Every Once in a While, Life Delivers Up Surprises!

I come away from Nunzi's house regretting that I went to see her. I have given her too much information about Giovanni. She's all wrong about him!

By the time I reach Signora Bichietti's house, I am in something of a panic. I realize that I can no longer confide in Mama, and neither can I be truthful with Nunzi. I have nobody to turn to except for me!

One thing I know for sure: I have to be very careful about what I say to Mama over the next couple of days. I certainly don't want to say anything that will hurt my chances of seeing Giovanni on Wednesday!

Without knowing why, I suddenly recall that G gave me a poem last night!!! How could I forget? But it is at home, alas, and now I have to work for Signora B all day.

Soon I have my hands in hot sudsy water and once again, I am scrubbing shirts and smelly diapers and underwear. And then I'm rinsing them and then I'm wringing them out and then I'm hanging them in Signora's back yard. I also wash the floors and apply wax.

I'm fed up to here with this hard work, but what choice do I have? I manage to get through the afternoon knowing that as soon as I get home, I will read the poem Giovanni wrote for me! He says I should believe every word!

The moment I walk through the door, I hurry into the bedroom, thrilled that Mama is out somewhere. I lay down on the bed and take the poem out from beneath my pillow. I inhale the paper, feasting on the fragrance of G's cologne! It feels glorious to be lying here, completely alone with him. I read slowly:

"My dearest Filomena,

One year ago, the sun

didn't shine as brightly

as it does now. Nor the moon!

Why? Because I didn't know you.

How is it possible that I actually

thought I was alive?

The fact is, I wasn't, my precious girl!

Meeting you, however, I've been born anew!

Truly, my world has exploded

with fresh joy and wonder and all the

colors of the universe.

I have been swept up by you like wind meeting a cloud;

I cherish your beautiful lips, your magical black eyes,

your mountain of wavy hair!

I've discovered a whole new

language of love through you!

I am full of desire, Fi, and I pray

that you may be as well.

All these months away have

convinced me that we belong together

forever. Don't you agree?

Please say yes, yes, yes!

It is my deepest wish that I may

tell you very soon

exactly

when we can

marry!

-- Your beloved Giovanni"

I drop the poem over my heart. I close my eyes, and tears well up. I wish I could share this poem with Mama or Nunzi or someone else. It is so clear that Giovanni cannot live without me. And I cannot live without him.

Only after Mama enters the house do I fold up the poem and slip it, this time, beneath my mattress. I wipe my eyes and jump up from the bed and head out to greet my mother, with a smile that starts deep in my heart!!!!

********

On Wednesday morning, I have coffee and a cornetto with Mama. I tell her very casually that I am going to see Nunzi after work. It's a lie of course, but now that I am certain of Giovanni's love, and very hopeful that we will marry, I feel that I am entitled to lie. Even if it isn't official, he is, after all, my intended and I must be loyal first and foremost to him.

The day feels like it drags on endlessly. It's a new job, for a lady named Benedetta Talarico. Two weeks ago, she had her third baby, a girl named Bianca. Mama told Signora Talarico that I would help her out. Which normally I'm happy to do, just not today!

I watch the two older boys, ages four and two, while at the same time, I cut up carrots and onions and tomatoes for minestrone. Then I cook pasta with fagiole for the boys, Alejandro and Stefano, and after a fashion, I get them to lie down to nap.

While they sleep, I do what I love to do most - I wash diapers, of course! That takes me more than an hour, and I'm not finished, but by then the boys are awake. I take them in to see Signora Talarico, who is in bed, nursing the baby off and on, all day long. She had a very rough delivery, according to Mama, so she is not able to walk around much. Whenever she needs something, she calls on me to bring it to her.

Finally it is almost 4:30. Signora T gets out of bed with Bianca and slowly makes her way to a kitchen chair, where she settles. Her husband Ernesto is supposed to be home soon. Normally I wouldn't mind staying with her will he arrives but today I've just got to leave on time so I can be at the church by five!

At ten minutes to the hour, I tell Signora that I must go.

"Oh, Filomena, could you please take the baby for a few minutes?" My eyes fly open.

"I was...Signora, I was hoping to go now, as I have...an appointment...to meet someone."

"Yes, yes, I understand, but it won't take but a few minutes. You know, I must do something quite private!" She smiles shyly and hands the baby over to me; little Bianca is tightly wrapped in a swaddle -- una fasciare -- the way all newborns are swathed.

The clock is ticking. I have to get to the church on time.

Bianca must feel how tense I am, because she immediately starts wailing. I walk back and forth, bouncing her against my chest. And then both the boys start to cry, and I think to myself, do you really want to get married and have children?

Oh, but I know that my babies will be well behaved, at least I hope so!

Bianca keeps crying, her tiny face getting so red it almost looks purple! And the boys keep crying, too, asking for their mother, who is in the bedroom taking more than a few minutes.

I am tempted to set the baby down and just run out the door! But I know Mama would be absolutely furious. I can just hear her: "What's your big hurry?"

Finally Signora Talarico is finished. She takes Bianca from me and settles in the chair. I know it would be best if I waited until Signora's husband came home. If Mama knew I was abandoning Signora to meet Giovanni, I can only imagine what she'd say. Certainly I'd have hell to pay! But as it is, Mama would refuse to let me see Giovanni at all, because he hasn't formally proposed.

Finally, I say goodbye and I go. It's ten after five! What if G has left?

