Chapter 29
A PAIR OF ICE SKATES
Un Paio di Pattini da Ghiaccio
Enza pulled on her gloves as she stood next to the Chisholm ice rink and watched as Antonio sailed on the outskirts of the silver ice with such dexterity, it looked as though he was building up speed to fly. The dark woods beyond the rink hemmed the oasis of ice lit by the bright white floodlights. It was as though the full moon had embedded itself in the ground of the north woods. The scent of roasted chestnuts and buttery baked sweet potatoes filled the air.
Every teenager in Chisholm seemed to be at the rink that night, skating to popular music piped over the ice. The kids spun to “The Music Goes Round and Round” by Tommy Dorsey; waltzed to “These Foolish Things” by Benny Goodman and created a daisy chain; and snaked around the rink to “Moon Over Miami” by Eddy Duchin.
Enza purchased a roasted sweet potato from a girl who was raising money for the high school band. She unwrapped the tin foil and took a bite without taking her eyes off her son.
Antonio was seventeen, at the top of his class at Chisholm High School, but every bit as athletic as he was brilliant at his studies. Skates felt as natural to his body as snow skis. Even the slow sport of curling—“chess on the ice,” Antonio called it—was mastered. His basketball skills were famous throughout the Iron Range, and he was in line for scholarships to attend university.
At the age of forty-one, Enza could look back over her life confident that she had raised her son well, especially under the circumstances. She knew Ciro would be proud of their son. It had been five years since her husband died, and yet it seemed as though it was yesterday.
Enza wrestled with the promise she had made to Ciro to return to the mountain to raise Antonio among family and friends in the Alps. She gave it serious consideration, but the world had changed quickly in the months after Ciro’s death. Italy was in the midst of political tumult, and it would not have been prudent to take her American son back to where she came from. Observing the social changes in her homeland, she knew she had made the right decision to stay in Minnesota. She chose America because it had been good to them.
Enza was loyal to the town Ciro had chosen for them, and business was steady. She did alterations for the department stores and built wedding gowns, coats, and dresses for the ladies of Chisholm. She sewed draperies, slipcovers, and layettes. Customers marveled at her skill and returned time and again.
Luigi ran the shoe shop alone. The constant flow of company provided by the Latinis, especially Pappina, but also their sons and Angela, who was now nearly ten years old, had been a tonic for Enza. Only when she climbed the stairs and closed her bedroom door at night did her loneliness at the loss of Ciro consume her. Eventually her tears stopped, giving way to a dull ache that Enza accepted as the natural pain of widowhood, one for which there was no cure.
Antonio skated by, grinning and waving at his mother. Enza leaned against the wall and watched as Betsy Madich, also seventeen, in a short red velvet skating skirt, white tights, and a matching sweater, took Antonio’s hands and skated with him. Enza smiled, remembering when the pair had gone roller skating together down West Lake Street when they were children.
Antonio was madly in love with Betsy, a willowy Serbian beauty with her mother’s chestnut hair and blue eyes. She planned to attend nursing school at the University of Minnesota, one of the schools where Antonio hoped to play basketball. Enza had many talks with her son about girls, but she always found them difficult. During those conversations, she felt Ciro’s absence like a missing limb. Sometimes she even felt annoyed at her husband for leaving her behind to raise their son alone. It seemed that she needed Ciro more as time went by, not less.
Antonio and Betsy skated over to the wall where Enza stood.
“Mama,” Antonio said, “I’d like to go Betsy’s after skating.”
“Mom is making povitica,” Betsy added.
“Aren’t you going to help Mr. Uncini flood the rink?”
“Yeah. After that, I’d like to go to Betsy’s.”
“Okay. You have your key?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Not too late, va bene?”
“Va bene, Mama.” Antonio winked at his mother. Her native Italian had become a secret language between them. When they closed the door at 5 West Lake Street, mother and son spoke as though she had never left the mountain.
Later that night, Mr. Uncini, nicknamed “Oonch,” played “Goodnight, Irene” and closed the rink for the night. The teenagers piled into their cars to go home, or to Choppy’s Pizza, which had just opened on Main Street.
“Clear the ice for me, Antonio,” Mr. Uncini said.
Antonio lifted a long-handled wire broom from the storage bin next to the rink and skated in a circular pattern, clearing the loose shavings and chunks of ice off the rink. While Antonio smoothed the surface as best he could, Mr. Uncini unspooled the fire hose.
Antonio came off the ice and removed his skates. He pulled on his work boots and helped Mr. Uncini crank the wheel to release water onto the rink. Flooding the rink took some time. Antonio would sit with his father’s old friend and talk.
“How are you doing in school?” Mr. Uncini asked.
“Great except for calculus. I might get a B,” Antonio said.
“You’re getting serious with Betsy.”
“Have you been talking to my mom?”
“I have eyes, Antonio.”
“I’d like to marry her someday.”
“That’s pretty serious.”
“Not yet. After college.”
“That’s a good plan. A lot of things will change in four years. It’s a lifetime.”
“That’s what Mama says.”
“You know, your father came to see me before he died. And now that you’re going off to college, I think there are some things I should tell you. You know, he wanted me to look out for you.”
“And you always have, Oonch.”
“I hope I haven’t been too obvious.”
“You cried when I sang ‘Panis Angelicus’ at Saint Joseph’s—that was pretty obvious.”
“I just wanted you to know I was standing in for your father. It’s not the same, I know, but I promised him I would be there for you.”
“What was he like, Oonch? Mama cries when I ask her. I remember a lot about him, but I wonder what I would think of him now that I’m older.”
“He was a decent man. But he loved to have fun. He was ambitious, but not to the extreme. I liked him because he was a true Italian.”
“What’s a true Italian?”
“He loved his family and he loved beauty. For a true Italian, those are the only two things that matter, because in the end that’s what sustains you. Your family gathers around and shores you up while the beauty uplifts you. Your father was devoted to your mother. He made boots like I make scrambled eggs. You’d be talking to him, and he’d be measuring and pinning pattern paper on a sleeve of leather, and in no time, he was sewing and then polishing and buffing. It was as if it was nothing. But it was hard work.”
Antonio looked out over the ice as Mr. Uncini turned the water pump off by cranking the wheel in reverse. The clear water had settled above the old layer of blue ice, filling in every pit and crack. The air was so cold, the surface had already begun to harden, making patterns that under the lights looked like lace. The woods were quiet, and once the water was turned off, there was no sound.
Antonio’s nose burned, and tears came to his eyes as he thought about his father, and how he’d gone around Chisholm, hat in hand, asking his friends to fill in for the times to come when he could not be there. The realization of this made Antonio long for his father and miss him more. He wiped his tears on his sleeve as he closed the gate to the rink.
“You all right?” Mr. Uncini asked.
“Just cold,” Antonio answered.
“You are six-three, Antonio,” Dr. Graham said, scribbling on the report. “You weigh two hundred and fifteen pounds, all muscle.” The doctor chuckled. “Have you decided where you’re going to go to school?”
“The University of Minnesota offered me a four-year scholarship.”
“Of course they did.”
“But I’m going to Notre Dame.”
“Good for you.”
“I want to play professionally once I graduate.”
The phone rang in Dr. Graham’s office. “I’m on my way.” He hung up the phone. “Antonio, please, go get your mother. Tell her Pappina Latini is in the hospital.”
