The Shepherd’s Song

by Betsy Duffey

  Mile twenty-five.

  Kioni smiled. Mile twenty-five was her favorite mile. It was the place in Africa where the view of the evening sunset broke the sky—the place where Runo had caught up to her on her way back to the orphanage.

  “Kioni,” he had called, and she’d turned. She saw him standing there against the sun, and she knew she could never leave him twice.

  “I will keep asking you until you say yes,” he said.

  She fell into his arms.

  Mile twenty-six. The final mile of her path in Africa, the mile where Runo walked her home and asked Sister for her hand in marriage.

  Twenty young girls had run out from the house and fields and gathered around as Runo told Sister, “I want to marry this woman.”

  “Your parents?”

  Runo stood tall. “It is possible they will understand, or possible they will not.”

  Sister nodded.

  “God will be our father,” he said, then extending his arms to the young girls, “and these will be our sheep.”

  “Yes,” Sister said.

  The cheers of the young girls echoed in Kioni’s mind, and she could still see them as they fell on Runo and Kioni, hugging and laughing and crying.

  In a flash, the memories of the cheers of the girls were replaced by the cheers of the crowd at the finish line in Rome.

  Kioni’s chest broke the ribbon. Sister grabbed her and jumped up and down. “My girl, you won! You won for Kenya! You did it!”

  Kioni grabbed the flag that Sister handed her and waved it at the cheering crowd.

  Then a small Italian boy pushed his way through the crowd.

  “You won.”

  “Yes, and your paper helped me.” Kioni pulled the paper out of her pocket and handed it to the boy.

  “What about an autograph?”

  “I have something even better.” Kioni got a pen from Sister and scribbled an autograph onto a small Kenyan flag.

  The boy’s face lit up, and he smiled before disappearing into the crowd with the paper and his flag.

  “We will go home with our prize,” Sister yelled above the cheers. “We will bring the prize money home to our girls!”

  Kioni raised her hands in prayer. “God is my shepherd! He has protected me.”

  “Yes,” said Sister. “Now let us go home to your husband.”

  “Yes,” Kioni echoed. The sound of the word was unfamiliar on her lips, but so wonderful. “My husband.”

  LOU LIBERATORE stood in the olive groves where he’d always found comfort. Today there was none. He looked beyond the Gulf of Naples to the Mediterranean Sea. The deep blues that in the past gave him peace now left him empty. The sun was beginning to rise, filtering light through the branches of the trees that he loved.

  He ran his hands along the olive branches, branches that until Wednesday he’d thought were his and Frankie’s, free and clear. When he looked at his hands, worn and callused, he saw his grandfather’s hands and his father’s hands—hands that had worked the groves for generations. He was glad that his grandfather was not here to see them lose the groves. He closed his eyes, and childhood images flooded his mind.

  He and his brother Frankie moving from branch to branch, cupping their hands and stripping the stems, feeling a dozen or so of the smooth olives fall loosely into their fingers. Their grandfather was a purist when it came to harvesting the olives. While others had already moved to nets and bamboo canes, Grandfather Luca still insisted on hand stripping. By the end of the week their hands were as rough as the hessian bags where they dumped the olives.

  Lou opened his eyes. He didn’t want to think about Frankie. They had been so close as children and even as adults, but two days ago things had changed.

  “What’s wrong?” Maria had asked when she’d found him holding the letter, standing like a marble statue in the kitchen.

  At first he couldn’t speak. He just stared at the notice from the bank.

  “Lou, what’s wrong?”

  “The groves. Frankie . . .” was all he could say.

  The paper from the bank was heavy in his hand, the words inconceivable.

  Maria took the paper from him and read the words silently. Hard words like lien and collateral and forfeiture. Then, without speaking, she wrapped her arms around him, and they stood together in the kitchen, holding each other up.

  “We’ll be all right, Lou,” Maria said. “We’ll be all right.”

  Lou was not so sure.

