“Would you like some almond milk?” Veronique stood before Claudia holding a small bowl of Latte di Mandorla.
“Grazie, Veronique.”
Claudia took a sip of the almond milk, which was warm. It tasted nothing like the almond milk she’d had back home.
“This is so delicious!”
“I’m glad you like it. May I ask you what America is like?” Veronique’s voice was low, and she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
“It’s wonderful. But so is Italy, and especially Sicily. Perhaps you can come to New York some time, and I’ll show you around?”
Veronique’s eyes opened wide. “I would like that very much. My grandfather has always said he wants to go to New York.”
“Before I leave, I’ll be sure to give you my phone number. Please, call me if you come.”
“Grazie, Claudia. Oh, please, don’t tell Sorella Agata about this. I wouldn’t want her to think I invited myself.”
Claudia laughed. “But you didn’t. I invited you. And I would tell her that, but I won’t mention anything about the conversation.”
“I should go. Buongiorno.”
“Buongiorno, Veronique.”
Though Veronique looked to be college-age, she acted younger. Claudia wondered if she would ever make it to New York.
“Buongiorno, Claudia. You look as tired as I feel.” Sorella Agata walked over to Claudia, holding her lower back.
“Are you all right, Sister? I shouldn’t have kept you up so late last night. I’m sorry.”
“I’m as much to blame. As I said, my story was long, and I’m still not done with it. My bed has also been giving me backaches recently. I think it’s time for a new mattress.”
Sorella Agata poured some almond milk that was still waiting to be stored into a small bowl, and sipped it slowly.
“Let’s go outside where we won’t be disturbed. I’ve decided to take the morning off so we can pick up where I left off last night.”
Claudia was surprised. In her time here, she hadn’t seen Sorella Agata take a whole morning off.
“Are you sure the kitchen can spare you?”
“Si, si. I need to start taking it easier. Besides, I want to finish telling you the rest of my story. It’s been quite draining, to say the least, and you have been so patient.”
Claudia noticed the necklace with a small gold crucifix that Sorella Agata wore. Her thoughts turned to the wooden cross with the silk rosebuds that hung above her bed.
“Sorella Agata, is the room I’m staying in normally yours?”
She looked up in surprise at Claudia’s question. She nodded.
“You didn’t have to give me your room. I feel bad that I’ve displaced you.”
Sorella Agata waved her hand. “Please. Don’t worry. I wanted you to be comfortable, and my room is the most spacious of the rooms in the convent. Naturally, as the mother superior, I have the largest room, but I don’t need that extra space.”
“Thank you, Sorella. That was very generous of you.”
Sorella Agata sipped her almond milk.
“May I ask you about the cross that hangs above the bed? I happened to notice this morning the tag with the handwritten note. I remembered you said it was a gift.”
Sorella Agata’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sorella. If you don’t wish to talk about the cross, I understand.”
Sorella Agata took a handkerchief out from one of the pockets of her habit and dabbed her eyes.
“It is all right, Claudia.” She paused a moment before continuing. “Yes, the cross was a gift from someone very dear to me.”
“Antonio?”
Sorella Agata didn’t answer. After a moment, she said, “Do you believe in miracles, Claudia?”
Claudia shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever given much thought to them, so I don’t really know if I believe in them.”
“Well, God granted me a miracle back in 1980. And it was the perfect night for miracles. You see, it was Christmas Eve. . . .”
28
Pignolata
HONEY CLUSTERS
December 24, 1980
Sorella Agata was rubbing a healing ointment over the burn blisters that were scattered along her arms. Every year when she made Pignolata, or Struffoli, as the fried Honey Clusters were known on mainland Italy, she failed to escape the splattering oil. It went with her trade, and she had just accepted it long ago.
Once she was done applying the ointment to her blisters, she washed her hands and went back to the kitchen, where huge bowls of Pignolata lined the counters. The other workers were either still frying more batches of the Honey Clusters or they were preparing the honey glaze that would coat the Pignolata. Sorella Agata walked over to Madre Carmela, who was adding multicolored confetti sprinkles onto the Pignolata that had been dipped into the honey glaze and were piled high into either pyramid shapes or wreaths.
“I thank God today is the last day we’ll be making Pignolata. I don’t think my arms can take any more burns,” Sorella Agata said as she joined Madre Carmela in adding confetti sprinkles onto another platter of Pignolata.
“It will be nice to have a few days’ rest after Christmas.” Madre Carmela smiled.
“Speaking of taking a rest, why don’t you go clean up and rest before midnight Mass. I, and the other workers, can handle finishing up here.”
Madre Carmela thought for a moment before nodding her head. “Well, if you’re certain you can manage, maybe I will do just that. I’ve had this fatigue lately I can’t quite shake.”
“Si, si. We always manage. Now go.”