Antonio ran a mile swiftly; in a matter of minutes, he’d pushed the shop door open, called for his mother, and told her to come with him to the hospital. By the time they made it up the hill, Luigi and his children were in the waiting room. They were holding one another, weeping. Angela let out a wail, and called out for her mother.
“What happened, Luigi?” Enza put her hands on his shoulder.
“She’s gone, Enza. She’s gone. There was trouble with the baby and they tried to save her, and they couldn’t. Pappina never came out of it . . . and our baby son died.”
Pappina was a year or two younger than Enza, and this baby had been a surprise. Pappina had been going through the change of life early, and hadn’t thought creating another life was possible. But the Latinis had been as happy with the news as they had the first four times. Enza, who had prayed for years for a sibling for Antonio, was always profoundly touched by the way Pappina included her at the heart of every pregnancy. Pappina never made a fuss, but she somehow drew Enza into the circle of happiness with her, involving Enza in every aspect of the new baby’s life, so Enza might be filled up with joy despite her longing.
After leaving the hospital and ensuring that Luigi was capable of handling the final arrangements, Enza took the Latini children back to 5 West Lake Street with her. John Latini was eighteen and an apprentice in the shop. The older boys were stoic, but Angela could not stop crying for her mother. As they walked along the sidewalk beneath the bare winter trees, Enza tried to comfort them.
“Children come to us in many ways,” she remembered Pappina saying. The thought sent a chill through her.
At home, Enza cooked for the Latini family, Antonio and John led them in games to distract them, and later on, Enza bathed Angela and prepared her school clothes. It was, of course, the least she could do for all the Latinis had done for her and Antonio when Ciro died. The children had always called her Zenza, a combination of Zia and Enza, and most of them had spent as many nights under her roof, playing with Antonio, as they had under their own.
Pappina’s funeral was held four days later in a standing-room-only mass at St. Joseph’s. Pappina had been beloved in the community, a wonderful baker, a beautiful wife and mother. Luigi was bereft at the loss of his wife and new baby. His life would never be the same, nor would his heart.
Each of her children took a turn reading the scripture. Enza knew her friend would have been very proud of her children that day.
Enza slowly eased the younger family back into their routine. After a few weeks, she moved them back to the Latini house, showing the boys how to do their own laundry and prepare meals.
Angela watched Enza carefully, and tried to do chores as her mother had done. Cleaning was not difficult, but cooking and baking for the entire family were too much for a child only ten years old, and she grew frustrated at the challenge. Enza stepped in and made the meals. She arranged to have the children come only on the weekends for lunch, and made sure they went to church on Sundays.
One morning, Enza had opened the shop and was sewing in the back. Luigi came in, and called out to her. He began to repair shoes as he had every morning. But something was different about him that day. He put down his tools, went back to the sewing workroom, and sat in front of Enza.
“I’m going back to Italy,” he said.
“Luigi, it’s too soon to make any decisions.”
“No, I’m going to do it.”
“You can’t run away from what happened to you.”
“I can’t bear it. I want to start over. And the only way I can do that is go back to the beginning.”
“But your children!”
“I’m going to take the boys with me.”
“But what about Angela?”
“I was hoping you would take her. I don’t know what to do with a girl,” he cried. “She needs a mother.”
Enza sat back in her chair. She understood Luigi’s concern. In the coming year or two, Angela would begin adolescence. Without a mother in the home, there would be no one to guide her in the matters of womanhood.
Antonio was leaving for Notre Dame in the spring, to begin training for the basketball team. Enza would be alone, and now, if Luigi left for Italy, she would have to rent the workroom out.
“Leave her with me,” Enza said. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Grazie, Enza. Grazie.”
“Pappina would have done the same for me.” Enza was sure of it.
Enza prepared the spare room for Angela. She painted it pink, sewed a white chenille coverlet, and made lampshades with some leftover chintz. She made sure that Angela had photographs of her mother, father, and brothers on the dresser. Knowing what it was like to live in someone else’s home, Enza vowed that she would make Angela comfortable and secure; it would be nothing like her own experience in Hoboken with the Buffa family.
Enza went to the school to make certain that the teachers were aware of Angela’s needs. Angela stayed in her room a lot, but that was to be expected. The ten-year-old girl was making the transition from life with a big family to the serenity of the Lazzari home. Luckily she had been in and out of the shop all of her life, and had many happy memories of shared holidays upstairs in the Lazzari apartment. Enza checked on her, and would find Angela reading, or sitting quietly and looking off in the middle distance. It was heartbreaking for Enza; she understood every nuance of what the little girl was feeling. At least Enza knew her mother was alive, and she could write to her. Angela did not have that luxury.
One Sunday afternoon, Enza was making pasta in the kitchen when she heard singing. Enza smiled, happy that Angela felt comfortable enough to play the phonograph without asking.
As the recording continued, Enza realized that the orchestra was not joining in after the first a cappella stanza. A single voice continued to cut through the quiet. Enza stopped kneading the pasta dough, wiped her hands on the moppeen, and followed the sound down the hallway. Enza moved toward Angela’s room, then stopped, frozen by what she saw. Angela was singing. Enza had not heard a voice like it since Geraldine Farrar back at the Met.
Angela did not slide into a note as she sang, she hit it and held it. The crystal quality of her tone was natural and God given. Enza closed her eyes and followed the sound, picturing the moment she first heard the same aria at the Met years earlier. Enza stepped away and listened until Angela finished singing the phrase, then tiptoed back to the kitchen.
Enza pulled on her coat and gloves and her best hat and walked up West Lake Street for her appointment with Miss Robin Homonoff, Chisholm’s only piano and voice teacher. Her first name was not written out on the mailbox, rather it was a sketch of a tweeting bird.
Miss Homonoff answered the door. She had soft gray hair, and was in every way prim. She invited Enza to sit in the parlor by the baby grand Steinway piano, the only shiny object in her blue cottage.
“I want to talk to you about Angela Latini,” Enza began.
“I think she has talent. If she begins to study now with me in earnest, and works very hard, I think she could be a professional singer someday.”
“I think she sounds like Geraldine Farrar.”
“You studied opera?”
“I worked at the Metropolitan Opera when I was a girl.”
“You sang?”
“Sewed. But I love music, and I think this would be good for her. She’s endured a lot in her young life, and I think this would give her confidence.”
“We’ll get started right away, then.” Miss Homonoff extended her hand.
“How much are the lessons?”
“Not one penny. In a matter of months, she’ll be teaching me, Mrs. Lazzari; that’s how good she is.”
Miss Homonoff closed the door and smiled. She lived for these moments, when raw talent was entrusted to her to refine and shape. She would make a world class soprano out of Angela Latini.
Angela knelt in the living room at 5 West Lake Street. She fiddled with the dial on the radio until WNDU out of South Bend, Indiana, came through clear and sharp without static. Enza shook the pan on the stove in the kitchen, and soon the popcorn was crackling inside. She held the lid down as the puffs exploded.
“Hurry, Zenza! Antonio is in the starting five!”
Enza threw the popcorn into a bowl, and just as they had every Saturday since the Notre Dame basketball season had begun, she and Angela listened to the game on the radio. Notre Dame was playing Army in South Bend.