  The groves were not only their support, but their lives. They had raised their girls here, just as they had raised the additional small olive trees that they’d planted. As Lou walked through the orchard, he knew every tree. There would be no starting over. The groves had been cared for and nurtured for years. The gentle summer breezes coming up from the sea had made the trees grow thick and wide. The cold, strong winds of the winter coming down from the mountains had made them strong, sending deep roots down into the fertile volcanic earth.

  Now, because of Frankie, all was lost.

  Lou had thought of nothing else since. He felt betrayed. An enemy betrayed you at the deepest level, not your brother. An enemy lied and stole from you, not your brother. An enemy destroyed you and your family, not your brother. Frankie, his brother, had done all those things. Now Frankie was about as close to an enemy as you could get and still be family—famiglia.

  Lou left the grove and headed slowly down the path toward town. His shoulders stooped, more from disappointment than his fifty years. He didn’t want to go to town. He didn’t know whom he might meet that would know about the bank and the foreclosure.

  As he passed each person on the small dirt road, he tipped his hat, like always. They nodded back, like always. Everything seemed the same on the outside, but inside he was writhing in pain and confusion.

  He’d not left the house or the groves since the letter had come from the bank. Maria had asked him to pick up bread for tonight’s dinner. She was tired of him pacing around the house, muttering to himself. Maria was not a woman to say no to. Tonight’s dinner. His throat tightened as he thought about it.

  The whole family was gathering for dinner. His daughters and their families, Uncle Dino and Aunt Teresa, the cousins. Everyone would be there, everyone except for Frankie. Lou could not imagine sitting at the same table with Frankie, not after what Frankie had done.

  Tony Ricci was pulling hot loaves from the oven as Lou walked in.

  “Lou, come in. Fresh bread, just for the Liberatores. You’re practically family.”

  “Thanks, Tony. Our Grandfather Luca loved your papa’s bread. Two loaves for tonight.”

  “Ah, big dinner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The whole family coming?”

  Lou didn’t answer. It would be everyone except Frankie.

  Lou wondered if Tony knew. Had he heard about Frankie’s debt? How he’d been slowly borrowing against the groves? How he’d traveled to Naples where his actions wouldn’t get back to Lou or anyone else in the Sorrento area?

  “That Frankie, he makes my heart laugh,” Tony said.

  Apparently Tony didn’t know. Or perhaps he was just being nice—that would be like him.

  “I need some wrapping paper!” Tony called to the back of the store. “I can’t very well give Lou his bread naked.” He laughed.

  A young boy hurried out from the back with a single piece of paper.

  “Here, Grandpa Tony, you can use this.”

  Tony took the paper. “A fine piece of paper. Go in the back and get me some extra paper from Grandma.”

  The boy hurried off.

  “Alberto’s such a good boy,” Tony said. “He’s our grandson, come from Rome to visit.”

  The boy rushed back with more paper. Tony wrapped the first loaf and started on the second. Then he noticed the writing.

  “This paper has English on it, Alberto. Where did you get it?”

  “From a girl in Rome. I was going to use it for an autograph, but the ru
nner gave me a flag instead.”

  “You don’t want to keep this paper?”

  The boy shook his head. He pulled a small Kenyan flag from his pocket and waved it proudly. “I got this.” He pointed to the autograph sprawled across the big red band in the middle.

  “Very nice,” Tony said. “Lou, I will leave the special English paper in with your bread, like a fortune cookie. Later you can tell me what it said.”

  Lou smiled. “I need a special message.”

  Tony handed him the loaves. “Give Frankie a hug for me.”

  There would be no hugs for Frankie. He was not invited to dinner. As far as Lou was concerned, he would never have dinner with Frankie again.

  Lou began the climb up the winding road to his house in the hills.

  How could Frankie do it? His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had owned the same grove for moe than a hundred years. Lou looked at the olive groves that ranged the hillside. Great-grandfather Luca started with only a hundred trees. Lou’s grandfather and father, also named Luca, had maintained the hundred. But when Lou and Frankie took over, Lou ran the business and started slowly buying up the surrounding groves. Now they had more than a thousand trees, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that now the bank had the trees.