I am running as fast as I can through the streets and as I take a corner two blocks from the church, I lose my balance and go flying, landing face down on the cobbles. I hit both knees and the palms of my hands. I feel broken!!! Lying there, I send up a wail almost as loud as Bianca's was back at Signora T's!!!!

I struggle to sit up. I ache all over, and I'm bleeding in several places, but I force myself back to my feet and hurry to the church. When I get there, I'm panting and sweating and bleeding too. This is no way to enter the church, and I dread meeting Father Crudele.

But when I open the door, there is no one at all in the sanctuary. Has he already left? I walk slowly up the aisle. The church is completely empty!

All the anxiety of the last few days, and the fall in the street, and my intense disappointment finding that Giovanni either never showed, or has already departed, all of it overwhelms me now, and I start sobbing into my hands, which are scraped and bleeding and bruised and filled with grit from the cobblestones. I look down and both of my knees are bleeding too.

Covering my mouth with my bloody hands, I just stand there crying. I am completely heartbroken, thinking I won't see Giovanni anymore! I have lost my last chance to meet him. How will I ever manage to find him again?

I know I must go, but I'm frozen to the church floor. Feeling frantic, I decide that perhaps I will walk to San Lucido again. "I can do that, yes and I will do that, tomorrow," I tell myself. Right now though, I know I need to go home and get myself cleaned up and bandaged.

Turning, I walk toward the door and as I am reaching for the handle I hear Giovanni calling my name:

"Oh Filomena you came, you came, you're here!"

I turn and Giovanni is rushing madly down the aisle toward me. "Oh Fi, what happened to you? Your face is...oh God, you're bleeding!" He takes me in his good arm and practically crushes me.

Now I am crying tears of joy. He's here, and I am here, and no matter that I am bleeding all over, everything will be fine.

What happens next is so much more than I can take in, at least at first.

After covering my bloody face and hands with kisses, Giovanni steps back from me. Smiling in a wild sort of way, he bends to one knee.

"My dear Filomena Scrivano, will you please marry me? Will you, please please please marry me today or if not today, then tomorrow or next week?"

I stand there, speechless, completely stunned. Did I hear him correctly?

"You mean...you mean we can..."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Giovanni says and now he is standing and holding me again, and crying too. "We can marry each other Fi just as soon as you want to!" What miracle is this? Am I really standing here, staring at Giovanni who has actually proposed to me? How can this be?

And then one more miracle occurs:

Father Crudele walks up to stand just behind Giovanni, his hands in a prayer position and the miracle is this: he is actually smiling at me, in way that can only be described as benevolent. His eyes look kind, in a way that almost reminds me of Papa! How is that possible?

Oh what joy Papa would feel if he were here in the church with me this evening. As Giovanni and I embrace and prepare to leave the church, I decide that Papa is here, and maybe he was the one who helped clear the way for my wedding!

To Lie, or Not to Lie, That is the Question!

It occurred to me as I hurried home on Sunday night that if I wanted to see Giovanni again, I might have to lie to Mama. Well, perhaps not lie, but not tell her the complete truth! But how was I going to explain where I had been all afternoon?

Soon enough, I was pushing open the door. I didn't see Mama. Where could she be? Oh dear, I thought, she must have gone looking for me!

I pulled together some food, as I was so famished. I was slicing salami and laying pieces on a plate, next to some provolone, and a couple slices of bread, when Mama walked in.

"For the love of God, where have you been Filomena? I finally decided to go to Nunzi's to see if you were there."

I stared at her. It had occurred to me that I might tell her I was with Nunzi. So much for that idea! But now, how was I going to explain my missing hours?

"I'm so sorry about this, Mama," I said, trying to sound as earnest as I could. "I would have been home a lot sooner, but I got caught talking to one of Papa's old friends, do you remember Ricardo Tavola?"

What was I doing? How could I convince Mama that I spent four or more hours with one of Papa's old fishing companions?

Mama came to the table. I was seated by now, eating. There was no way I could look her in the eye. I have never been able to lie very well to Mama and I guess that's for the best.

"Look at me young lady," she said, keeping her voice even. Slowly, I raised my eyes to hers. She gave me a dark piercing look. "Now tell me, where were you all afternoon?"

"I was on the beach Mama, I swear to you!" And of course that was the honest truth.

I could hear her tapping her fingers on the back of the chair where she stood. "So I could believe that of course," she said, "but is that all you want to tell me?"

She knew. Of course she knew! Mama is a very smart woman, and she had figured out that G had returned. Still, I wasn't absolutely sure she knew. And I wasn't prepared to tell her. Not right away. Because as soon as I told her, she would ask me about his "intentions," and what could I say? I would have to tell her that no, Giovanni had no plans to come here to ask for my hand.

And of course that meant, I would have to say goodbye to G. But how could I? I really feel like I might die of heartbreak if I had to kiss him goodbye!

I set a slice of cheese on bread and busied myself eating. Mama kept staring at me but I refused to meet her eyes.

After a while she moved away from the table. We didn't speak for the next couple of hours, and then I went straight to bed.

The next morning I made sure I left the house early. It wasn't like me to leave before Mama was up. And before I had a cup of coffee. But I needed time. And space. I had to think.

It was way too soon to go to Signora Bichietti's, so naturally, I headed for the ocean. The morning sun was throwing a golden blanket over the waves. I sat in the sand and thought about the glorious day before, seeing Giovanni. How could I possibly keep this secret from Mama?

Giovanni wants me to ask Mama if I can work for him. How silly that would be! There is no need to ask.

Perhaps I would see him on Wednesday, and then I would tell her.