Angela and Enza listened as Antonio scored. They laughed because the announcer mispronounced Lazzari. Angela corrected the announcer. “I know he can’t hear me,” Angela said, her eyes flashing. “But I wish he could.”
When Antonio graduated with honors from Notre Dame in 1940, Veda Ponikvar, the editor of the Chisholm Free Press, wrote a profile about him, with his picture. The headline read:
HIS FATHER’S SON
As soon as Antonio arrived home to Chisholm with his diploma, a letter from the draft board was waiting for him. Antonio was summoned to appear with his mother in Hibbing. Angela was in school when Enza took the trolley with Antonio to Hibbing. She had a heavy heart, knowing that her son would be sent to fight in the second world war. She thought of the stories Ciro had told her about the Great War, and she couldn’t help but feel that history was repeating itself. She tried not to show her apprehension to Antonio, but it couldn’t be helped.
“I’ve called you here today because you’re in a unique situation.” Corporal Robert Vukad looked at Enza, then Antonio, in the small, spare storefront office on the main street of Hibbing.
“I understand that your father served in the Great War. You’re the only son in the family, and your mother is a widow. We don’t have to send you into action. In fact, you can be exempt from it entirely. It’s the government’s way of holding families under these circumstances together.”
“I want to be in the war, sir. I want to serve my country. I don’t want to be benched.”
“Your mother may disagree with you. Mrs. Lazzari?”
Enza wanted to tell the officer that she wanted her son to take the exemption. As a mother, she couldn’t imagine offering her only son to the war. She had already lived through the loss of her husband; the thought of losing her son as well was devastating. Enza looked at Antonio, who had the calm confidence that begat courage. So instead of taking the offer, she said quietly, “Sir, my son goes like every other young man. He should not be exempt from the war to take care of me. It means more to me as a mother that he wants to emulate his father. It means he understands the great debt we have to this country.”
“I’ll be all right, Mama.”
Enza and Antonio walked back to the trolley from the recruitment office. They didn’t say much on the ride back to Chisholm, and walked in silence from the trolley station. Enza’s heart was heavy as she unlocked the door. Antonio pushed the door open. The scent of tomato and basil gravy simmering on the stove permeated the hallway.
“Angela?” Enza called out.
“I made dinner, come on up!” she hollered.
Enza and Antonio entered the kitchen. The table was set with a cloth, candles, and china. Antonio’s girlfriend, Betsy—beautiful and collegiate in a Pendleton wool skirt, blouse, and loafers who was home from nursing school—was tossing the salad, wearing an apron.
Angela, now fourteen, had tied a moppeen around her head and wore faded blue jeans and one of Antonio’s old jerseys. “Sorry,” she apologized to Enza. “I didn’t have time to change. And I didn’t want to get tomato sauce on my good blouse.”
Betsy put her arm around Angela. “I told her she was beautiful just as she is.”
Antonio kissed Betsy. “And so are you.”
That night, they feasted on spaghetti pomodoro, fresh salad, and chocolate cake. They told stories of the ice rink, high school basketball games, and the night Betsy fell in the dance competition during Serbian Days. Enza sat back and watched her son, taking in every detail of him, wishing the night would never end and praying he would be very, very lucky and return home safely to her someday.
Antonio shipped out from New Haven with the navy the following summer. He called his mother the night before. She buckled under the anxiety of his decision, and hers. She fretted so much, and so deeply, that within a year of Antonio’s leaving, her raven hair had turned quickly and completely white.
Month after month, she waited for Antonio’s letters, opening them as soon as they were placed in her hands. She’d remove a hair clasp from her head, then rip open the envelope with the sharp metal end. After poring over the words a dozen times, she would carry each letter in her apron pocket until the next letter arrived. The most recent letter he sent had given her cause for concern. He spoke of his father in it, which he had never done before.
February 15, 1943
My dearest Mama,
I can’t tell you exactly where I am, but every morning all I see is blue. It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful could hide the enemy with such depth and dexterity.
I have been thinking of Papa a lot. I miss you terribly, and don’t like that you are alone in Chisholm. Mama, when I come home, let’s go to your mountain. I want to see the fields of Schilpario and see the convent where Papa lived. He wanted us to go, and we should. Please don’t cry yourself to sleep. I am safe and with a good regiment, very smart fellows. There are recruits from the University of Minnesota, a few from Texas, others from Mississippi, and one fellow from North Dakota who we call No Dak. He tells long-winded stories about the history of the moose in middle America. Sometimes we tell him we can’t take it, and other times, we just let him talk. It’s almost like the radio.
I love you Mama, you have my heart, and I will be home soon,
Antonio
P.S. Give Angela a hug for me.
Enza put aside her alterations, neatly folding a coat from Blomquist’s.
She checked the mailbox each morning, hoping for word from her son. When no letter came, she pulled on her coat and took the long walk up the street to the post office building to check the rosters of the war dead. She was not alone in this habit; every mother in Chisholm with a son or daughter in the war did the same, though they would pretend to be running an errand, or dropping off a package. But when one mother looked into the eyes of another, she knew.
In the spring of 1944, Laura Heery Chapin returned to Chisholm, Minnesota. Her son Henry was in boarding school, and Laura was free to accompany Colin around the country, as he was now in charge of production for the Metropolitan Opera’s road companies.
As soon as Angela was accepted to the Institute of Musical Art, Enza had called her old friend, who was going to be in Chicago for the opening of La Traviata. Laura had agreed to visit and take Angela safely back with her to New York City, because that’s what friends were for.
Laura was still tall, slim, and grand, though her red hair had faded to a shiny auburn. Her suit was Mainbocher, and even her suitcases had style, French made and Italian trimmed.
“I wish Colin’s mother could see you now. She would say you were to the manor born.”
“Probably not. She’d think that I should’ve chosen white gloves instead of blue.”
“Hasn’t Chisholm grown since your last visit?”
“I think it’s not Hoboken.”
Enza and Laura laughed. Through the years, whenever they liked something, they would say, “At least it’s not Hoboken.”
“But you know, this is where Colin came to claim me. It will always be a special place to me.”
Enza smiled and remembered the exact place she had stood on Carmine Street when Ciro came for her on the sidewalk in front of Our Lady of Pompeii. It’s funny how a woman remembers exactly where she stood when she was chosen.
“Miss Homonoff sent quite a letter to the Institute. She believes your goddaughter is a talented soprano.”
“We brought her down to the Twin Cities, and the professors at the University of Minnesota agreed. Laura, she would never be able to go to New York if you weren’t there.”
“I’m lonely with Henry away at school. You’re giving me a gift.”
“Oh, Laura, she’s so shy sometimes. She misses her mother, and there’s nothing I can do to comfort her. It brings up all my feelings about home and how much I miss my family. Her father and brothers are in Italy, and she’s afraid for them. They’re unfounded fears, but they’re real to her.”
“Angela needs to focus on her work. You and I made it because we stayed busy and we had goals. Look, she can live with me and walk across the park to her classes at the Institute. Colin is close to the dean. We’ll make her feel at home.”
“Is it all too easy?” Enza said worriedly.
