”—she smiled—“I have the feeling that she will someday be Mrs. Vittorio Rossi.”
Vittorio picked his mother up in his arms and whirled her around.
“That’s my Vittorio.” She laughed.
Chapter 25
“Let me take those.” Vittorio reached for the books Kitty carried as a ruse for getting out of the house. She had told her father she was going to Miss Cass’s house to study for a test. Her father nodded only after she had laid the Sunday dinner on the table and had taken off her apron, a signal that she was not going to serve her father and brother.
“I don’t like meeting you on the street,” Vittorio said.
“It’s better this way for now,” she answered, but neither one had hope that Liam would change. “Do I look all right?” Kitty worried whether the blue dress she had chosen was right for meeting his mother.
“Follow my hand.” He swept his free arm in a semicircle, taking in both sides of the street. “I’ll stop at the first pretty girl I see.” He turned in a slow circle, as though considering every woman in the crowded street, until he reached Kitty and grasped her hand. “I’ve found her.”
“You have the soul of a leprechaun!” She shook her head with vehemence, and the matching blue hair ribbon slid out of place. She tried to tuck her wayward curls behind her ear. “Now what will your mother think of me, with my hair undone like some wild Irish lass just in from the fields.”
“I’ll tell her this is the way I met you, except you don’t have dirt on your face today.”
“You are flirting with danger, Mr. Vittorio Rossi. You’ve seen my Irish temper.”
“You have frightened me into submission.”
“That’s just as it should be.” She grinned.
When they arrived at the Rossi’s tenement, Vittorio lifted Kitty’s hand to his lips. “She’s going to love you,” he said, “just as I do.”
Ottavia was in the kitchen checking on a huge roast in the oven. When they entered, she reached for Kitty with outstretched arms.
“Kitty. In Italian, you would be Catarina. Such a pretty name, for a pretty girl.” She wrapped her arms around Kitty in a welcoming hug.
Kitty was struck by Ottavia’s beauty. She was not yet forty, and her skin was smooth, her hair still dark. She had arresting eyes that spoke volumes of love and sadness and occasionally sparkled as though she were a girl. She wore a pretty white blouse with a wide lace collar, and a black skirt with a high waistband that showed she was still slender.
Kitty gave Vittorio a smile that said she already loved his mother.
“Sit here, next to me,” Ottavia said. “My son has you to talk to all the time.”
Vittorio brought out red wine, and Ottavia set out a platter of salamis and cheeses. They sat at the kitchen table, set with a white linen cloth that Ottavia had embroidered, an art she had learned in Argiano. Kitty found her easy to talk to, and they chatted until the Crespis arrived in a whirl of kisses and hugs. It was such a change from her father’s loveless ways, Kitty found herself swept up in their exuberance.
They spent the afternoon around the table, Vittorio at the head, Ottavia and Antonia getting up from time to time to serve the next course. Kitty wanted to help, but Ottavia insisted she sit and enjoy herself. Kitty liked Antonia’s daughter, Maria, who was a few years younger than she.
“Wait ’til you hear the good news,” Paolo said. “Uncle Giovanni in Boston has such a construction business going that he has asked my father to join him as a partner. He has a great job for me, and one for you, too. We can make twice as much with him as we do here.”
He and his father were grinning with enthusiasm. Vittorio looked doubtful.
“We’ll have our own company twice as fast,” Paolo said.
Antonia looked at Ottavia. “Please say you will think about moving there.”
From the time they shared the crossing from Italy, they had been like sisters. Ottavia was shaken, but she held back tears, nodding as Paolo and his father described the opportunities awaiting there.
Frozen in her chair, Kitty watched Vittorio as he listened to the glowing opportunity that Paolo described. Her heart shriveled at the fear of losing Vittorio, and she thought ironically of her fear about his shipping overseas as a soldier. That seemed remote now in comparison to the imminent possibility of a move to Boston.