I was hungry again, and I needed coffee. I got up from the beach and took one long look at the sea. It was such a deep shade of turquoise. The water is like the most beautiful blue gems, changing with the sun's angle. I said a Hail Mary, asking for a miracle, that somehow G will be able to marry me! Then I headed over to Nunzi's, knowing that she would give me breakfast and coffee!

******

I knocked on Nunzi's door.

"I knew it was you," she said, chuckling. "Who else would show up at this hour!"

She had just fixed coffee and she poured me a cup. "So what's up ragazza?"

I considered the fact that I was now going to tell her that Giovanni had returned. And I was going to get an earful when I told her that he had no intentions of marrying me. I sipped my coffee.

Inhaling, I said it out loud very very softly. "I saw Giovanni yesterday."

She swiveled around to face me. "Oh you don't say! Wow! Where has that scoundrel been all these months?"

I winced at the sound of that word! My beloved Giovanni was definitely not a scoundrel! "Sailing the coast took a lot longer than he thought it would. And he had a horrible time in Naples. A whole kettle of things happened. He shattered his elbow!"

"Oh dear!"

"But he's OK."

I nodded. Here it comes I thought.

"And so now, what happens?"

I didn't say anything.

"Fi?"

"Yes?"

"Is he...going to propose?"

I was silent.

"Fi, is he going to propose or has he got a new excuse?"

"I don't think he is going to propose but...honestly, Nunzi, he's not giving me a bunch of excuses. He says it's his father, it's his father's fault."

"Ouch."

"Yes." The sadness of it started closing in on me. "I asked him to explain why he can't and he says...he just won't tell me."

"That's not good Fi."

"I know, I know." Closing my eyes, I said a Hail Mary to myself. "I'm praying for a miracle!"

"Si, mi amica...you need one."

Thankfully, Nunzi didn't say anymore, at least not right away. Instead she decided to feed me. Prosiutto, and provolone, and fresh bread. Also, lush green olives and arugula and tasty anchovies.

Soon, I was helping her with the wash. I hate doing laundry, but I love Nunzi, and she has her hands full. And the truth be told, Nunzi is now carrying her fourth child. Every morning, she pukes a few times, and then forces herself to eat something.

Hands immersed in warm water, scrubbing a shirt collar, I found myself telling her my worst fear.

"So he's here now, but as soon as Mama finds out that he's not proposing, I'm afraid it's all over, Nunzi. I will never see him again." Maybe because she is dealing with morning sickness, Nunzi didn't hesitate to dump cold water on my relationship with Giovanni.

"Well, that is as it should be. I know you think you're in love, Fi, but you must accept the fact that Giovanni is just not someone for the long run."

"What do you mean, I think I'm in love? Why are you saying that? You know that I am in love with him! I care about him desperately."

Nunzi turned to face me. "OK yes, so it feels very passionate, yes. It feels like you can't live without him. But the truth is that for the last seven or eight months you have been infatuated with a free-thinking man who is not particularly responsible. He is full of dangerous ideas and he has filled your head with them. Ideas that can get you into trouble, Fi."

I felt my face growing hot and my heart starting to hammer. "Oh you mean because he thinks I could be a writer?"

"Well, yes, that, for one."

"Oh so you don't think I'm a writer? Is that it? Because I am a writer Nunzi!"

She turned to face me, her eyes wide with derision. "Oh please Fi!"

Her little boy, Vincenzo, began clamoring for attention, banging a big spoon on the table. "Mama, fame, fame," the boy cried. He was reaching up to the table where all the food still lay.

Nunzi dried her hands and went to the curly-headed child to lift him into her arms. She picked up an olive and held it in his mouth. Then she put him down again, with a piece of bread and a small slice of cheese. "Ecco, mangia, piccolo! Eat little one!" She stuffed a wad of bread into her own mouth.

"Filomena," she said, after she finished chewing, "when will you accept the fact that you are not an aristocrat like Giovanni? Sure, you can write, that's fine, but that's not the point. Your writing is never going to change the fact that you are still a poor girl from Paola, Fi, just like me and your Mama and everybody else we know. You are not suddenly going to become rich-blooded, Fi, and Giovanni is dead wrong to lead you on the way he has."

I dropped the shirt, clenching both fists and raising them out of the water. "He loves me Nunzi. I know he loves me." I dried my hands. I was close to crying, or screaming.

"But what does that mean, Fi, he loves you, if he cannot marry you? Where do you think you're going to end up with that, huh?"

"Giovanni told me that he wants to marry me 'more than anything in the world!' Those were his exact words. You don't know him like I do, Nunzi. He hasn't given up on the idea of marriage and neither have I!"

The door opened and Nunzi's husband walked in at that moment. He was sweating profusely and his shirt was soaked. He looked at me. Considering the look in his eye, I wondered if he maybe he had heard what I was just saying.

Nunzi went immediately to the table, poured a glass of water and handed it to her husband.

"The sun is beastly out there today," he said. "Il sole e bestiale la fuori oggi."

"I'm sure," Nunzi said. There was a long moment of dead silence, with the three of us, and the boy, just standing there.

"I have to go Nunzi, I must get to work," I said, and without another word, I moved quickly to the door.

Giovanni, Back at Last!

That first afternoon with Giovanni felt like a dream, but it was the best sort of dream because I was fully awake. I wanted to know everything that had happened to him, and I wanted to know it all right away. But the first thing we did was go around and around kissing each other, all the while he kept mumbling a variety of loving things, including, "Filomena I've come home to you!"