“You just said the kid has had a terrible childhood. I didn’t say she could come to New York and nap. She’ll have to work hard, but why can’t we give her that little bit of security we know she needs? Didn’t Miss DeCoursey give it to us at the Milbank? How many times did we fret about the rent, and she’d give us a few extra days to go and wash dishes? I won’t pamper Angela, but I can encourage her—and she can learn. I’ll be her Emma Fogarty. I’ll make the connections for her like Emma did for us.”
Enza took a deep breath. Every fear she had for her ward was now assuaged. The truth was, she trusted Laura with her life, and with anyone that she loved. “What would my life have been, had we never met?”
“I have a feeling you would have been just fine.” Laura embraced her old friend for a long time. “I, on the other hand, would have been in a suite at Bellevue, eating crushed bananas, singing ‘Tico Tico’ on a loop.”
Enza and Laura sat on the shore of Longyear Lake, sipping wine in paper cups while they ate figs and cheese Enza had wrapped in a starched moppeen.
“This is when I miss Ciro. You know, we’re at the stage of life where things get quiet, and when you’re a widow, that silence is painful.”
“I think of you when I want to push Colin out the window.”
“Enjoy him.”
“Come and stay with us!”
“I do miss New York. I’m sorry so much time has passed without a visit. But now I’m waiting for Antonio to come home, and when he does, I can make some big decisions, and one of them will be to come and see you for a nice long visit. ”
“I have a bedroom for you. We could go to the opera every night of the week. Colin has a box.”
“The diamond horseshoe.”
“Can you imagine? Remember the first time we walked in there? And now I sit up there and I complain if I can’t see the stage-left wings from my seat. And back then, we would have scrubbed floors to be anywhere in the building. And we did! But ultimately we didn’t have to, because you were an artist and could sew better than any machine. And it didn’t hurt that you were Italian. That went so far in the opera house—as it should.”
“I still play Caruso’s records.”
“You cooked for Caruso. I washed his dishes! The man would not eat raw tomatoes.” Laura clapped her hands together. “We’ve lived in the days of Caruso at the Met.”
“I wonder what he’d say if he saw my white hair.”
“He would have said, ‘Vincenza, you may have white hair, but I will always be older than you.’ ”
“You know, whenever I pick up a pen, I think of you. You taught me how to read and write English. You never got impatient and snapped at me.”
“You were so smart, I worried you’d teach me a thing or two about grammar.”
“No, it was the most generous thing anyone’s ever done for me. You have a way of finding out what people need and giving it to them.”
“All you needed is what every girl needs, a good friend. Someone to talk to, to share with, to run things by . . . You were always that person for me.”
“I hope I always will be.”
“As long as there are telephones.” Laura laughed.
Angela walked to her classes at the Institute of Musical Art carrying her sheet music in a newspaper boy’s burlap tote which she wore across her body. The sun in late March was hot, but the air was cool. She hummed as she walked, imagining the musical notes of her audition piece in succession, visiualizing them in her mind’s eye, and rehearsing as she went. Whenever she reached a crosswalk and the trolley would speed by, clanking on the tracks, drowning out all sound, Angela would practice her high register and test her vocal power by singing her scales as loudly as she could.
Heads turned as Angela walked; young men would whistle, but she didn’t hear them. Her long black hair ruffled in the breeze as did her long pleated skirt which she wore with bobby socks and Capezio flats. She didn’t need lipstick, as her lips were deep pink without it. Like her unstudied, effortless beauty, singing came naturally. Angela was a delicate soprano, known in her class for her perfect pitch and crystal tone.
Angela was a small-town girl. She lacked the sophistication, and therefore the cunning, of her fellow students. She didn’t fight for the best parts, but was happy to be in the chorus. She sang because it was a gift, not because she wanted to gain something more from it. Singing made her feel close to her mother, who had sung to her. Music was a way of holding on to Pappina.
The Institute was housed in the Vanderbilt family guest house on East 52nd Street. Angela loved the marble entry; shades of deep cherry and pink offset by slashes of black reminded her of the inside of a candy box. The auditorium, where Angela took lessons in Vocal Technique, Dramatic Expression, and Italian for Singers, was stately, but small. It could have fit on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House.
Angela handed her sheet music to Frances Shapiro, the rehearsal pianist, and her closest friend. Frances was a lean, stylish young woman of twenty-two with light brown hair and a wide grin who played for the voice classes at the Institute. She attended Brooklyn College at night to study secretarial science. Frances laid the sheet music across the piano. As she began to play the introduction to Batti, batti bel Masetto from Don Giovanni, Angela took the stage and stood before her, closed her eyes, opened her hands, stood up straight, and lifted her chin, singing out to the back of the theater. Frances smiled and nodded as Angela hit every note. Angela’s high soprano was like a cool breeze through an open window.
“How was it?” Angela asked.
“Professor Kirshenbaum is going to be amazed.”
“I hope so. I need his recommendation.”
“Sing like that, and you’ll get it,” Frances assured her.
Angela Latini left the Institute and went for coffee as she often did at the end of the day. She used the time to study and write letters. Her father and brothers received a long letter every week. She sat in the window of the Automat and opened a notebook. Her long dark hair was tied back with a silk scarf. She tucked her full skirt around her, and buttoned her sweater.
“You were splendid in there today,” Frances said, dropping her purse on the table as she stood eyeing the pie selection. “I mean, never better.”
“Thanks. I have to be. I need a letter from Professor Kirshenbaum to get into La Scala.”
“Have you told your aunt yet?”
“It would crush her if she thought I wasn’t coming back to Minnesota.”
“The sooner you tell her, the better.”
“I want to be near my dad and my brothers. They’re all I have left.” Angela still could not think of Pappina without becoming emotional. She wondered if she would ever be able to move forward, and there were times when she doubted it. Angela’s talent was inborn and natural, and therefore she valued it only as a gift, and not with a sense of purpose. She loved to sing, but she would have gladly traded this ability to have her mother back. Zenza had done her best, but she too had a hard time figuring out how to make this lonely little girl happy, and now that Angela was grown, she felt it was her own responsibility to seek happiness in any way that she could.
“When are you going to tell her?”
“Once her son comes home.”
“She has a son? Is he single?” Frances sat up in her seat like a curious hen.
“He’s had a girlfriend all of his life. He’s so handsome. And older.”
“I like older.”
“Not for anything, Frances, but I think you like all ages.”
“As long as he’s Jewish.”
“You’re out of luck—this one’s a Catholic.”
“I will entertain the idea of bending the rules, even if my parents won’t.” Frances threw her head back and laughed. “Where is he?”
“He’s fighting in the Pacific theater.”
Frances’s face clouded over. She knew many boys from her neighborhood in Brooklyn who had been drafted and were in the South Pacific. “Oh, Angela . . . ” Frances said softly.
“Don’t even say it. I know. He’ll be lucky if he makes it home.” Angela sighed.
“You can’t live your life to make anyone happy, including your honorary aunt who took you in. You need to be with your family.”
“I know.” Angela sipped her coffee. “But first I have to decide what a family is.”
“Or maybe you’ll do what every Shapiro, Nachmanoff, and Pomerance has done since the beginning of time: you’ll invent it.”
Laura lit the candles in the Tiffany holders on the mantel in the soft green and beige living room of her Park Avenue penthouse. The city lights twinkled below, beyond the black pool of Central Park, like a collection of small stars in the distance. In the years that the Chapins had lived in the apartment, the lights around the park had multiplied. The neighborhood borders of Manhattan had swelled—more people, better business, and more seats sold at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Angela, wearing a chiffon chemise, her long hair grazing her waist, sat at her vanity table in the guest room where she had lived since she became a student at The Institute of Musical Art.
