by Nancy Roman
“I only have Sadie,” said Constance, “so who I am to give advice? But I am told that if you have enough children, the older ones tend to the younger ones, and allow you enough time to have a nervous breakdown.”
I fell to my knees in laughter.
When I finally recovered, I asked, “Constance, did you go to college?”
“Yes,” she said, “Smith College in Northampton.”
“Smith! What did you study?”
“Music,” she said. “I was a good musician at one time.”
“Do you miss it? Are you sorry you are now a mother and not a musician?”
She shook her head at me, exactly like Catherine used to do when I said something that made no sense. “I am still a musician. And although I said that I was good at one time, I will make a confession to you.” She leaned toward me and smiled. “I am still a very good musician.” She called to Sadie to run faster, to try to beat Jonny in their race. “But I’m not sorry to be a mother. Women have to choose. And we don’t get a lot of options to choose from.”
“Are you bored sometimes?”
Constance laughed. “Are you?”
“Oh, my, yes! Am I a horrid mother to find it tiresome - all this housekeeping and cooking, and listening to small children’s nonsense ?”
“No. You are not horrid. You are a smart woman who must spend most of her day in very trivial pursuits.”
“Then how do I bear it - especially now, with another baby coming?”
She nodded towards the three children who were on their knees, heads together observing something in the grass, invisible to us. “Look how amazing they are - those curious little souls!” she said. “Keep that in mind, but keep in mind that you are a person too. Don’t let the trivial fill you up. Why, most men work all day in the factory and much of that is boring too. Men might have more freedom than women, but we are not stupid or helpless. Learn. Study. Pay attention to the world. You can do that and love your children too. All three children.”
I walked a step away. With my back turned to Constance, I watched the children still engrossed in some bug or flower. I said, “They are my sister Catherine’s children. She died of the influenza.”
Constance said quietly, “I wondered. Because you are not their mother, yet I see such a resemblance.”
“I had intended to go to college. My father had recently consented.”
Constance came to me and brought me back to the bench. “That is so much to give up.”
“It was not so difficult a decision then. They needed me and Martin needed me. Catherine was happy with that life. I thought I could be as well.”
“You are not Catherine.”
“I am not enough like Catherine for Martin to love, and I am too much like Catherine for Martin to forget.”
We sat for a while. She held both my hands in hers, as if trying to impart to me some of her strength through her fingertips.
Finally I said, “I have not yet told Martin about the baby. What if he is not happy?”
She shook my fingers. She said, “What if you are not happy? Take care of your own happiness. Let Martin take care of his.”
I thought about this - and almost nothing else - for the next three days. Constance was right. I had to be genuinely happy about the baby myself before I could ever expect Martin to be. But what did I have to be happy about? That I was bearing the child of a man who did not love me? That I would now have a longer period as mother and the window of pursuing an education even more remote? That we were already in tight quarters in our little apartment? That I would have more diapers and dishes and fewer adult conversations? That my husband would not love my child like he loved Catherine’s children?
And then my thoughts would go spinning in another direction. If Martin would love Catherine’s children more, did it follow that it would be natural for me to love this child more than Catherine’s children? The thought was preposterous. I had read too many fairy tales about evil stepmothers who did not love their stepchildren. Surely this was not me. Would having a baby make it be me? Those two little souls who called me Mama? I didn’t resent them now. Why would I resent them after I had my own child?
My own child. That was the crux. My own baby might show me clearly that there was a difference between someone else’s child and my own. But again, I loved Charlotte and Jonathan already.
How my head hurt.
Which brought me down to Mr. Giametti’s apartment. Mrs. Giametti had since come home from her visit to New York City. She answered the door at my light knock.
“How is your husband doing today?” I asked.
“He is managing, thank you.” She nodded her head towards the bedroom. “He is sleeping, and often that is a good sign. On his worst days, he cannot sleep. He cannot even bear to put his head down on even the softest of pillows.”
“Could you tell me if there is medicine that helps?”
“Frank takes a powder of aspirin and caffeine. It helps a little. A cold poultice on the back of his neck sometimes helps too, although the truth is, sometimes it makes things worse… is someone in your family ill?”
“Just me. And not very ill. Just a very bad headache. I need to get on with my day before the children wake up from their naps. I was hoping there was something that would wash this away.”
“I could give you some of the powders. It is quite strong, though. I would not want to make you sicker.”
“Oh dear, that’s true. Never mind. I will just go back to the children. I believe I hear them stirring.”
Mrs. Giametti frowned. She was so pretty, even her frown was comforting. “Now that I have a good look at you, you truly do not seem well. You are so pale.” She looked at me with concern. “Come and sit a moment. I will get you some cold tea.”
She led me over to her kitchen table and poured me a glass of tea. It was quite refreshing. “There’s mint in it,” said Mrs. Giametti. “That also might help to clear your head.”
I thought I heard noises up above. “Oh dear, I think the children may be awake - I must go.” I rose quickly from the chair and felt suddenly faint. I swooned. I had not done that since I was ten and High Mass was interminable and I had not had breakfast.