Soon enough, we walked down the beach to our rocks, holding onto one another. We settled in the sand just like we used to. G couldn't really embrace me with one arm, so I leaned into his chest and he rested his chin on my head.

It was enough just to sit there in silence, the waves crashing over and over again.

He kissed the top of my head and then buried his face in my hair. Finally, he spoke.

"I know you must have wondered, Fi, why I was away for such a long time."

"Oh yes, I wondered, because it seemed like forever. And I worried, too. I worried so much! When you weren't here after six weeks, as you told Tullio you would be, then I thought, 'he's never coming back.' And when you weren't here for so many weeks after that, I was absolutely certain that you had capsized and drowned!"

"I'm so sorry Fi, I truly am. So to start with, we sailed a lot slower than I thought we would, and then we ran into a boatload of trouble, as they say, after we got to Naples."

It started, he said, when he and his sailing partner decided to live it up the first night after arriving in the port.

"We went to a wonderful restaurant. After weeks and weeks on the sea, we were both ready to do some serious eating, and celebrating too. Over a five-course dinner, we managed to finish three bottles of Piedirosso, a wine from Naples that I've always adored!"

By now I was sitting apart from him. He was lying in the sand with his head propped in his hand, close enough to me so that I could touch his face.

"We got back to the boat about four a.m., and the next morning I was having a bit of trouble standing. It's embarrassing to admit this, because I've been sailing all my life, but shortly after we set sail, I lost my balance and tumbled forward on the stern. The boom swung around and slammed into me and I ended up with a shattered elbow."

They ended up staying in Naples for almost a month, as they had to find someone else who could help sail the boat, since Giovanni was next to helpless in his sling.

"My sailing partner, Matheus, and I probably interviewed two dozen men. Matheus kept telling me I was being way too picky. But I knew I had to find somebody who would be very sympatico, since the three of us were going to be sharing a very tiny space in that boat!"

"Oh yes, I understand. And so you did find someone?"

"Yes, yes, finally. A nice fellow named Lorenzo, very congenial, and he just happens to be a writer too! So, there we were, just about to set sail, and the first big storm of the autumn season hit. Huge gales of wind and driving rain. We were tied up in port for another week. And then..."

He sat up. "There was a problem with the boat's rudder. We couldn't go anywhere without getting it fixed. Finding someone to do it, and then waiting for it to be repaired, took more than three weeks!"

"That would have been enough. But believe it or not, at that moment, Lorenzo got very sick with some kind of virus. He was laid up in bed for eight straight days. Finally, finally, finally, he was better and we were able to get underway. On a Sunday morning with a crisp blue sky. It was just amazing that day. We were all so delighted to be able to push out of there!"

"I suppose you could say that the port of Naples had it in for you!"

"Yes, yes, Fi, I swear it felt that way, exactly. I was so very tired of Naples by the time we left. And the whole time, I'm telling you, Fi, I was just dying to get back here, to see you. I've missed you more than you can possibly know!" I smiled and he picked up my hand and brought it to his face. Then he placed his lips on my hand and let them linger there. I wanted to reach over with both hands and set them into his incredibly bushy hair. I laughed out loud. "G, I must ask you, did you have even one haircut while you were gone?"

He laughed with me. "Yes, Fi, I most certainly did, I had a haircut before I left Tuscany. Otherwise my hair would be down to my waist. So when it gets this long I tie it up in a ponytail, but that's impossible to do with one hand!" And now I did what I had been dying to do, I set all my fingers deep into his golden curls. He shook his head to one side and then another. His hair was as soft as pillow feathers. "OK, now please tell me, Fi, what has been happening here with you while I sailed the seas?"

I inhaled. I was about to say, "Oh nothing at all," but then I changed my mind. "Life has been kind of slow here, as it always is, but I managed to enjoy myself. And I've kept up my writing, I'm very proud to say!"

"Oh Filomena, that's just wonderful. I will look forward to you reading some of it to me, I mean, would you be willing to share what you've written?"

I smiled. "Yes, yes, of course," and then I thought about all the lovelorn poems I had written. "Well, I'll share some of it. Some of it..." I stopped and bent forward and kissed him full on the lips..."I must keep some of it to myself!"

The sun was a glowing orange sphere squashing into the horizon when we stood up and started walking back toward town. It was getting cold, and I had no jacket. I was terribly hungry, too, but I didn't want to say goodbye to Giovanni just yet. I think he was able to read my mind.

"Can I take you someplace for dinner?" he asked, gently running his fingers up and down my backbone. I shivered with pleasure. As much as I wanted to say yes to him, I knew the answer had to be no. I was sure by now Mama was frantic, wanting to know where I was! I had been gone most of the day.

"I'm sorry, Giovanni, but I just can't. I have to go home," I said, and the minute the words were out of my mouth, it hit me: Giovanni was back in Paola, and so, as he promised, he should really be coming to my house to propose to me officially. Why wasn't he? Maybe the same thoughts were running through his head too. He studied the ground for a few minutes.

"Will you come to see me tomorrow in San Lucido, Fi, in the new house? Oh please say you will! We could do some writing together?!"

I looked at him, at the excitement lighting up his eyes. I realize once again that as much as I want to say yes, I just cannot. I studied my feet, and then gazed up at him. I spoke in a soft voice. "I'm so sorry, Giovanni, but I don't think I will be able to do that." My heart was starting to hammer inside me.

He searched my face. "But you still care for me don't you Fi?"