She brushed her long hair, leaned forward, and applied a pale pink lipstick to her mouth. Angela was a southern Italian beauty, brown-eyed with waves of dark hair and a trim figure with curves like carved marble.
Laura swept into Angela’s room and gave her a bracelet to wear. Angela thanked her as she put it on her arm. “It works on you. Keep it.”
It occurred to Laura as she looked at Angela’s reflection that she possessed the natural elegance that Enza Ravanelli always had, even in the tenements of Hoboken. Angela was graceful, she spoke well, directly and softly; she was helpful when called upon, yet assertive when she needed to be. Her second mother had taught her well.
Angela had been a delight in every way for Laura. With Henry now in college, Angela had filled the quiet as she rehearsed at the piano, singing scales and mastering phrases for her singing classes at the Institute. In Enza’s absence, Laura went to Angela’s recitals and rehearsals. She consulted with Angela’s professors and made sure she got extra attention when she needed it.
Colin had made sure Angela had a job in the ticket office and ushered during performances, so she might have exposure to the full menu of what it took to present an opera. Angela would never take the Chapins for granted, or their generosity.
Laura had exposed Angela to a world she would have never known had she stayed on the Iron Range. She took Angela shopping and to parties for the board of the Met. She introduced Angela to all the star points of a gracious life. Angela’s natural talent and regal bearing had only made her more humble and grateful for the opportunities Laura presented. Angela had been a good student.
The doorbell rang.
“Angela, will you get that?” Laura called out.
“Yes, Aunt Laura,” Angela called back. She took one last look in the mirror before she opened the door, smoothing her hair over her ear and adjusting the pearl on the drop necklace she wore with her gown.
Angela’s heart beat fast when she opened the door to see Antonio Lazzari standing in the doorway in his dress uniform. He pushed his hat off his forehead and then removed it. His dark good looks were dazzling against the bright white of his uniform.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Chapin,” he said, taking in the beautiful girl from the top of her head to the tips of her silk moiré shoes.
Angela put her hands on her hips. “Antonio,” she chided him. “It’s me.”
He heard her voice and remembered. He squinted. “Angela?”
“Who else?” She threw her arms around his neck.
“What happened to you?”
“I grew a foot and got into the Institute of Musical Art. And then I learned to sing high notes.” She laughed. “And hold them.”
“That’s just the beginning of what’s different about you.”
Laura rushed to the door to greet Antonio.
“Aunt Laura!” Antonio embraced her.
“Welcome to New York.”
“You didn’t tell Mama, did you?” Antonio asked.
“Not one word. But you have to call her. Right now.”
Enza went through the apartment, making sure all the skylights were snapped shut. A thunderstorm was raging outside. The lightning streaking through the sky cast an eerie green glow over Chisholm.
Enza wrapped her robe tightly around her. She’d had a bad feeling all day, convinced that Antonio had come into harm’s way in the Pacific. The more she tried to distract herself, the worse her anxiety became.
She heated milk on the stove, poured it into a cup, added some brandy and a pat of butter. She said a quick prayer for her mother, who used to make her the drink, then took the mug and went back to her room.
Sitting up in bed, she watched the storm through the skylight, slowly sipping the warm milk and brandy. Soon she became tired, put out the lamp, and placed the cup on the nightstand.
Enza dreamed of her family. She was fifty-one years old in the dream, the age she turned on her last birthday, but her brothers and sisters were small. Stella was in the dream, as were her mother and father.
Giacomina came through the door of the house on Via Scalina with a bouquet of white daisies and pink asters from the cliffs on the mountain. It was an enormous bunch of flowers, beautiful, fresh, fragrant.
“I will see you again, my Enza,” her mother said.
“Where are you going, Mama?”
“I have a place now, and I must go.”
“But you can’t leave me, Mama.”
“Keep these flowers and think of me.”
The phone rang on the nightstand. Enza sat up in bed, clutching her chest at the shock of the loud ring.
“Enza? It’s Eliana. Mama died this morning.”
Enza paced through the house alone, wishing that she were in Schilpario with her family, angry that she hadn’t braved the ocean and brought Antonio to the mountain as she had promised Ciro, and brokenhearted at the loss of her mother.
Life was changing again, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The loss of one’s mother was devastating, and echoed in every chamber of her heart.
The phone rang. Enza leaped for it.
“Mama?”
“Antonio!” The only balm for Enza in this moment of loss was her son’s voice, and it had been sent to her.
“What’s wrong, Mama?”
“Your Nonna Ravanelli died, honey.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She loved you, Antonio.”
Antonio swallowed. He had never met his grandmother and now he never would. He had been halfway around the world, and yet he had never been to the mountain.
“I’m in New York, Mama. I’m home. Stateside. Safe as can be.”
Waves of relief rushed over Enza. Every nerve within her released, and she had to sit down. “When will I see you?”
“Mama, I’ve never been to New York. Aunt Laura and Angela want to show me the town.”
“Good, good, make sure they take you to the opera.”
“I will. Mama, what can I bring you?”
“Just you.”
“That’s easy, Mama.”
“Let me know when you’ve made your plans. Should I call Betsy?”
“Oh, Mama, I didn’t write to tell you. She fell in love with a doctor in Minneapolis and married him.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“No, no, it’s all right, Mama. I’m fine with it. I just want to come home and see my favorite girl.”
Enza wept for joy. This terrible day had just become wonderful, with one phone call from her soldier son.
Enza went into the kitchen, cleared the table, and began to make fresh pasta. She needed to do something, before getting on the phone and calling everyone from Ida and Emilio Uncini to Veda Ponikvar to Monsignor Schiffer. Everything felt wonderful in her hands, the silky flour, the eggs—the well was deep as she kneaded the dough. She delighted in the textures as she never had before.
She played the radio as she worked, leaving fingerprints of flour on the dial when she raised the volume. She was thrilled when a recording of “Mattinata” sung by Enrico Caruso poured out of the cloth speakers. It was a sign—everything good was a sign; the war was over, Antonio was coming home, he was alive, he had made it through, he’d done the right thing and it had paid off, for him, his character, and the country of his birth. Her mother had kept Antonio safe for her. She was sure of it now. There were no coincidences.
If only Ciro had been here to share this day with her. He knew exactly how to manage sadness, and he knew how to embrace joy. If only he were here.
Enza set about freshening up the house. She opened the skylights and let in the spring breezes as she changed the sheets, scrubbed the floors, put out plants and photographs, and made the entire place shine. She flipped the sign on the shop door every day at lunch and locked up. The sign read, “Back in one hour,” and everyone in Chisholm knew exactly where she was; Enza went up and down West Lake Street buying all the ingredients to prepare Antonio’s favorite foods and returning home to prepare them. She baked anisette cookies, rolled fresh skeins of linguini, baked bread, and made his favorite chicken pastina soup. She was sure he would be thin, and as anxious as she was for him to come home, she was happy that Laura and Angela were showing him New York, which gave her an extra week to prepare for his homecoming.