Sorella Agata used her motherly, stern voice with Madre, but they both knew she was only joking. She marveled still at how their roles had reversed as both women became older and Madre Carmela slowly, but surely, was losing the energy she had once seemed to have in droves. Sorella Agata worried about her and wondered how much longer she would be able to oversee the duties of the convent and the pastry shop—even with all the help that Sorella Agata and the other nuns and lay workers gave her.
“Grazie.” Madre Carmela placed her hands on her lower back as she slowly walked away, but then she stopped and turned around. “Oh, will you be taking Pignolata to the patients at the hospital this evening?”
“Of course, and to the women’s shelter. I made a few extra batches this year.”
“You really have gone above and beyond in your service to God, Sorella Agata. I am very proud of you, and I know God is, too.”
“Grazie, Madre. I just wish I could do more.”
“Don’t we all wish that. Please, don’t be so hard on yourself.” Madre Carmela looked at her with concern in her eyes.
“I’m fine, Madre.”
“Va bene. I will see you later.”
Sorella Agata walked over to a pot of honey that one of the sisters had just taken off the stove.
“I’ll take over from here,” she said to the nun, who looked relieved to have a break.
Sorella Agata glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one saw her, and then she popped one of the just-dipped honey-coated Pignolata in her mouth. Though they were encouraged to try what they had baked, for some reason she never wanted the other workers to see her having one of the sweets merely for the sake of having it. It was one thing when they shared dessert after dinner or needed to try a sweet to make sure it had come out well, but Sorella Agata often sampled the sweets several times. She couldn’t help herself. They still had the power to brighten her mood whenever she was feeling down. And today was one such day.
The holidays were still difficult for her, even after all these years of being separated from her family. She was now forty-two years old, and while she had been able to find some inner peace with herself over never finding her family, it still saddened her greatly from time to time, especially on holidays when she remembered how she used to spend them with her mamma, papà, Luca, and Cecilia. She sighed deeply. Had twenty-five years, since she became sep
arated from them, really gone by?
She didn’t even notice the tears that had rolled down her face and were now spilling into her pot of Pignolata until she felt a teardrop hit her hand. Taking a dish towel, she patted her eyes dry. She shook her head. Today was Christmas Eve. She should be reveling in the celebration of Jesus’s birth, not wallowing in self-pity. Sorella Agata composed herself and finished helping the workers with the Pignolata.
A few hours later, she was driving the one car the convent owned. It was a blue Fiat that had been donated to them by a local wealthy businessman five years ago. The nuns had become giddy when they had received the brand-new car. A few of the women had taken driving lessons so they could go into town and buy their own baking supplies instead of relying on deliverymen for the larger loads. Before they’d received the Fiat, they were still bicycling into the village or taking the bus if they traveled farther away, for example to Messina, but that rarely happened. Sometimes, Sorella Agata thought about the few times Antonio had taken her to Messina, and for a moment, in her heart she longed to be young again and to look forward to traveling to a big city. But that had been a lifetime ago, and she was no longer that same young woman.
First, Sorella Agata stopped at the Rifugio delle Donne Sant’ Anna, the women’s shelter she had founded fifteen years ago. With the increase in the profits the pastry shop had seen in the past decade and through several fund-raisers, Sorella Agata had been able to open and support the shelter in town. She had decided to name the shelter the Rifugio delle Donne Sant’ Anna after her own mother, whose name was Anna. And she also thought Saint Anne was a good saint for the shelter to be named after, since she was the mother of the Virgin Mary; Sorella Agata wanted the women at the shelter to feel as if they were returning to the arms of a mother who would protect them and help guide them on their road to healing.
Madre Carmela had suggested she name the shelter instead after Saint Agatha, both to honor Sorella Agata for having founded it and because the saint was the patron saint of rape victims and other abused women. But Sorella Agata didn’t want so much importance to be placed on the fact that she had been the one to found the shelter. Sorella Agata wanted the work of all the employees and volunteers at the shelter to be celebrated. Each one of them was an integral part of the shelter’s success. While she couldn’t deny that naming the shelter after Saint Agatha would have been fitting, especially since she had chosen that name when she took her vows as a nun, she didn’t want to be treated as a star, whether it was at the pastry shop or at the shelter. Ever since her twenties, when customers had begun taking notice of her cassata, she had grown to resent the attention it had cast on her. While she was happy the shop’s patrons loved her cake as well as many of the other pastries she made, she didn’t feel comfortable being set apart from her fellow nuns and workers at the pastry shop. And likewise, she was embarrassed at the treatment she received whenever she visited the shelter. The patients and even the shelter’s volunteers and employees treated her like a celebrity.
“Buon Natale, Sorella Agata!” Everyone greeted her as she handed out platters of Pignolata.
The newer women seemed surprised that they were receiving something for Christmas, and the glow in their eyes once they realized that someone had thought of them, too, was enough to almost make Sorella Agata lose her composure.
“God bless you!” Many of the women kissed Sorella Agata’s hands or embraced her as she greeted each and every one of them.