  In the distance Mount Vesuvius loomed large. Lou eyed the now dormant volcano. He felt like he could explode in the same way the mountain had so many years ago, spewing burning ash everywhere. He wanted to spew burning ash all over Frankie.

  When Lou entered the house, the smell of Maria’s osso buco almost made him forget his trouble. The care that she took in the sauce was the secret. The homegrown tomatoes and carrots from the backyard—they had been grown there for generations. And the garlic and parsley, always fresh. And that touch of lemon. Maria was simmering the sauce when he walked in. Time was what it took—time for the best things, like sauce and olives.

  Lou tossed the loaves of bread onto the kitchen table.

  As they rolled away, he saw the small piece of paper that Tony’s grandson had gotten in Rome—Lou’s “fortune cookie” tucked into the wrapping. Lou picked it up. He had taken English as a child and done pretty well. He slumped into a kitchen chair to read.

  “Psalm 23,” he said out loud. He slapped the paper with his hand. “I know this. It’s from the Bible.”

  Lou continued reading, then suddenly stopped.

  He read out loud, “ ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies!’ ” He threw his head back and laughed. “Ha! That is one spicy meatball.”

  “What’s so funny?” Maria asked as she pushed past him to the oven. She pulled open the door and eyed the contents.

  “It’s the twenty-third psalm. It’s the part about being in the presence of my enemies . . . and it made me think . . .”

  Maria eyed him. “Frankie’s still famiglia. He’s not your enemy. He’s just . . . he’s just Frankie. He’s the same as he was when he was fifteen. Remember when he rode that mule through the middle of the Pascucci wedding parade? I tell you, no one in the town’s forgotten it! And when he walked across the field in his white confirmation suit and got cow manure all over the legs?”

  “Some things are funny when you’re fifteen,” said Lou. “This is not funny.”

  “True,” she said, closing the oven.

  She paused, then her face lit up with another story. “Remember when he was an altar boy and wore sandals?”

  “Father D’Agostino just about had a fit,” Lou said, smiling.

  He remembered walking down the aisle that day side by side with Frankie, all dressed in their robes, every hair slicked into place. He had looked over and seen Frankie in sandals instead of the shiny, black Sunday shoes that were crimping his own feet. Lou smiled.

  “And he told the priest that Jesus wore sandals,” Lou said. Maria and Lou were both chuckling. Then Lou caught himself and frowned.

  “This is different. This affects the family, the generations.”

  Maria wrapped her arms around him. Her voice softened. “It’s not too late to invite Frankie for dinner.”

  Lou buried his head in his hands. “But think of the shame he brings to the family. The famiglia.” He circled his arms in the air for emphasis.

  Maria put her hands on Lou’s shoulders and rubbed them gently.

  “The sun is still shining, and the groves are still producing.”

  He smiled at the recitation of the phrase she always used in times of trouble. He patted her hands.

  This business with Frankie shouldn’t have been a surprise. The way they had set up the groves, both brothers had control and could act independently; that included the right to borrow against the groves. At the time it never occurred to Lou that either of them would do that without consulting the other.

  Lou sighed. “I just can’t. I can’t face him now.”

  “I understand. It was a terrible thing that he did.”

  Lou thumbed through the small stack of mail that he had picked up in the town. He began to open the envelopes, looking at the letters inside. The orders had been coming in regularly. The groves had developed a reputation, and Liberatore Olive Oil meant something to people all over the world. Who would make the olive oil now?

  He opened the letters.

  “Two from France.”

  “Good,” Maria called from the stove.

  “Another order from China. That’s the third this year. And this order is for seventy-two bottles.”

  Maria brushed back her black curls. “See. The Liberatores are not done yet.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Lou said.

  Maria was in motion. “The dinner is done for now. Let’s get the orders out right away. I’ll go down to check on the packing.”