“Mama!” Antonio took his mother in his arms, after the four longest years of her life. She kissed her son’s face over and over again, unable to believe her good fortune.
“Mama, I got married,” Antonio said.
“What?” Enza put her hand over her mouth. She imagined a war bride, an Asian beauty, a girl rescued from an island, a place that Antonio found enchanting and therefore wanted to possess forever in a romantic way. “Where did you get married?”
“In New York.”
“Well, where is she?” Enza’s happiness turned to trepidation.
“She’s downstairs.”
“Well, I’d love to meet her.” Enza’s heart raced. She had not counted on this. What if she wasn’t a wonderful girl? What if he’d married his version of Vito Blazek? What if, in the thrill of having made it through the war, he simply snap-judged the biggest decision of a person’s life? She couldn’t imagine it. And yet as she turned to go down the stairs to meet her new daughter-in-law, she remembered that Ciro had raced from the pier to the Milbank House to the church to claim her before she married another man. War, evidently, makes a man think and spins the hands of a clock speedily as if the inner springs are broken.
Antonio, who knew his mother so well, read her expression of worry.
“Mama, I know for certain you will love her.”
“How?”
Antonio called down the stairs, “Honey?”
Angela Latini, in a crisp periwinkle wool suit and matching hat, walked up the stairs in her high-heeled pumps. She was beautifully turned out, a New York deb gracing the Iron Range.
“Zenza!” Angela put her arms around the woman who’d filled a void so deep that the job seemed impossible. Enza was her mother and her friend, and now, she was her mother-in-law.
“But, how did this—”
“We were at Aunt Laura’s apartment and we looked at one another . . . ,” Antonio explained.
“And we realized how similar we are,” Angela said. “And we spent a long week on the town, talking.”
“And we decided to surprise you.”
“I’m surprised—and I’m so happy!”
“Zenza, I was afraid you wouldn’t be happy.”
“Why?”
“Because no one would be good enough for Antonio.”
“Ah,” Enza said. “You are.” She put her arms around Angela.
Angela, who had never felt that the loss of her own mother had healed, began to cry in the arms of the woman who had stepped in to fill that void and love her. “I’ll be a good wife. I learned everything from you.”
“No, you came to me well trained in all things. Pappina was your mother, and she was the best mother any girl could ever have.”
“The truth is, I’ve loved Antonio since I was a little girl. I prayed that someday he would come back to me, and I would be old enough, and he wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else. I prayed he would wait for me. I know it sounds crazy—”
“No, it doesn’t. Not at all. Sometimes a childhood dream is the best dream of all.”
Enza embraced her son and her new daughter-in-law. She thought about Ciro and how she’d loved him from the first moment she saw him, and how tradition, properly cared for, nurtured, honored, and respected, continues to feed the soul of a family. Antonio saw love so he could eventually choose it. So had Angela, and she, too, recognized it and waited for it to find her just as it had found Luigi and Pappina.
Enza wrote to Luigi Latini with the news. He had remarried in his village and was, by all accounts, happy. This letter would delight Luigi; he learned that Antonio and Angela would take their honeymoon in Italy and visit him and his sons and their families. Luigi would remember to tell Antonio all the stories about how Ciro became his partner, but in fact, Ciro had been the leader, and Luigi would have followed him wherever he wanted to go.
Enza smiled when she thought of her son joining the Latini family, with its growing numbers, and climbing the Passo Presolana to see Vilminore and Schilpario, where Enza and Ciro’s story had begun. Enza would write to Eduardo and Caterina, who would know Antonio upon first sight, as Ciro always called his boy a Montini.
“You wanted to see me, Zenza?” Angela stood in the doorway of Enza’s bedroom in her robe. Enza looked up at her and for a moment saw Pappina’s face, as she was the first time she’d met her on Mulberry Street. Enza remembered Angela as a little girl, and could hardly believe she was a woman now, and her son’s wife.
“Yes, yes, honey, come and sit with me.”
Angela sat on the edge of the bed.
“I couldn’t be happier for you.”
“I know.” Angela put her arms around Enza. “That means everything to me.”
“I want to give you something.” Enza gave Angela a small velvet box.
Angela opened the box and lifted out a delicate blue cameo, suspended on a string of pearls. “It’s exquisite.”
“It belonged to my husband’s mother. She was once a privileged girl from a good family, and when she was widowed young, they lost everything. But through all her troubles, she managed to hang on to this necklace. This is the family you have married, Angela. They are strong, and resilient, and they hold on. Wear it and think of them.” Enza fastened the necklace on to Angela’s neck.
“And I’ll wear it and think of you,” Angela said.
“What are you girls talking about?” Antonio appeared in the doorway. Enza patted the bed next to her. Her son sat down beside her and watched his new bride look at her reflection in the mirror.
“Zenza, I mean, Mama . . . gave me this cameo. It belonged to your grandmother.”
“I don’t know if it’s beautiful on its own or lovely because you’re wearing it,” Antonio said.
Angela kissed her mother-in-law on the cheek. “I’ll take good care of it,” she promised. She touched Antonio’s face before leaving the room.
“You’ll never know what it means to me to see you so happy,” Enza said.
“I want you to be happy, Mama.”
“I’ve had so much.” Enza smiled.
“I promised Papa that I would take you home to the mountain someday. Angela and I are planning a trip to Italy. She wants to see her family and then we planned a trip north to meet my grandfather and aunts and uncles. Papa’s mother. Papa’s brother. I have so many cousins.”
“You go for me.”
“Mama, they have medication now. During the war so many men got seasick, and they took a pill. You’d be fine.”
Enza imagined the thrill of seeing her father and brothers and sisters again, but it wasn’t the Passo Presolana, or the lake at Endine or the stone bridge over the Stream Vò where the waterfall meets the rocks that she missed. It was the air on the mountain. The crisp, fresh Alpine air, that brought the scent of spring with fragrant freesia, or the scent of autumn with the pungent juniper nettles, or the scent of snow before the storm began in winter. That was what she missed, the air that filled her with possibility and yearning, the air that she breathed with Ciro the first night they kissed. That blue air. The night air as rich as a treasure chest of lapis, shimmering, inviting and made smooth over time.
To breathe the mountain air would make the final days of her own life sweet in memory. It would be a priceless gift to look back on the trip with her son and daughter-in-law someday, when she too would breathe her final moments on this earth.
“Please, Mama? Will you come with us?”
Enza put her arms around her son. “I’d do anything for you. Yes, I’ll go with you.”
Antonio kissed his mother good night and went to bed.
Enza sat in the chair in her room and tried to read, but her thoughts interrupted the words on the page, and she imagined the past, and tried to make some sense of all the moments of her life that had built the days that became the years she shared with Ciro. She remembered that she had always felt an underlying urgency when she was with him, she never thought there was enough time. She had felt it that night on the pass when she drove him back to the convent. The trip went too fast, and there was so much more to say. In the years that followed, when they were apart, she’d see something that reminded her of Ciro, and she’d make a note to tell him about it someday, even when he’d fallen in love with another girl and she thought she’d never see him again. And once she married Ciro, and Antonio was born, the years sped by even faster, like the overtime clock in any of Antonio’s basketball games. When Ciro died, he was so young, but then again, so was she. And in the years since, she had not met a single man who could turn her head. The memory of Ciro had not faded. While she would like to think that she could return to the mountain, in her heart, she wondered if she could climb the pass without the man who had been and would remain her true love.
