Beautiful Secret

by Dana Faletti

  “May I come in?” Sister Isabella asked in a near-whisper, her blue-black eyes peering out at me from beneath her wimple. I couldn’t help but startle at the sound of her voice. None of the sisters had ever spoken to me.

  “Yes,” I mumbled, opening the door to my room and watching the short, middle-aged woman make her way directly to my baby, a smile suddenly brightening her pale face. Luisa sat on the bed playing with Domenico, an air of suspicion floating from her eyes to mine.

  Sister Isabella kneeled down next to Luisa and held a finger out as if to touch Domenico’s cheek, but stopped short of his pink skin. Her face fell then. Her hand went to her heart.

  “I had a son,” she said, the words tumbling from her lips like tears. “I was so young, only fourteen.”

  Without pause I flew to Luisa, snatching Domenico from her lap and angling my body protectively over his as a surge of conflicting emotions washed over me: fear at the possibility that Sister Isabella was there to take away my child, shock that she was breaking her vows of silence, intrigue at the admission that she too had been in a situation like mine.

  When she turned her eyes to my own, loss seeped from them. Devastation shaded her face, and the slump of her shoulders spoke of deep shame.

  At that moment, all of my other feelings drowned in the pity that suddenly flooded my heart for this woman. Gently, I held Domenico out to her.

  “Do you want to hold him?”

  She gasped sharply and shook her head at the same time that Luisa pinched my leg and shook hers.

  “No, bella, I can’t,” Sister Isabella said. “It’s just too hard.”

  I tilted my head to the side and cradled Domenico close to me again. “Okay.”

  The room was silent for a few moments. Sister Isabella stared at Domenico until her eyes grew cloudy.

  “My baby boy was full of dark hair,” she said.

  Luisa raised one eyebrow and crinkled her nose. I ignored her and steered my gaze toward the nun.

  “He barely cried when he was born.” She smiled, and although she was looking at Domenico, I knew she was seeing something from long ago. “I screamed, though. I didn’t know how much it would hurt.” She glanced at me then. “Did you?”

  “Scream?”

  “No. Did you know it would be so painful?”

  “I grew up on a farm, Sister, so I knew how babies come.” I shrugged. “I assumed it would be painful.”

  “Ah, I see.” She rubbed her thumb along the pads of each of her fingers—back and forth back and forth. “I grew up in a small town. My father was a butcher. My parents…they were so ashamed.”

  I nodded. “I understand.” What I failed to understand was why she was sharing all of this with Luisa and me. Her openness seemed random, odd.

  “They made me put him in the wheel,” she said.

  I gasped with a horror I could not hide and was immediately sorry for it.

  “What wheel?” Luisa asked, her face scrunched into a confused crinkle.

  “The foundling wheel.” I breathed the words, clutching Domenico to my chest. “It was only in Calabria, I think.”

  “No, Maria.” Sister Isabella shook her head. “I was raised in Messina.”

  Luisa cocked her head to one side, reminding me that she was French and had little knowledge of the geography of our country.

  “Sicily, Luisa,” I told her, and she nodded before Sister Isabella continued.

  “Use of the wheel was common all over the Mezzogiorno—Southern Italy and Sicily, Luisa. It was the Church’s and even the state’s way of handling abandoned bastard children. A young, unmarried woman could take her baby to a church and anonymously deposit him inside a sort of cabinet.”

  I closed my eyes, nauseated at the very thought of it as the sister went on, her tone growing quieter, her words slowing.

  “After you put the infant inside the door, you close it and it rotates into the building. Then you…I—” Sister Isabella paused and swallowed hard, the worrying of her fingers quickening. “I never saw him again. I don’t know who raised him.” She smiled sadly at me. “I wouldn’t recognize my son if I saw him in the street.”

  “It’s horrible,” Luisa said.

  My heart sat like a rock in my throat, too heavy for words to make their way out from under it. I said nothing to Sister Isabella but instead dipped my face into Domenico’s soft head of hair, inhaling the comfort of his sweet baby smell.

