Staring into the Blue

It would be hard to describe the next few weeks. Between the misery of throwing up, and the idea that my baby was in for almost certain death upon his birth, I didn't think it was worth going forward. And here I had told Giovanni only days before that it made no sense for him to take his life!

I couldn't allow myself to think about G, or about the intense joy I had felt in the very short term I had been his wife. I tried to put San Lucido, and every memory associated with Giovanni into a chest deep in my mind. I wanted to lock the chest up and throw away the key. Oh my God he had wronged me.

And yet I could still feel how my body longed for him. Longed for his warmth up and down my legs, my belly my chest when all of me, skin, sinew, muscle had pressed myself fully against him during sleep.

I was having trouble going to bed. I was tossing and turning. As hard as I kept denying G's existence, my flesh was yearning for his.

There was absolutely no rest.

I didn't leave the house. Mama begged me to visit the beach, or the church. She pleaded with me to see Nunzi.

"You have to live for this baby," she said to me over and over again.

"No mama, because this baby has no future. Surely you know that?"

Unfortunately, she did. Everyone knew that. Everyone had heard the stories. All the young girls who got themselves "in trouble," -- "nei guai" -- had to deliver their babies up to the ruota -- the wheel -- in the mustard yellow municipal building, so that no one had to take ownership of the abandoned child.

More often than not, those babies died before their first birthday. Why exactly was I going to carry this baby through to birth? Was it worth having the child, only to give him up and find out he had died.

And yet, who was I kidding? Did I really think I had it in me to try to terminate my pregnancy? Me? A good girl? A girl who had held back from consummating my love for Giovanni until we married? And while I knew there were whispers of women who had done this sinful thing -- ending their pregnancies -- I knew these women were not me.

I would rather terminate myself.

The one thing Mama convinced me to do was say the Rosary.

She and I kneeled together every night and we prayed around the circle of the beads.

Mama comforted me by saying that if we continued to pray, our Beloved Mary would show us the way forward. I didn't really believe it, but I loved my Mama enough to follow her lead.

By the middle of April, my nausea was starting to lessen. I had figured out that I needed to keep my stomach full and so I let Mama make me a big bowl of polenta every morning.

And then of course it was spring. Mama opened the window to let the sweet air inside. One morning it was so warm that I woke up swarming and sweating in my bed.

When I raised my head from the pillow, a great draft of air filled my nose. I breathed in deeply and I felt it swell into my belly.

Without thinking, I wrapped myself in a shawl and walked out of the house. I kept breathing and the more air I took in, the more I felt my spirits lift. Here was a reason to keep living, because the Earth was awake and making me feel alive. For the first time in months, I knew that I had to be true to ...what was it exactly?

In no time at all, I was walking barefoot beside the sea. The salty air was everywhere inside and around me. I thought about the fact that it was more than a year ago I had first encountered Giovanni right here along the shore.

No more did I think that, than I found myself sinking into the sand and the water. I began to sob, and I couldn't stop. Soon I was crawling into the water like a crab. I was sopping wet. The water was brisk but I didn't care. I just collapsed there like a beached seal. I let myself feel the cold against my skin. I let the sand mix with my hair.

And without a doubt I knew then I had to be true to the love I had for Giovanni.

I lay there with the sun baking my face. I had stopped crying. I just lay there in place. Salty water and spring air. Me breathing in and out.

And without a doubt I knew then I had to be true to the love I had for Giovanni. And the love I had for Mama! And Papa! And Nunzi! And every other person I loved!

Love was insisting inside me. Life was insisting inside me. Life was deciding to be. Life was begging to be! Just as G's and my love had been insisting for all these last twelve months or more. It didn't matter that the marriage wasn't legal. Giovanni had wanted me to be his wife. Giovanni loved me. Giovanni still loves me! That much was true and would never stop being true.

And now. More tears. Because lying here in the sand and salt water, where our love had been born, I once more felt the purity of our love.

I decided to lay there and just stare into the shocking blue of the sky. I would let myself live. I would give myself up to Mary. If she wanted me to die, I would die. But if she somehow wanted me to live, I would do it and I would give it my best. I would give it everything I had inside me!

I kept staring into the blue. I kept taking big breaths. And somehow I found myself smiling, I felt the joy of just ME. ME. BEING.

My eyes fell closed. I was so relaxed that I think I dozed. Or maybe not.

But I got my answer.

Because when I opened my eyes I was staring into the big dark oily olive eyes of my beloved mother. She was kneeling beside me, and now she was lifting me by the shoulders. She was crying and holding me in the powder blue shawl that she wore and she was rocking me like she had when I was a baby. And then we were crying together.

In the midst of my sobbing, I spoke to her. "Mamaaaa, I loved...I loved him soooo much!" I said this and my whole body shook. Mama just pulled me closer. "Yes I know you did, tesora mia bella! Yes, yes, yes!"

And when we finally rose out of the water, I knew those rosaries that Mama and I had spoken every night had kept me going. They had given me some much-needed energy and now, they might be the only way to go forward.

I wasn't going to think about ending my life, or my baby's life, anymore. I was going to pray that Mary would help me find a way that the baby might. LIVE!