"Of course I do. How silly of you to ask." I hugged my shoulders and then dropped my arms so that I was tightly embracing myself. "But the thing is, Giovanni, I know that when I get home tonight, Mama will ask me if you are still planning to propose, the way you...promised?"

Inhaling slowly, he began speaking with his eyes closed. "Believe me, Filomena, when I left, I was completely certain that I would be free and clear to marry you when I got back."

He stopped.

"So?" I said in a whisper, shrugging. "Why... can't you?"

From the look on his face, Giovanni was on the verge of tears. He was silent for the longest time.

"I'm embarrassed, Fi, I am profoundly embarrassed, but my father has interfered in my life once again. He is a stubborn old man, a hateful man really." He lifted his clenched fist to his chin and then up to his forehead. "I am sorry that I cannot explain why, but please Fi, please please please believe me that he is really responsible."

"Well, Giovanni, it isn't hard to understand your father's feelings. He is a very wealthy man, an aristocrat, and he doesn't want his son to marry a peasant. This is an old story, as Mama says. It's as simple as..."

"No! No, NNNNOO, Fi, it's not that. I know that's what it sounds like, but it's...oh it's more complicated. And someday soon, I hope I can explain it to you in a way that you will understand. And you will then see why I blame him because he really is at fault."

Tears are gathering in my eyes. I realize now that my dream of becoming Giovanni's wife is just that, a dream that will not come true. "So just say it, Giovanni, you cannot marry me, just say it!"

"NO! NO! NO! I swear to you Fi, I want to marry you more than anything in the world, you must believe me!" He grabbed me with his good arm and pressed me tightly to his chest. I rested there a moment, but then I realized, I really had to go. I pulled away.

"I have to get home," I said, feeling sad that I couldn't stay. And feeling much sadder that Giovanni had such bad news to deliver. How could I possibly see him after this? Mama would never permit it! "It would help to know why..." I had half the sentence out of my mouth when I realized that it might not help at all to know what it was that prevented Giovanni from proposing to me.

"When will I see you Fi?"

I shook my head. "I'm not sure. I don't think..." I shook my head back and forth. I was blinking back tears. "I don't think Mama will approve." I know what Mama is going to say, that I should simply not see him again. But how can I not see Giovanni again? How can I possibly say goodbye to him? How can I say goodbye to him here, standing in the middle of the square? How can I say goodbye to him at all, ever?

"Maybe you can come to work at the new house? You could be Giuseppi's assistant chef again, because he has come back to work for me, preparing meals, so you could help him just as you used to."

"Perhaps." I can just imagine what Mama will say when I tell her I am going to work for Giovanni again.

"Please talk to your mother. Please explain to her that my father is being ridiculous. Impossible. Tell her that I still think I will prevail. Because Fi I really do think I will!"

Standing there, I just stared up at Giovanni. His face was so deeply tanned, and his curly hair was streaked light blonde after weeks in the sun. His hair at this hour, with the sunlight behind him, was like an angelic cloud, one that was so long and bushy it almost rested on his shoulders.

Suddenly I found myself looking at him in a new light. I asked myself, 'who is this man I have fallen in love with? What business do I have loving this free-spirited poet, who doesn't need to work, ever, a day in his life?'

For the first time, I realized that I have been very foolish to think I would ever be his wife!

And yet, I knew full well that I am completely crazy about him. Some things, like love, just can't be explained rationally.

"Will you talk to her? For me?"

"Of course I will talk to her!" I stepped up to my tiptoes and I kissed him on the cheek.

"And will you meet me, tomorrow?"

"Well maybe not tomorrow. Tuesday. No, Wednesday. I will meet you on Wednesday. On the steps of the church. Later in the day, say at 5 p.m. Now I must go! Ciao!"

"Wait wait! Before you go, here, take this."

He reached into his back pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. Fine paper. Linen. He set it into my hand.

"I wrote this poem for you. Don't read it now. Take it home. And as you read, remind yourself that I mean every single word of it. I swear to you!"

He held onto my hand until I finally had to pry it from his grip. "Thank you Giovanni, but I must go, it's getting dark! I will see you on Wednesday, I promise!"

I left him standing there. After a few steps, I turned to look back, and he was watching me. He raised his hand to his lips and threw me a kiss as I hurried away.

Sitting in the Crux of It

Has he drowned? Certainly, now, as it is the very end of October, he is either laid up in some port, or something far more unfortunate has happened. I was feeling so frustrated last week that one morning, I swore off all my chores and responsibilities and I actually walked all the way to San Lucido along the coast road to see if I could find Tullio. And God help me, I forgot to wear a hat! By the time I reached San Lucido, my cheeks were fiery. My neck felt scorched.

Did I find Tullio? How silly to think I might! I actually asked several people in the town if they had seen a chubby-faced man with long curly hair in the vicinity of the old town. It's no wonder I got so many peculiar gazes!

Trudging back to Paola later in the day, I decided that it was foolish of me to hold out hope any longer. Giovanni clearly was not coming back. I resolved to begin my life anew! By the time I reached home, though, I was feeling heartbroken once again. I was so tired that I gave into the hopeless feelings that I've been harboring these last five months. I crawled into bed still wearing my soiled dress and stockings. I closed my eyes and prayed to God that if He saw fit, perhaps it was better that I not wake up in the morning.

That thought dissolved me into tears.

The next morning, I woke up to Mama knocking on my door. When I opened my eyes, she was standing above me.

"I would like to know where you were all afternoon yesterday?" Her eyes were accusing me before I could speak. "Signora Bichietti actually came looking for you!"