Later that night, long after Antonio and Angela were asleep, Enza made herself a cup of tea. She brought it back to her bedroom. She propped open the skylight to let in the cool night air, looking around the room, and taking in the familiar walls and corners of it. Enza remembered Ciro there, and thought about the night he came home late from a party after dancing with a pretty girl. Those hours without him seemed an eternity. It was funny to her that when she thought she might lose him, time seemed to stop, yet, when they were happy, it flew.
Enza did something she had not done in years. She opened Ciro’s drawer in the dresser, the one she hadn’t had the heart to empty when he died many years ago. Now, though, she felt lucky. Antonio was home safely, and he’d married a wonderful girl. Enza felt Ciro would be proud of her; she had done a good job raising their son alone and honored his memory by always doing her best for their family. She took in the lingering scent of cedar and lemon that still permeated the cover of her husband’s missal and his leather belt. She opened the leather pouch of tobacco, and inhaled the sweet remainder of the leaves, remembering Ciro’s face when he smiled and squinted at her through the puffs of smoke.
Enza sorted Ciro’s socks, and held the leather belt, which had been wrapped neatly into a coil. She pulled out the small calfksin sleeve that contained his honorable discharge papers, which he had carried in his pocket every day of his life, as if to say, See how much I loved this country? As if anyone would have ever doubted it.
Enza placed his passport on the dresser top. She lifted out the prayer missal that Eduardo had given to Ciro when they were parted as young men. Enza had carried it on her wedding day, and remembered how heavy it felt in her hands. She found a photograph of the Latinis and the Lazzaris tucked inside, taken by Longyear Lake when the children were small. How young Pappina looked, and how happy Luigi was as he held baby Angela!
Enza also removed a photograph from her own wedding day, to give to Angela and Antonio as a gift. She looked at her stern young face in the photograph and wondered why she had been so serious. After all, it was the happiest moment of her life. If only she had been giddy with possibility instead of worried about all the things that might go wrong! She saw, as she looked back, that there would have been no stopping the terrible things that happened to them, any more than there was a way to contain all the joy they had known.
Enza looked at Ciro’s face, and wondered how she had managed to marry a man so beautiful. His sandy hair, obvious even in sepia, was thick and wavy, as it was until the day he died. His straight nose and full lips fit beautifully with her own, as if it was fated that they would become one.
She missed her husband’s kisses most of all.
Enza was about to close the drawer when she saw something shimmering at the bottom of the drawer, in a small cup where Ciro kept extra bolts and screws for the machines in the shop. An unused penny stamp peeked out of the cup. Enza pulled the small cup from the drawer.
She emptied the contents onto the bedspread. An ivory collar stay, a few screws, a bobbin, a couple of buttons, and, finally, a gold coin tumbled out. Enza picked it up, taking the coin to the bedside lamp to examine it.
It was the coin Enrico Caruso had given her on the closing night of Lodoletta. When Antonio was a boy, Enza had allowed him to hold it, and, when times were tough, she’d thought about selling it. But she needed one thing to remind her of where she came from and who she once knew, so she kept it, just as Caterina had held on to that blue cameo. Enza placed the coin on the nightstand next to the photograph, thinking Antonio would be thrilled to have it as part of his wedding gift. She twisted the gold ring Ciro had placed on her hand so many years ago on the day they were married. She had never taken it off. Enza remembered Ciro’s words: Beware the things of this world that can mean everything or nothing.
Love.
Gold.
Somehow, Ciro had managed to give Enza both, but the love had been the everything.
Acknowledgments
I had long been enchanted by my grandparents’ love story. Lucia Spada and Carlo Bonicelli were from villages in the Italian Alps five miles apart, but they met for the first time in Hoboken, New Jersey. This novel is being published during the 100th anniversary year of Carlo Bonicelli’s immigration. He arrived in New York City from Le Havre, France, on the S.S. Chicago on February 19, 1912. Imagine my elation when I first visited their villages on the mountain where they were born.
My great uncle, Monsignor Don Andrea Spada, was the first person to show me the Pizzo Camino. I took in the snow-capped peaks and the Italian sky, which was so blue that I still look for the exact shade of it everywhere, in fabric swatches, on walls, and in books. Don Andrea was my grandmother Lucia Bonicelli’s baby brother. He was born in 1908 to a big, hardworking family. He left the mountain to be educated and was ordained a priest in 1931. He became a respected and renowned journalist in Italy, where his worldview was focused through a prism of compassion and a firsthand knowledge of what it meant to be poor. He returned to the mountain and Bergamo as soon as he could. He was editor of the L’Eco di Bergamo newspaper for fifty-one years. He was a padrone of language like no other. His newspaper articles were specific, clear, and truthful; his headlines plain and direct. He went on to write glorious books of power and scope. He died in Schilpario at the age of ninety-six in the house where he was born, in the shadow of the mountain he loved.
I am grateful to be published by HarperCollins, led by the great Brian Murray and my champion, Michael Morrison. Jonathan Burnham is a publisher with exquisite taste and clear vision. He encouraged me to write this novel, and gave me the best tools to do the job. He is also good-looking and British, two of my favorite food groups.
My beloved editor, Lee Boudreaux, has skill and heart, a rare combination. This is our thirteenth book together and I don’t know what I would do without her. She is gentle and strong, and so gifted. Abigail Holstein is a treasure, and takes care of the details effortlessly. I am indebted also to the great marketing team led by the razor-sharp Kathy Schneider, including Leah Wasielewski, Mark Ferguson, Katie O’Callaghan, Danielle Plafsky, and Tom Hopke, Jr.
The Harper publicity team gets the word out beautifully: thank you, Tina Andreadis, (Greek girls rule), Kate Blum, (the best), Sydney Sherman, Alberto Rojas, Joseph Papa, and Jamie Brickhouse (yes, Jamie I will go . . . there). Thank you, Camille McDuffy and Grace McQuade. Virginia Stanley, queen of the libraries, never fails me. My gratitude also to Kayleigh George and Annie Mazes.
The sparkling design and production group, who created this glorious cover art and interior design, includes Amanda Kain, Robin Biardello, Cindy Achar, Lydia Weaver, Miranda Ottewell, Leah Carlson-Stanisic, and Eric Levy. The team who gets the books into your hands via sales includes the fabulous Josh Marwell, Andrea Rosen, Jeanette Zwart, Doug Jones, Carla Clifford, Kristin Bowers, Brian Grogan, Jeff Rogart, Mark Hillesheim, Caitlin Rollfes, Erin Gorham, and Diane Jackson. Thank you, Amy Baker, Erica Barmash, Regina Eckes, and Jennifer Hart (who goes the extra five miles).
At William Morris Endeavor, thank you and my love always to the gamine powerhouse: Suzanne Gluck. The gamine’s team is the best: Caroline Donofrio, Eve Attermann, and Becca Kaplan. I adore Nancy Josephson, who has been in my life as long as my sisters, reads as soon as she gets a draft, and provides unconditional support when it’s most needed. Alicia Gordon drives the movie bus splendidly.