“Sit!” ordered Mrs. Giametti. She led me, not back to the kitchen chair, but took me by the hand to the small bedroom off the kitchen. The extra room that our apartment did not have - the one they had been advertising unsuccessfully to let.
“You lie down right here for a few minutes, and let your head clear. I will run upstairs and check on the children. I’ll stay until they wake up, and then we’ll all come back down together.”
I did not have the energy to protest. I do not even remember if I thanked her. She was gone and I slept.
I woke hours later to much noise coming from the kitchen.
Mr. Giametti was playing a song from Italy on his violin. Mrs. Giametti was teaching the children the words to the song, singing in a sweet clear voice:
Tu scendi dalle stelle
O re del cielo
E vieni in una grotta
Al freddo al gelo
“Well, hello, you’re back,” said Mrs. Giametti. “We are just waiting for the children’s Papa to come home. We are singing Christmas music in August. Just because it is so pretty and so easy for children to learn.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “You are very kind. I am feeling ever so much better.”
I saw from her beautiful small clock that it was after six. “Oh no!” I cried. “I’m so late. I have not made dinner… Martin will be home, and he will be tired and hungry…” I picked up Charlotte. “Come, Jonny, you can help me with dinner.”
“Lucinda, you are obviously exhausted. Have dinner here,” said Mrs. Giametti.
Mr. Giametti spoke up, �
�Yes, please stay. We don’t have very much company. I’ve been enjoying the children. We’ll wait for your husband, and we can all share a meal. Some nice sausage, perhaps. Nothing fancy.”
“Oh, dear… I’m not sure..”
But the kind couple convinced me to sit and enjoy the music, while Mrs. Giametti cooked. It smelled quite good, and it was nice to feel hungry. I had not eaten all day. Within the hour, we heard Martin’s footsteps on the stair. Mr. Giametti brought him in and explained that I had been ill earlier, and although I was feeling better, they insisted the whole family should eat with them.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, at the same time the children clambered up his shins to be lifted up and hugged.
“I’m fine,” I said. “The heat was terrible earlier, and I did some ironing anyway. It was a bit much,” I said.
“Come eat!” said Mrs. Giametti.
We sat around their table and ate and made light conversation. The children embarrassed me a bit - their appetites were so hearty I was sure the Giamettis would think that I was either neglectful or a terrible cook. I had not seen Mr. Giametti look so well. The conversation and companionship agreed with him. And with Martin too. They spoke of aviation in terms I had never heard, and with a passion that Martin had not shown since Catherine died.
The wine flowed, but I was careful to have a single glass. Martin showed discretion too. Since that night in June, he had kept his promise to me that he would be moderate in his drink. One bottle of home-pressed wine served all four of us easily.
As I watched the happy conversation, I realized that the couple was younger than I had thought. Not as young as I, but perhaps Martin’s contemporaries. Martin would be thirty soon. Much older than I, but still a young man. He had only seemed old in his premature widowing and overwhelming grief. And I saw that worry and illness had done the same to the Giamettis. They were not old; they were worn with worry. But at least on this night, all three were young and without care for a time.
The evening passed so pleasantly that I hardly noticed that the children were nodding over their empty plates.
I announced that the children’s bedtime was long passed and that I would be saying my goodbyes. I thanked Mr. and Mrs. Giametti (‘Please, it is Frank and Sofia,’ they said) for taking care of the children when I wasn’t feeling well, and now for providing us such a wonderful dinner and fine conversation.
Mrs. Giametti - Sofia - interrupted, “Why don’t I come up and help you put the children to bed, and that way the men can continue to talk about airplanes and automobiles and we don’t have to pretend we are not bored to tears?”
“That sounds very nice,” I said.
And so Sofia picked up Charlotte and I carried Jonathan, and together we changed them into their night clothes and put them down. Sofia sang them a lullaby - a lovely song in a such a sweet voice it brought tears to my eyes, though I did not understand a word.
“I love you, Mrs. Giametti,” said Jonathan. “And you too Mama,” he added as an afterthought.
“I love you too, you fickle boy,” I said.
“Let’s have some tea before I go back downstairs,” Sofia suggested.
So I put on the kettle and took out our nicest cups, as a way to repay her at least a bit for all her kindnesses of the day.
“Are you sure you are feeling better?” she asked. “You still look pale.”
And I told her. I hardly knew her. And I had not told Martin. And yet I told her.
Her response was exactly what I needed to hear.
“A baby! Oh my God! A Miracle!”
It was. I had forgotten.
CHAPTER 35
The following day was Sunday.
I asked Martin if we could go to church services, as we had not been in several weeks, and I thought it would do us all good. He agreed, and we dressed the children in their finest clothes. We walked to St. Mary’s, not far from our home. It was a lovely church, although, through lack of funding, its steeple had been waiting for decades to be completed. I thought of it as the Church of Patience. Which I sorely needed.