“In just six months, we will be making twice what we are here. It took Uncle Giovanni only two years to have his own business. In two years, we can do the same. We’ll have our dream, Rossi and Crespi. That sounds sweet as wine.”
Paolo extracted a promise that Vittorio would think it over, and the conversation moved to less serious matters. Swallowing her fear, Kitty joined in the conversation that never lagged between courses until the final wine and coffee were served.
Vittorio went into the parlor and returned with the day’s newspaper. He pointed to a headline that read, “Russians Defeated on Eastern Front.”
“The Western Front is the important area now. Why can’t the Allies just end it? It’s dragging on too long.”
“They did well at the Marne,” Paolo said. “Perhaps it will not last too much longer.”
The three women brightened at Paolo’s optimism, but Tomasso shook his head. “This war is new. What did the world know of machine guns and trenches? There is much more to come, I am afraid, perhaps even for America.”
That awful war. It keeps marching into our lives. Will it force our men to fight? Between Boston and the war, I cannot face the possibility of losing Vittorio.
****
“Is that you, Vittorio? Back so soon?” Ottavia had just finished putting away the last of the dishes and poured coffee for the two of them.
He suddenly looked tired. “I couldn’t walk Kitty all the way home. I had to stop at the corner and wait until she went into her tenement.”
“Her papa?”
“Her papa. He still does not accept me.”
“Perhaps he will when he gets to know you.”
“That will never be. Maybe he’s right. I have no education. I’ve worked so much of my life.”
She raised her chin. “You love to read. You always have.”
“I can only work with my hands.”
“That is fine.”
He sighed. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes, and she loves you very much. A mother can see those things.”
“I love her, too.”
“I have known that for a while,” she said quietly.
“He will never give us permission to marry.”
Vittorio was thoughtful, tracing the embroidery on the tablecloth with his finger. When he looked up, he could not hide the concern in his eyes. “We have to decide whether or not to move to Boston. I know it means a lot to you to be near Aunt Antonia and the family. It means a lot to me, too.”
Ottavia just smiled and shook her head. “Your love is here in New York. Stay with her and win her father to your side.”
“Mama, he is as immovable as…as…”
“A
s a goat!”
He laughed in agreement.
“Then you will have to marry her anyway.”
The strength of her conviction surprised him. To his mother, one had a duty to his famiglia. To hear her say this was heresy.
“I know what you are thinking, that your mama has gone crazy. I have not. I have never been more serious in my life.” She set her coffee cup aside and leaned toward him. “I have always intended to tell you the story of your father, but I put it off many times, afraid you would be ashamed of me. Now I must tell you about him, and about me, and the love we shared.”
Vittorio hardly breathed as his mother told him of the love affair between her and Father Vittorio di Rienzi so long ago in Argiano. “We fought a war within ourselves—oh, how we struggled. The more we beat it back, the stronger the flame of our love grew. Finally, it consumed us.” She lowered her eyes.
“When he left Argiano, my world fell apart. He did not know it, but I was carrying his child—you. For your sake and the sake of the family, I had to become betrothed to Federico Gibelli.”
He listened motionless as his mother finally revealed the story of his father. He had wished for this moment all his life, yet never had he imagined the truth.
His eyes grew wide when she told of her wedding night, and how she was spared from making love to Federico yet able to pass Vittorio off as his child.
“Oh, poor Mama,” he said.
“Are you ashamed of me?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes downcast, fearing his censure more than anything else in the world.
He slipped his hand onto hers. “There is no better mother anywhere.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and Vittorio got up and put his arms around her.
“I am happy,” she said, “happy that I finally told you. And happy that you forgive me.”
“There is nothing for me to forgive.” He caressed her cheek. “Nothing for me to be ashamed of. You are the best mother in the world.”
But his anger rose as he thought about his father. “Who is this Father di Rienzi? He left you and me. He is the one who should ask for forgiveness.”
“You have met him.”
Her words stunned him like a slap. “Met my father?”