Thank you and love to: Sarah Ceglarski, Shekar Sathyanarayana, Erin Malone, Tracy Fisher, Pauline Post, Eugenie Furniss: (the elegant duchess), Claudia Webb, Cathryn Summerhayes, Becky Thomas, Jamie Quiroz, Raffaella de Angelis, Amanda Krentzman (Global), Graham Taylor, Casey Carroll, Michelle Bohan, Matt Smith, Juliet Barrack, Stephanie Ward, Ellen Sushko, Joe Austin, Carrie Brody, Sarah Ceglarksi, Jessica Lubben, Natalie Hayden, Philip Grenz, Arielle Datz, and Brandon Guzman.
In Movieland, thank you to the brilliant producer Larry Sanitsky, Claude Chung and the team at the Sanitsky Company. My love and thanks to Lou Pitt and Michael Pitt. I will be ever grateful to Ann Godoff for opening the door to my literary career. Thank you to the fabulous Jackie Levin who has been so kind to me over the years.
At Simon and Schuster UK, my love to my publisher, Ian Chapman, my divine editor, Suzanne Baboneau, and the irreplaceable, unforgettable Nigel Stoneman.
Thank you, Allison Van Groesbeck (you’re a star); Kelly Meehan (so talented and now engaged!); Antonia Trigiani, queen of the gift shop; Gina Casella, our fearless leader and fabulous president of our tours; Nikki Padilla, who leads the walking tours with panache and style.
My love and gratitude to Jake and Jean Morrissey, Mary Murphy, Gail Berman, Debra McGuire, Cate Magennis Wyatt, Nancy Bolmeier Fisher, Carol and Dominic Vechiarelli, Jim and Mary Deese Hampton, Suzanne and Peter Walsh, Heather and Peter Rooney, Ian Moffitt, Anne Weintraub, Gene Stein, Aaron Hill and Susan Fales-Hill, Kate Benton Doughan and Jim Doughan, Ruth Pomerance and Rafael Prieto, Joanna Patton and Bill Persky, Angelina Fiordellisi and Matt Williams, Michael La Hart and F. Todd Johnson, Richard and Dana Kirshenbaum, Hugh and Jody Friedman O’Neill, Rosalie Ciardullo, Dolores and Dr. Emil Pascarelli, Sharon Hall, Mary Ellen Gallagher Gavin, Rosanne Cash, Liz Welch Tirell, Rachel Cohen DeSario, Charles Randolph Wright, Constance Marks, Mario Cantone and Jerry Dixon; Nancy Ringham Smith, Sharon Watroba Burns, Dee Emmerson, Elaine Martinelli, Kitty Martinelli (Vi and the girls), Sally Davies, Sister Karol Jackowski, Jane Cline Higgins, Beth Vechiarelli Cooper (my Youngstown boss), Max and Robyn Westler, John Searles, Robin Kall, Gina Vechiarelli, Barbara and Tom Sullivan, Brownie and Connie Polly, Catherine Brennan, Joe O’Brien, Greg D’Alessandro, Jena and Charlie Corsello, Karen Fink, Beata and Steven (the Warrior) Baker, Todd Doughty and Randy Losapio, Craig Fisse, Anemone and Steve Kaplan, Christina Avis Krauss and her Sonny, Joanne Curley Kerner, Bina Valenzano, Christine Freglette, Veronica Kilcullen, Lisa Rykoski, and Iva Lou Johnson. Cousin Evangeline “Eva” Palermo, wife, mother, and teacher, turned ninety as I wrote this book, and if you want to be an active, amazing ninety-year-old, check out my cousin Eva.
Thank you Michael Patrick King, the chairman of my mental health board. Thank you for being true and being you. Cynthia Rutledge Olson, I’m putting in an 800 number so people can call you with their problems worldwide. You will have help: Mary Testa can run the switchboard, while Wendy Luck passes out pamphlets; thank you both. Thank you Elena Nachmanoff and Dianne Festa, my honorary sisters.
Many months of research went into the history woven through this book. I am indebted to the experts who guided the process and did the heavy lifting. Thank you
Anthony Tamburri and Joseph Sciorra of the Calandra Institute, experts in Italian American history including life in Little Italy and turn-of-the-century immigration. My dear friend Betsy Brazis was generous, specific, and selflessly on call for her knowledge of the Iron Range. My mother, Ida, as always, gave priceless insight into life with her parents in Chisholm.
My gratitude to Nadia Sammarco for her insight into the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; Richie Sammarco for his memories of the opera; the (divine) Sisters of the RSCJ (Religieuses de Sacre Coeur de Jesus), including Sister Angela Bayo, Sister Judy Garson, and Sister Maura Keleher, Susan Burke-O’Neal at the Convent of the Sacred Heart; archivist John Pennino at the Metropolitan Opera; Andrea Spolti, my cousin an expert of all things Schilpario; and the great writer/editor Veda Ponikvar of The Chisholm Tribune-Press, Chisholm, Minnesota.
Samantha Rowe did an amazing job with the history of the Milbank House, Otto Kahn, and James Burden mansions, Ellis Island, and life at the turn of the last century. Luca Delbello researched use of language and currency. The Italian translations in the text were provided by Professor Dorina Cereghino.
During the final phases of writing this book, I lost some dear friends and family that I hope to honor here. Michele O’Callaghan Togneri, Tommy’s beloved wife, was a total original. She was a wonderful mother to Julia, T.J., and Mia. Tommy told me that my books were always on Michele’s nightstand. She will always be in my heart. My cousin Cathy Peters was a fabulous wife to Joe and mother to Lauren and Joey; Rebecca Wright Long from Big Stone Gap was my honorary sister (along with her sister Theresa Bledsoe), and would drive hours to come to a reading; she was also a beautiful wife to Stephen and mother to Adam and Christina. The great Theo Barnes, actor, playwright, and director began his career at the Judson Poets Theater, and when I moved to New York he took me under his wing and shared his every talent to encourage mine. Abner “Abbey” Zalaznick was a wonderful husband and father who took such delight in the world it was infectious. Lily Badger, our daughter’s classmate at Chelsea Day School was a beautiful girl, along with her sisters Grace and Sarah. Madonna and Matthew are their loving parents, and we will never forget their three beauties.
It is fitting that many of the names in this novel came from donations made to the good nuns at the Caroline House in Connecticut. They do all manner of good works for immigrants; most important, they teach them to read and write English. My grandparents would be thrilled that elements of their story were woven with the current generation of immigrants. In that spirit, I’d like to thank my family, all of us descendents of strong, hardworking immigrants with big dreams.
Finally, on the dedication page, Don Andrea Spada, signed the photograph of himself, taken in the seminary in 1930. He wrote to my grandmother Lucia: For my dear sister in America with my immense affection always. He was able to visit his sister in America many times over the years, which thrilled her. When we visited him on the mountain fifty years later, the walls of the family home were filled with photographs of us, his family in America. No ocean, country, or war kept the Spada family from remaining close and connected. The love was always there and it endures evermore, just like the mountain.
About the Author
ADRIANA TRIGIANI is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker. The author of the bestselling Big Stone Gap series; Very Valentine; Brava, Valentine; Lucia, Lucia; The Queen of the Big Time; and Rococo, she has also written the bestselling memoir Don’t Sing at the Table as well as the young adult novels Viola in Reel Life and Viola in the Spotlight. Her books have been published in thirty-six countries around the world. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
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