  “Maria,” Sister Isabella said, her hands finally going still, “I want to help you.”

  * * *

  The fact that Zia Felicia had been a friend to Sister Isabella when they were young was startling to me. That the nun took my case to whoever was in charge and pleaded for me to be released with Domenico was even more of a shock. I was torn between gratitude and fear at the thought of leaving the convent.

  What would I do outside of Santa Genoveffa?

  How on earth was I to care for my child?

  “Maria,” Luisa said to me one afternoon as I sat on a small wooden chair, quietly nursing Domenico.

  “Hmm?”

  “We can leave this place now.”

  I looked up at her, my brow furrowed in confusion.

  Luisa pulled a long beige envelope out from under her mattress. The corners were wrinkled and torn. She held it out to me, and I shifted Domenico to one arm so that I could reach out and take it. Using two fingers to spread the opening of the envelope, I glanced inside.

  “Luisa, where did you get this?”

  “My father sent it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Luisa didn’t respond to me right away. She stared out the window, seeming to lose herself for a bit. Finally, she turned her eyes back to me and spoke. “I wrote to him, Maria. Begged for his forgiveness.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “My apology was bullshit, yes, but it worked, didn’t it?” She took the envelope back from me and pulled out a stack of bills from inside. “I told him I understood the shame I caused him and that I’d found peace and purpose here.”

  “Oh, Luisa, you didn’t.”

  “Yes. I told him I wanted to make a life here in Calabria, that I wouldn’t be returning to France.” Her voice was flat, but I could feel the despair undulating beneath her words.

  Luisa’s father had bought her out of his family. She’d allowed herself to be washed away from her father’s life in exchange for our ticket to freedom.

  “It’s more than enough, Maria. And the letter he sent gave his permission for my release. He sent a nice fat check for the convent, too.”

  I laid a now-sleeping Domenico on the bed and sat down next to Luisa on her mattress.

  “We can go anywhere with this money,” she said, her tone suddenly brightening. Luisa was a master at pretending, but I wouldn’t let her this time. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into me. At first she tensed, but in seconds, her body slackened. Her sobs rushed forth, breaking through the dam of her pretense.

  I don’t know how long I held Luisa, how long she cried for a past she could no longer return to. But when she finished emptying her grief into me, she sat back and eyed me with a glaring resolve. This resolve spoke to the profound depth and strength that she hid beneath the mask of her eternal nonchalance.

  That night, we came up with a plan.

  A few days later, the car came to collect us, to take us back to Valanidi. Together.

  As I slid into the backseat of the vehicle next to Luisa, I took one last look out the window at the gray stone walls of Santa Genoveffa. Luisa showed the driver a slip of paper with the address on it, and we set off, the convent becoming but a footstep on the path of my fate.

  “Putain, it’s an oven in here, Maria,” Luisa said and rolled the window down a crack. “It’s not too much air for him, is it?” She grazed a finger across Domenico’s forehead, and he twitched at her touch.

  “No, no, it’s fine.” With Domenico in my arms and Luisa at my side, I felt strangely confident in my completeness. She wa
s my sunshine. He was my sea.

  “Jesu, for November, it is way too hot,” she said and pulled the fabric of her dress away from her body.

  I laughed and shook my head as she folded the paper with the address on it and used it to fan her armpits.

  “Reggio Calabria is going to love you, bella. They might not be quite ready for you, but they are going to love you, that’s for sure.”

  Luisa rolled her eyes and smiled her yellow smile.

  Chapter 16

  Tate

  Tate shrank back from her sallow reflection in the mirror. The tangle of her hair, her dry eyes only half-open and squinting in the dim light of dawn. Reaching for the glass of water she’d left on the dresser last night, she licked her parched lips. Her mouth felt stuffed with cotton.

  She must have drunk much more wine than she’d realized, which was probably at least part of the reason she’d given in to her senses so easily. The smell of shame oozed from her morning breath, forcing her to come to terms with the guilt she felt over her liaison with Michel.

  Last night, she’d been heedless. Dancing seductively, touching, kissing.