When she finally left the shelter an hour later, she felt drained. Though she always felt a tremendous sense of fulfillment whenever she went to the shelter and was still proud of all that she had done with it, sometimes the enormity of the women’s emotions and gratefulness was almost too much for Sorella Agata. She felt a combination of love and compassion for these women. And sometimes, she was moved and thought about how once she had been as scared as they were.
As she drove on to the hospital, she thought about how the women received intensive counseling at the shelter. They even had a program in which they teamed up with local businesses that were willing to take the women on as apprentices. The women were not paid while they learned a trade, but if the business liked their work and needed employees once their training was done, they hired them. And if the business didn’t need employees, the women had the experience to apply to other jobs. Not all the women, however, trained at local businesses. Many of the younger women returned to their families and homes once they had healed from whatever crime or abuse they’d suffered. There were young women who had been in abusive relationships and had run off with their boyfriends or who had been raped as teenagers, as Rosalia had been. She was grateful that times had changed, and families did not expect the women to marry their rapists. A cold shiver ran through Sorella Agata as she thought about how so many women had been expected to do this when she was young.
A thin string of multicolored lights hung from the awning of the Ospedale di Santa Teresa, Saint Teresa’s Hospital, to commemorate the Christmas season. After Sorella Agata parked the Fiat in the lot behind the hospital, she pulled out of the trunk a folding shopping cart and began stacking carefully the platters of Pignolata she’d brought for the patients. She then made her way into the hospital’s main corridor.
She delivered a platter of Pignolata to each of the hospital’s divisions except for the children’s ward. Earlier in the day, a few of the younger nuns at the convent had delivered toys that had been donated through a drive that the sisters had conducted the previous weekend. The hospital would distribute the toys to the children who were patients at the hospital on Christmas morning.
A half hour later, after Sorella Agata had finished delivering her platters, she still had one platter left. She must’ve miscounted how many she needed. As she rolled her shopping cart down the corridor toward the elevator, she heard soft crying coming from one of the patients’ rooms. Sorella Agata peered into the room, but all she could make out were the chapped feet of the patient who was in distress. From her weeping, she could tell it was an older woman. Sorella Agata looked toward the nurses’ station so she could alert them to go assist the patient, but the only nurse present was on the phone and, from the sounds of it, was in a heated exchange with someone. Sorella Agata’s eyes then fell on her last platter of Pignolata. Perhaps they would distract the patient from her pain until a nurse could give her whatever medicine she needed.
Sorella Agata bent over and took the platter out. She walked into the room softly, not wanting to startle the patient. The curtain around the patient’s bed was halfway drawn. Sorella Agata tilted her head to try to get a better view of the patient, whose back was turned toward her as she lay on her left side. The woman’s hair was all gray and was long, past her shoulders. It was tangled, and it looked like it had been days since a comb had gone through it. At the middle of her head, her hair was flattened, showing she had lain in bed for several days. Sorella Agata mentally shook her head. Couldn’t one of the nurses have brushed this patient’s hair?
The woman’s shoulders shook slightly as she cried, the sound now a low, deep wail.
Sorella Agata spoke softly, hoping not to frighten her.
“Signora, are you in pain? I can call a nurse for you, or perhaps I can help you with something?”
The woman’s shoulders stopped shaking at the sound of Sorella Agata’s voice, and her crying stopped. She held up her hand and waved it, imploring Sorella Agata to leave.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Perhaps you would like these. A little Christmas treat.”
Sorella Agata gently placed the platter of Pignolata at the foot of the woman’s bed. This way she could see them. She silently prayed the woman wouldn’t be angry and kick them off the bed.
But the woman turned her head and glanced at the platter and whispered, “Pignolata.”
Sorella Agata felt a shiver travel through her, though she didn’t know why. The air in the hospital was stuffy, as she found it always was whenever
she visited.
“Si, Pignolata. They’re made at the pastry shop at the Convento di Santa Lucia del Mela. If I may say so myself, they’re quite good. Here. Let me take off the cellophane and give you a few so you can see how delicious they are.”
Sorella Agata took the platter and looked at the table that stood near the bed with an untouched small bowl of pasta on it. She didn’t see a knife to cut the ribbon that held the cellophane wrapping in place. Perhaps they had scissors at the nurses’ station. She was about to tell the patient she’d be back when the woman spoke.
“Your voice.” The woman then turned so that she was lying on her back. When her eyes met Sorella Agata’s, fear immediately filled them, but she didn’t remove her gaze.
Sorella Agata stared back. The resemblance was quite striking, but naturally, this woman was much older than her mother was. And then, her heart stopped with the realization that suddenly occurred to her. Sorella Agata’s mind quickly did the math. Her mother would have been sixty-two now, but this woman looked older—either in her late sixties, or maybe even seventy. Sorella Agata was tired. It had been a long day. She was seeing things. Still, there was something about the woman’s eyes.
Rosalia's Bittersweet Pastry Shop Page 32