I sat up. "I took a long walk," I said, preparing to defend myself. I was certainly entitled to a walk once in a while, wasn't I?

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, and so where did you go?"

I considered lying, but just for a moment. "I...walked to San Lucido." I stopped. I didn't need to say anything further. But suddenly, I could hear how unbelievably stupid I sounded. To walk to San Lucido and back was complete lunacy.

Mama covered her mouth with one hand. I prepared for another lecture. What she did instead, however, was so much worse. She just kept standing there! She just kept staring at me, as if somehow she wasn't sure who I was anymore. And then she set her hands on her large hips and she paced very slowly, back and forth, back and forth, alongside my bed. Not saying a word!

I felt as though I was some kind of prisoner, and she was my jailer. After what felt like forever, I shouted! "Mama, please for the love of God, stop!" Throwing back my bedcovers, I got up and left the bedroom. As I was still in my clothes, I intended to go straight to the ocean. I was almost out the front door when she yelled at me.

"Filomena, please, cara mia, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, please come back!"

I staggered. I wasn't prepared for her apology. I stood in the doorway. I still very much wanted fresh air. And sunshine. But I was barefoot, and so bedraggled. And hungry. Sagging into myself, I realized that all hope was lost. I was totally defeated. I turned and slowly stalked into the kitchen.

Tears began streaming down my sunburned face. I stood before Mama as if I was a five-year old again. "I'm afraid he is drowned, or lying someplace, mortally injured," I began. "I'm sure that I will never see him again and Mama I must see him again, I must, I just have to." I probably would have stopped there, but Mama took me so lovingly into her arms and held me so tightly that I started to wail and sob and I couldn't stop. Five months of pent up frustration came pouring out of me. I no longer worried what Mama would say because I was full of so much misery there wasn't room for even a trickle more.

I knew then how much my mother really loves me because she didn't try to stop me from crying. She just held onto me and then she started rocking me back and forth in her mighty arms. I must have cried for half an hour, not a moment less!

And then, utterly exhausted, the tears ceased and I sank into a chair. I set my swollen face into my crossed arms and I remained there. I actually fell back to sleep!

The next thing I knew I was smelling the delightful aroma of very strong coffee. And something baking. I raised my head and there was Mama setting down in front of me a steaming cup of coffee, splashed with milk. I took a sip. It was sweet with extra sugar, just the way I love it. Mama started me drinking coffee when I was a small child and it never fails that it always raises my spirits.

But there was more. Mama had taken some of our precious cornmeal and baked me a pan of cornbread. I was famished. She held the hot pan with a dishcloth and cut a large section of the steaming bread and set it on a plate. Then she smothered it in butter, and added some of the orange marmelade that she made last year at Christmas.

Neither of us said a word as we sat together sharing this small luxury, a special breakfast that Mama saved for birthdays and Easter.

When the meal was over, I got up from the table and took two pails off the hooks, as I was headed to the fountain. I was going to bathe and wash my hair. Before I left though, I apologized to Mama.

"I'm sorry I neglected my duties yesterday," I began. "I will go see Signora Bichietti, and I promise you Mama, I will not let this happen again." She nodded and that was all. Later, she explained to me that when she had been pacing beside my bed, she was simply talking to Papa, asking him over and over again what she could do to ease my pain.

It helped to hear that. Much like me praying to the Virgin Mary, Mama was asking for help from a bigger authority: Papa, who is always resting in the clouds up in heaven!

********

And when I say how Giovanni finally appeared, some will say, oh but how could he know where to find you? But of course he knew, it was the place we had first met. It was the place we had fallen deeper and deeper in love. It was the place we had made our declarations, our promises.

It was a Sunday afternoon, the very last day of October in 1869. An unusually cool day. The sky was a blue so pure that it actually made me smile.

Mama and I had an acorn squash for lunch, which she had bought at the market. She added a sprinkling of parmesan, and some oregano. So delicious. And Mama gave me an extra half a glass of red wine. She never said why, but I knew.

Perhaps that extra wine did it! Because what I most remember about that day was how calm I was feeling. I wanted to write about that blessed sense of peace. I wanted to say that it felt like I was floating in cool water. A temperature so perfect that the water was gone and I was immersed in a cloud of pure eternity!

So after lunch I took my journal -- with only three blank pages left -- and I walked to the big rocks. I walked very slowly. With every step, I let my bare feet sink deep into the sand. When I got to the rocks, I didn't sit down right away. I set my gaze on the blue line of the horizon and slowly moved my eyes from right to left. I caught sight of a fish jumping close to shore, and that made me think of Papa, and all the times I went fishing with him. He was with me that day, more than usual. I felt him so close to me. And then I decided that if I could feel Papa with me, then I could also feel Giovanni too.

I sat down and leaned back against the biggest rock, and took my sunhat off. I opened the journal and wrote:

"There are moments when we are more alive that we ever thought possible. Perhaps if I were some kind of saint, I would find life full of these moments. Because isn't that what God is, the explosion of connection to the splendor of Being? All I know is that today, October 31, 1869, I find myself in some kind of divine umbrella!"

I filled a page, but decided to save the last two pages for another day. I sat for a while and then I decided to return home. I picked up my boots, and began walking and saw a figure in the distance. At first I thought nothing of it. I proceeded down the beach. When I lifted my gaze again, however, I stopped. I wasn't sure, but... the figure in the distance was coming into view. A couple moments later, it was close enough now to see that it was a he and he was exceptionally tall.