Jonathan fidgeted through the entire service. Charlotte wailed through the sermon. Martin whispered to me, suggesting we take them back to the vestibule, but I was determined to endure. I would soon enough have three children to contend with; I felt the need to prove I could handle two.
I prayed to St. Gerard Majella, the patron saint of expectant mothers. For the life of me, I could not understand why a man would be guardian of pregnancy. I think I would have been more comfortable with some jolly overweight woman who had birthed nine healthy babies. But I knew of no such saint. It appeared that most saints were emaciated tubercular souls who succumbed at a young age. And virgins too. I was nearly a virgin. Perhaps the Virgin Mary would be a better destination for my prayers. Once I shared my condition, I would ask my father to suggest the correct saint that would help me be a competent - and happy - mother.
Now that Sofia knew as well as Constance, it was imperative that I tell Martin right away. We had been honest with each other - even when it was painful. I wanted to do my best to make this news joyful. I prayed to Mary to find the right words.
I prepared a nice summer lunch of cold chicken in lemon sauce and a salad of garden tomatoes. I put the children down for a nap, but woke them after an hour. It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to do something special. We took the trolley a few stops to the large park that had a big pond with swans and ducks. I had two small sacks with stale bread and Jonathan and Charlotte ran down to the water’s edge to feed the ducks. We found they needed close supervision - in the warm weather they thought nothing of walking right into the water. We also had to supervise the swans - they were so large and aggressive that when the bread gave out, we had to pick up the children and run for our lives. The children shrieked with delight, and we were breathless and howling ourselves.
A man at a cart was selling sorbetto. “Oh, let’s have some,” Martin suggested before the children even got to begging.
We sat on the lawn and ate our icy treats. A small dog wandered over and begged on his hind legs for a share. Jonathan was immediately smitten and fed the little scrounger right off his own spoon. I went to stop him, and Martin took my hand. “What’s a few germs on such a fine day?”
The dog possessed an impressive collection of tricks, even though he appeared to be a stray. He sat, begged, shook hands, danced in a little circle, while Charlotte sang to him and Jonathan continued to give him small bits of sorbetto.
“I’m tempted to take him home,” said Martin. “But Mrs. Battle would be mortified, and throw us out on the street.”
“That’s all right, Martin,” I said. “You are already going to have another little mouth to feed.”
He turned from the dog. “What did you say?”
“That I am expecting a child.”
“My God! From the one time?”
“Apparently that was enough.”
Martin watched Charlotte and Jonathan laughing at the dog’s antics. “I love them both,” he said.
“You will love a third as well.”
“How I hope so.”
That was my joyous news and reception. I hoped so too.
CHAPTER 36
We decided to go to Springfield to tell my parents, as the news seemed too significant for a letter.
So Martin left work on Saturday at noon, and we took the afternoon train to Springfield. Martin worried that he should have hired a car - “the ride would be easier on you.” Since my announcement, he had done nothing but worry. That the weather was too hot, that the evenings were too cool, that the stairs were too difficult, that I should not carry the children.
I did not remember him acting so solicitous when Catherine had been expecting. When I saw them during those periods, Martin had seemed relaxed an
d happy. With his current worry, I worried too - that he was compensating for his feelings of guilt because he did not want another baby. I responded with fake jubilance, and the insistence that I was the healthiest expectant mother on the planet, even when I was unable to stomach the smell of raw chicken, or was so exhausted at the end of the evening that I would fall asleep fully clothed.
Father picked us up at the train station - in his new automobile. Martin was overjoyed. Well, I decided that I could not fault him for caring more about the motorcar than our coming baby. He needed to feel some lighthearted excitement after a week burdened with responsibility. We climbed into the 1918 Oldsmobile Touring Car with Martin completely infatuated and Jonathan and Charlotte ready to jump up and down on the beautiful leather seats. Father proudly took the wheel and drove us in a rather indirect route back to the house. Just when we were about to step from the motorcar to the gravel path that Father had built for his new possession, Father said to Martin, “Would you like to drive it?”
“Oh my, yes!” Martin cried, and instead of climbing down from the car to run in and greet Mother, we took another spin around the block. Martin’s face had not shown as much joy in the past year. I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around my father and kiss him with my tears.
Finally back at home, Martin thanked my father for the wonderful driving lesson.
Father boasted, “Yes sir, this is a real man’s car!”
Martin caught my eye, and I saw mischief there. “I do believe that Lucinda should take the wheel…just down the street and back.”
My father looked horrified, but before he could protest, Martin had seated me behind the wheel, while he sat in the next seat giving me directions to get the automobile moving. I lurched forward and negotiated the vehicle down to the corner. Martin quickly helped me with the turn, and I drove back to the yard. To be honest, I sped back. The children were shouting all sorts of encouragement from the rear seat and I pressed the pedal harder and we flew back to the house. “Whoa!” I shouted, and managed to get the Oldsmobile stopped before I ran over the rose bushes. Martin and I held ourselves and laughed till we were giddy. I was so glad we had come.