  She wiped her hands on her flowered apron and pulled it off, then began to gather papers from around the room to pack the bottles.

  “The sooner the shipment, the sooner the payment. Help me out and set the table for tonight. Will you, Lou?”

  After she left, Lou sat for a moment, looking out the window. Usually he loved to set the table. Each dish and decoration had meaning for the family.

  He got up and moved to the dining room. He rubbed his hand over the olive-wood table that Grandfather Luca had made. How many meals had he eaten at this table, covered by the white linen tablecloth, now draped over a chair and carefully ironed by Maria? He spread the cloth and touched the fine linen. The white embroidered flowers on the cloth were stitched by his aunts for his mother’s wedding. Famiglia.

  He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

  Why would that verse come to him today? Why would God even want people to eat with their enemies?

  Lou opened the china cabinet door. He pulled out the candlesticks that belonged to his grandmother. Those same candles lit the table for every meal he and Frankie had shared with Grandfather Luca when they were little. Grandfather Luca had lit the candles and said, “The light of the world.” Lou remembered the glow of the candles and Frankie’s huge, dark eyes staring as Grandfather told stories by the candlelight—always stories of the family.

  “Nothing stops the Liberatores,” Grandfather would say as he told of how their ancestors fought in the war to protect the land.

  “Nothing stops the Liberatores,” he would say after telling the story of the fire that destroyed half the olive trees when he was a boy.

  Lou got the olive oil from the shelf. The family crest on the bottle was embossed in gold. It was a bottle from last year’s harvest. He thought about those olives, poured into the press and then crushed. He felt crushed now, crushed between the bank and his family legacy. He thought about the trees growing wide and lush in the good times and strong and rooted in the harsh winter.

  “Nothing stops the Liberatores,” Lou said to Grandfather’s empty chair. He set the olive oil on a saucer in the middle of the table.

  He set out each of his grandmother’s linen napkins and arranged her silverware
at each place, in the order that Maria liked. He put out the salt and pepper shakers that had been in the family for as long as he could remember. When the table was set, he sat down in his place. He imagined each person at the table. Frankie’s usual place looked empty without a place setting. But that was Frankie’s doing.

  Tomorrow Lou would travel to Naples and meet with the bankers. He would see what they would do, even though it might not be enough. Decisions would be made tomorrow. But today a table was set.

  He remembered playing in the groves with Frankie. They were inseparable. Suddenly he wished his family didn’t mean so much. Nowadays, the young people didn’t seem to worry about family. Famiglia wasn’t important. They left their small towns and headed off to the larger cities with what seemed like no thought at all about the fact that they were leaving their families behind.

  How much he had loved his only brother, Frankie. Frankie had been there for him. The night before he was to marry Maria, he had gotten cold feet, and Frankie had talked him through it.

  “Lou,” he had said, those big eyes staring him through. “Take a chance this time. For once in your life, take a chance.”

  If Frankie hadn’t pushed, Lou might not have gotten married. What he would have missed without Maria. He would have missed so much without Frankie and his “chances.”

  Lou walked back into the kitchen and brought out Tony’s bread and placed it in the middle of the table, then pulled a bottle of wine from the hutch and set it beside the bread.

  Suddenly he remembered Grandfather Luca holding up the bread and the wine and saying, “Bread and wine—ordinary stuff, boys—but in church, it’s special. It is the body of the Lord, and His blood. His mercy to us.”

  Lou saw his rosary hanging on the peg by the door to the hallway. He went over and gently pulled it into his hands. He remembered praying through the beads as a boy. God had been at work in the Liberatores for a long time. Grandfather Luca certainly testified to that. He knew every prayer in the catechism, and he had encouraged Lou and Frankie to hold tight to the prayers.

  Lou and Frankie had memorized everything together—the Apostles’ Creed, The Hail Mary, the Glory Be, the Our Father. And, the twenty-third psalm, in Latin, no less.