All of a sudden I couldn't make myself move. But then I realized that the figure was coming in my direction at a fast pace. My eyes grew large and my face split into a silly grin and the next thing I knew I dropped my shoes and my journal and I raced in his direction.

We might have crashed into each other except when he got close to me he came to an absolute standstill. He was breathing hard and his right arm was tied up in a cast and a white sling. But he was smiling and I folded myself into his one good arm, my own two arms wrapped tightly around his chest. I wanted to scream and cry out but I was perfectly silent and all I heard was him saying over and over, "Oh my dear dear Fi, oh my beloved girl, my wonderful delightful Fi, here you are right beside me again!"

The rest, I decided, can wait for another day.

PERDITA FINN Says We Can Talk to Our Ancestors! But Can We Heal Them Too?

How can I explain it? How can I explain this woman, Perdita Finn, who says we can talk to our dead ancestors?

It is a Sunday morning in July of 2023, and I am sitting up in bed, comforted by two pillows.

A few moments ago, I posted a chapter of the novel I have been writing -- or attempting to write. I started writing stories about my Italian ancestors in March of 2020, virtually the same day the pandemic began. I have written many many of these stories here, as blogposts, on MyStoryLives. And then, a few months ago, in March of 2023, I began writing in earnest the story of my great great grandmother, Filomena Scrivano.

God knows how many hundred pages I've written since 2020. But I am still writing, still posting.

Sometimes I get weary with all this writing. Sometimes I climb into bed with my laptop because it's far less tiring to write this way!

Immediately after I post the Filomena chapter, I switch into email and this is what greets me at the TOP OF MY INBOX:

“Collaborate with those on the other side for wisdom, healing & miracles…”

WHAT?

What a coincidence, to get this email just as I am writing about my ancestor, Filomena, whose last name is Scrivano, which means scribe in English. I keep reading:

“How comforting would it be to know that your ancestors are always with you, wanting and waiting to help you?”

Wanting and waiting to help ME? This is too strange. So often in the last few months, as I have been feverishly writing about the romantic relationship that produced my illegitimate great grandfather, Pasquale Orzo, I have had the feeling that Filomena -- who in the story is a writer -- is looking over my shoulder, cheering me on as I spin out her tale!

Intrigued, I continue reading:

“Perdita Finn, co-founder of The Way of the Rose, [in Woodstock, New York,] shares that the departed — those we once held dear and even strangers from generations past — are still with us... not only waiting to comfort us, but eager to collaborate with us on creating blessings in our lives.

The departed are eager to collaborate with us? Really?

"In this context, miracles are not supernatural feats, but natural, organic occurrences available to everyone. They’re simple yet profound moments of connection, of feeling supported, loved, and understood in ways we seldom experience in our day-to-day lives.”

I am hardly new to miracles. I was seeing so many of them at one point that my husband began to call them "coinkydinkies."

Back in 2020, I started keeping track of the highly improbable “synchronicities” or miraculous coincidences.

I keep reading. On Amazon, I see that Perdita Finn recently wrote a book with her husband, Clark Strand, "an ex-Buddhist monk who isn't a Catholic." Neverless, Strand reveals how he discovered the rosary after seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary!

The rosary interests me. Filomena turns to the rosary at every dark turn in her life. I too frequently recite Hail Marys in challenging moments -- like yesterday when I faced a difficult doctor's visit. As a cancer survivor it doesn't take much to trigger my PTSD. So I am often finding myself saying Hail Mary's, despite the fact that I converted to Judaism more than three decades ago, when my youngest child Noah was a baby.

Perdita Finn's book reveals the ancient history behind the rosary in goddess rituals. It also connects the rosary to "radical" feminist traditions. This is the first image in the book:

The rosary, when it is held up so that the beads form a circle with the cross dangling downward, forms the symbol for woman, which, the book points out, "is far older than Christianity."

"The word rosary refers to the garlands that were traditionally woven from roses and offered to the Virgin Mary in the springtime. But long before [the Virgin] Mary, those same garlands were made as offerings to other goddesses by other names." These goddesses include Venus, the Roman goddess of love and fertitility, and Isis, the ancient Mediterranean goddess.

"The current form of the rosary didn't appear until the Middle Ages, when Christian leaders were forbidding pagan peoples in Europe from worshiping the Great Mother. But they were able to continue their devotion to her via the rosary. "In this way," the book points out, "the rosary became a kind of church within the Church."

In other words, the rosary, and the widespread worship of the Virgin Mary is a radical challenge to the Church fathers!

Filomena's story is also a challenge to the Church patriarchy. For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church in many European countries routinely forced unwed mothers to give up their babies. Thousands and thousands of those babies died of diseases that were rampant in foundling homes.

Back in 1870, in the province of Cosenza where my great grandfather was born, an astonishing 93 percent of the babies born out of wedlock perished! The fact that my ancestor survived at all is, in itself, a COMPLETE MIRACLE! The story about how Pasquale Orzo managed to avoid the "ospizia," the disease-ridden foundling home in his region, figures large in my novel. Meanwhile, the idea that the rosary links women (and men) in a kind of defiance of the Church, WOW! Now I am really intrigued. I order the book:

“The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.”

And then I go to Finn's website, WAY OF THE ROSE. That's where I read the rather quirky little story about the apparition. The Virgin Mary appeared to Clark Strand in the unlikely spot of Woodstock, New York on June 16, 2011.

I am astonished reading about the appearance of "Our Lady of Woodstock!" But I am even more blown away by this sentence: “Our Lady still speaks publically on the 16th of every month.”

HUH? Every month?