  The evening had been exciting—beautiful, even. And she’d justified her actions to herself in a breezy, nostalgic moment of promise, silently swearing she’d never let it happen again.

  How romantic to saunter away from her clandestine encounter with Michel, imagining it becoming an enchanting memory she could cling to for all of her days. This morning, Tate felt that memory as a thorn in the side of her conscience, something for which she’d never be able to forgive herself. Not only had she broken the rules of family that were obvious enough to be unspoken, but she’d entered the realm of infidelity, something she could never excuse.

  She ran a hand across her hive of curls and sighed. At this point, what was done was done. She had to move on.

  Tate slipped into her running shoes and tiptoed down the back stairs. Stopping at the front door, she slowly turned the key to unlock it from the inside.

  “Dove va, Tatiana?” Where are you going?

  Tate gasped and whipped her head around, shocked to see Zio Nino standing in the hallway. Dressed in wrinkled khakis that were too long for his short legs, he stood facing her.

  “A paura?” he asked Tate, a clipped giggle escaping his grin.

  “Yes,” she answered him. “You did scare me, Zio. I didn’t realize anyone else was awake.”

  “Me,” he said in Italian, pointing his index finger into his chest. “I am always awake early.”

  Glancing down at her hand, which was still gripping the doorknob, Tate was unsure what she should do next.

  “Are you going out?” he asked.

  “I was going to.” she said. A brisk run always reset her brain, and she needed a good reboot this morning.

  “I will come with you,” Zio said, patting her shoulder and gesturing toward the door. “I, too, enjoy an early morning walk.”

  Tate bit the inside of her lip. Her therapeutic sprint was destined not to be.

  “Okay,” she said, doubtful that conversation could be as rejuvenating as exercise.

  Zio set a finger to his lips. “We must be quiet when we leave,” he told her and snickered. “Don’t want to wake the witch.” Shaking with silent laughter over the jab at his sleeping wife, Zio slipped through the front door, and Tate followed.

  “You two have been together a long time,” Tate said, falling into step next to her great-uncle. Sunrise was just beginning to splash through the patch of woods across from the house. Orange and pink swatches glowed through dense greenery, coloring the quiet.

  “Your Zia and I, we have been together for two lifetimes, I think,” Zio said dryly.

  “How did you meet?” Tate asked, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk under her feet. She knew the story from Nana’s point of view but wanted to hear Zio tell it in his own words. Now was the perfect time.

  Zio took a deep breath and then let it out with an audible groan. His pace slowed, as if he couldn’t concentrate on both his memories and their walk at the same time. Tate stayed with him, patiently silent.

  “This history, Tatiana,” Zio began. “It seems to belong to someone else.” He paused, tilting his head upward, pushing his thick glasses further onto the bridge of his nose.

  “How old were you when you met?” Tate asked. She felt she needed to nudge him, having come to realize he was a very private person.

  “Eighteen,” Zio said and laughed softly, resuming his shuffle down Rue Gavotte. His eyes lit up then as they fixed their stare somewhere ahead, a smile betraying his reminiscence.

  “When your grandmother reappeared in Valanidi, everyone fell in love,” he began.

  “With my father,” Tate said, recalling Nana’s descriptions of her perfect baby boy.

  Zio chuckled. “No, Tatiana.” He clucked his tongue and shook a finger at her. “The baby was a blessing, yes, especially for my mother. The first grandson for our family. An unexpected little king.” He went on. “But it was not this baby who stole the hearts of the village. It was Maria.”

  Tate smiled at the ground, thinking how Nana had been modest in her storytelling, never revealing this aspect of the truth. “Everyone loved her,” she whispered. Why should things have been any different when she was a young woman? “But not you? You loved Zia Luisa?”

  “Oh, not at first, bella,” he said. “Your great-aunt, she grew on me, like a fat pimple on my face.” Zio let out a hearty laugh this time, and Tate shook her head. “At first, I did my share of following Maria around. I had puppy-dog eyes for your grandmother, that’s for sure. Everyone did at the time.”

