Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [68]
“I have a friend who got a divorce. Here in Italy, that is rare. But she was unhappy, so she divorced him. She married a new man, a very nice man. And she told me that she thought she left the problems from the first marriage in the past. But it turned out that she packed them up and took them with her into the second marriage. Sometimes it’s not them. Sometimes it’s you.”
“Oh,” I say, “I know it’s me.”
“Don’t worry.”
“All I do is worry.”
“You are just like your mother.”
“I am?”
“She thought love was enough.”
She’s right. I did think love was enough. Until my husband told me it wasn’t. I am like my mother in so many ways. She invested herself in me, all of her time, all of her care. I’m sure Fred Mulligan knew that. Mama kept a beautiful home and made good meals, but she didn’t love her husband. Her marriage was a safe place to raise me. I wanted so much more for Etta. But how do I change? It seems I always slide back on my bad habits, my repression, my cold core, so I don’t get hurt. But I am hurting everyone around me. Just like my mother did. Fred Mulligan didn’t feel her love, she saved it all for me. But it hurt me to see her hurting Fred, even though I didn’t like him and he surely didn’t like me. But whose fault was that? I didn’t have a chance with Fred because I was the obstacle to his happiness. And Mama put me there. A marriage based upon financial security and social acceptability is not what I want for my family, yet isn’t that what I have? Am I my mother?
Meoli pats me on the hand, and we get up to stroll in the piazza. The night air is chilly, and I shiver. The sound of the water spilling over the marble seashells in the fountain makes soft music as we walk. The lights above us in Alta Città are dim lavender sparks behind the black trees. I am glad the sun is sinking low behind the hills of Bergamo—I don’t want Zia Meoli to see me cry.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With Papa at the wheel, we take the curve up the mountain road, out of Bergamo, north to Schilpario. Once again I am in the mountains; whether it’s the Italian Alps or the Appalachians, it seems I can’t escape them. As we speed up into the peaks, I am not afraid, as I was on my first visit. I look at Etta, who doesn’t flinch as we climb higher and higher or even when trucks whip past us and force us over to the gravel edge of the road, our wheels inches away from the perilous edge above gaps several miles deep. I guess my kid is an old pro, having flown around the curves of Cracker’s Neck Holler all of her life.
“Aren’t these mountains different from ours back home?” I ask Etta, and point to the Alps.
“They’re taller. And they have snow on them in the summer,” she says, sounding impressed.
“Yep, they’re so high up there, it stays cold and never melts.”
Giacomina, strapped in by her seat belt, turns as best she can from the front seat. “We’re going to take you to lots of places.”
“Do you have goats?” Etta asks Giacomina.
“Many goats.”
“I went to Mary Ann Davis’s farm in East Stone Gap, and she had miniature goats. Do you have those?”
“We do. And they all wear bells. So when they get lost, the goatherd can find them.”
“Just like Peter in Heidi! I love Heidi!”
“Etta, I will make you wear a bell!” Papa says, winking at her in the rearview mirror.
As we drive into Schilpario, for the first time in a hundred miles, Papa slows down. He has been the mayor of this village for nearly forty years. The houses with their dark beams set off by white stucco, others painted shades of pale blue and taupe and soft green, look like candy tiles glued into the rocky mountainside. Window boxes spill over with small purple blossoms and spikes of green plants I have never seen before. “Herbs,” Giacomina tells me.
Etta is thrilled by the waterwheel chugging slowly around in a circle, scooping the crystal water from the stream and sending it flowing over the slats of the old wood, polished smooth from wear. I point to the stream that rushes down the mountain over clean gray stones, then widens and makes a pond next to the cabin by the waterwheel. I show her