There is even an archive of all of the Virgin's messages!

Holy Heavenly Cow.

By now I am lying flat in bed. Birds are calling from outside the screen of the window. Tiny moths are fluttering, desperately trying to get in.

All of this "Way of the Rose" stuff seems like far too much to absorb. I ask myself, how can I possibly explain all of this?

I decide that I won't even try. I close my eyes and try to imagine the next chapter of Filomena’s story.

Leah, Airborne!

The jet is blasting down the runway whisking Leah up up up, heading back to the old country and all she can think is, “My great great grandma Filomena Scrivano, in her wildest dreams, could never have imagined me, airborne, traveling at 600 miles per hour, and so determined to learn my ancestor’s story!!!!”

Leaning her head back, she is already sweating. Mama had bought Leah a cheap economy ticket, Boston to Naples, and that meant Leah would have a hard time getting any sleep tonight! And here she is having all she can do not to worry: when Leah returns, Mama expects her to tell Filomena’s story — based on nothing more than a single photo from 1919!

Fortunately, Leah has the window seat. She steadies her gaze on the silver wing of the jumbo jet. She smiles thinking how profoundly awestruck Filomena would be if she were alive to see Leah in this sophisticated contraption called an airplane! Never did Fi hear the sound of a jet engine drowning out everything around it. And never had she barreled across the ocean at 32,000 feet above the earth!

Fi, as Leah has come to refer to her “bis bis nonna” — great great grandma —was born in 1852 in the southern Italian region of Calabria, exactly 100 years before Leah.

Moreover, Fi’s son Pasquale was born to his unwed mother in 1870 — exactly 100 years before Leah entered Brown University as a completely naive freshman!

The sun is dissolving into an orange and red puddle as it sets over the wing. The jet is making a giant circle around Logan. It never fails, when Leah flies over the ocean, she holds her breath most of the way and keeps praying for a safe landing.

Suddenly she is 19 again, about to fly to Norway. She has never been on an airplane before and Europe seems like more than a world away. She recalls all the agita she and her father had over which camera she should bring. Leah and her father were always arguing — mostly about politics — but not just that. Consider the time Leah insisted she could easily tell Easter bunny chocolate from regular chocolate and her stubborn father made her sit down, blindfolded, to do a taste test — which she passed, hands down!

She is chuckling now at the thought of it. Pouring Sprite over a plastic glass of ice, she is missing her dad — Ric Ricci — so much! He was a force to be reckoned with, but at heart a very loving man, and now gone almost four years! How can it be? Luckily, her Mama — Dee — is alive and miraculously healthy at 95!!

And of course tonight she is missing the love of her life, Joel, her husband of more than four decades! Add to that their three children: Elle (for Eleanor), Anna and Henry — all grown and married and out of the house. The older one — mother to grandchildren Ben and Lucy — lives in Boston and the two younger live in Denver, where Leah’s first grandson was born six months ago.

Leah is forever telling Joel how “lonely” she is — she is constantly forlorn and yearning for time with the kids and grandkids. Joel counters by saying “Leah, honey, we have a full life together by ourselves” and that they visit the kids as often as possible.

So when Leah poured her heart out to her therapist last month, Mary replied:

“My dear Leah, as I’ve told you numerous times before, you carry all your loved ones in your heart all the time and forever! No one ever leaves, and no one ever dies! Don’t give into the old fashioned notion that we are separated from one another! We are all together in an infinite and unending universe of love!”

Darkness now surrounds the jet. Leah looks up into a splatter of bright stars above her. She is getting sleepy. Is that possible so soon? The ice has melted in her Sprite. The jet begins bouncing in some gentle turbulence. Leah’s eyes close and soon she is asleep.

*****

She keeps falling asleep but then she wakes, over and over. Her neck is sore and her back aches. But after six bumpy hours of flying, the flight attendants are passing out breakfast.

All Leah can think is “I’ll get a good cup of coffee in the airport!” And soon enough they are safely on the ground and she is in a long line for customs and immigration.

Of course she would have loved it if Joel had come. But they had both agreed this “fact finding” trip back to Italy was something Leah needed to do on her own.

After retrieving her suitcase, she heads out of the airport to get a taxi to the train station in the center of Naples. The morning traffic is thick and car fumes in the street beside the station are making Leah slightly nauseous.

From Naples, she will head south to the tiny town of Paola, where her great great grandma had fallen for a man who got her pregnant but for whatever reason

>never managed to marry her!

Who was that man and why had he abandoned dear Filomena? How too had Pasquale managed to survive?

It was truly a miracle! Leah had recently come across a book that revealed how hundreds of thousands of illegitimate babies had been taken from their mothers during the 19th century in Italy (and other Catholic countries). The poor babies were housed in foundling homes where they ended up dying because of the horrific conditions!

Pasquale lived, even though a whopping 93 percent of illegitimate infants born in his region of Cosenza, died in 1870, the year he was born!

As Leah climbs into a taxi, she wonders once again how she will get to the bottom of Pasquale’s story! Would she ever learn who had raised him and how he had maintained contact with his birth mother? And would she ever discover who had given him his sorry last name, Orzo?! Yes, just like the tiny macaroni! Was this a way the church and the municipal officials added insult to injury, ensuring that Pasquale would be subjected to humiliatiion throughout his life?

Soon Leah is at the train station. Bleary-eyed, she finds another cappuccino bar and eats a “cornetto,” an Italian croissant. Then she uses her basic Italian to identify the train going south and once situated in a first class car, she promptly falls asleep. Again!