  “Wasn’t there a scandal?” Tate asked. “Didn’t people look down on her?” Nana had certainly thought so. She’d told Tate how she’d felt accusing eyes everywhere she went and was in a constant state of shame.

  Zio cleared his throat. “There were a few who turned their noses up at Maria, but not many. My mother, Nicolina, was like an unofficial mayor in town, a very persuasive woman.” Zio snorted, and Tate sensed he was enjoying the memory. “If she approved of something or someone, people followed her lead. She was not a woman to disagree with. And she loved Maria.”

  “For bringing her grandson home,” Tate said.

  “Yes, that,” Zio answered, nodding.

  As dusky dawn became bright morning, Tate and Zio Nino approached the still-quiet town of Revin. The rich aroma of fresh-baked bread and buttery croissants floated on the air as they neared the local bakery. Tate’s stomach grumbled, but she ignored it, her hunger for the story overcoming any other appetite.

  “So, how did you end up falling for Zia Luisa, then?” Tate asked.

  “To be honest, Tatiana, we became allies of the same cause,” he said, and then paused thoughtfully. “To help your grandmother, to make a good start for Domenico, to carve something good from the adversity of our lives.”

  Tate was quiet, moved by her uncle’s words.

  “And, so, we found some good in each other,” Zio said. “Your aunt”—he snickered—“she made me laugh.”

  Tatiana noticed his left hand land on his bad leg.

  “Do you still have pain?” she asked him, unsure whether or not he would appreciate her forwardness on the subject of his battle scars.

  Zio stopped walking then and peered at Tate.

  “Shall we buy some pastries to bring home?” Zio asked her, effectively changing the subject.

  Tate flashed him a knowing smile, then glanced at the bakery sign hanging crooked above them.

  What she meant to say next was something about croissants, to suggest they bring a package home for breakfast, but those weren’t the words that flew from her lips.

  “How did Michel’s wife die?”

  Tate’s feet stopped, stuck on the words she hadn’t meant to say. Backing slowly out of the bakery entrance, Zio eyed Tate, his face solemn, refusing to give away any reaction to his niece’s oddly placed question.

  “Tatiana,” Z
io Nino said, steering her by the elbow into an arched opening beside the stone façade of the bakery. He paused on the cobblestone floor of the portico, seeming to gather his thoughts tightly around him before peeking back out at the street.

  “I’m sorry,” Tate said, sensing she’d made her uncle nervous.

  Zio didn’t absolve her. Instead, he furrowed his brow. “You have a lot of interest in my grandson, I think.”

  This was true. So much so that her curiosity over Michel had snuck right past her intent on propriety. Like a jack-in-the-box, it had invaded her conversation and taken center stage. She tried backpedaling, grasping for a measure of nonchalance. “Michel told me he lost his wife. I was wondering what happened to her,” Tate said, avoiding her uncle’s accusing eyes.

  Zio sighed, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “You ask me many questions today, Tatiana,” Zio said, the usual lighthearted grin fading from his lips. “This story is very sad. And very private.”

  “If it’s too personal—” Tate began.

  “It is okay. You are family,” he interrupted her, putting an unusual emphasis on the word family and nodding subtly in what looked like resignation. An out-of-place melancholy fell over his eyes as he placed a hand on Tate’s shoulder. “Come,” he said, and beckoned her to follow him to a weathered wrought iron bench that was further inside the covered terrace. She wondered for a split second whose residence they were invading, and she hoped whoever lived here wouldn’t mind the intrusion. Taking her place next to him on the cold hard metal, Tate waited, not wanting to force emotion or words from Zio. After a moment, he began to speak.

  “Michel’s wife, Lilliane, was young, Tatiana. Only twenty years old when she had Amelie.”

  “Amelie?”

  “Their daughter,” Zio said.

  Time stood still for a moment in the hot mist of morning, then seemed to restart in slow motion. The word daughter landed one letter at a time into the fingers of Tate’s thoughts, and when she finally strung the letters together, she gasped. “They had a child?”