Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [6]
Giovanna had long been the person to whom villagers in the Chianalea brought sick animals. When Giovanna held a hurt animal, it would calm down, and if she couldn’t help the animal, she would hold it until it died to ease the creature’s passing. She was equally as nurturing with plants. On the family’s terrace, a garden flourished in pots, and this became Giovanna’s laboratory. She devised poultices for drawing out infections and healing wounds using a variety of herbs.
So when people saw Giovanna with the midwife, they acted like they had known all along that one day Giovanna would deliver the babies of the village. While it was a natural progression, some of the women were not happy at first. They thought Giovanna had airs. They disapproved of how she took charge in the fish store and had no problem scolding men about the quality or price of their fish. And the women were puzzled and suspicious of her decision to allow Nunzio to go north without marrying her.
As each year went by, more and more of Giovanna’s time was spent helping Signora Scalici deliver Scilla’s next generation. After their initial mistrust, the mothers liked having Giovanna around. Signora Scalici was kind, but all business. Giovanna could help take the minds of birthing mothers elsewhere when the pain was unbearable and focus them when the time was right.
Early in her training, she had helped deliver her childhood friend Francesca Marasculo’s third baby. It had been a fast delivery. The women had cleaned up and left. Giovanna was to forever remain haunted by the screams of Francesca’s husband echoing off the stone houses as he ran through the Chianalea calling for help. He had woken up in a pool of Francesca’s blood, as she lay hemorrhaging and unconscious beside him. By the time the midwives reached her, Francesca was dead, her two young children clinging to her limp hands.
Francesca’s death became a scar that knit itself on Giovanna’s soul. From that time forward, after birthing a baby, Giovanna spent the night with the mother, cooking, cleaning, and keeping a watchful eye. For that, too, she had earned the respect and trust of the women of the village.
The wedding guests had returned to their pews following communion. The church was silent. Nunzio and Giovanna knelt before the altar. The priest nodded, and Nunzio squeezed Giovanna’s hand as they got up. Giovanna’s mind stopped wandering. The joyful weight of the moment nearly made her fall.
“Do you, Nunzio Pontillo, take Giovanna Costa to be your wife?” Nunzio was at sea as he looked into Giovanna’s blue eyes and said yes from their depths.
“Do you, Giovanna Costa, take Nunzio Pontillo to be your husband?” Giovanna felt complete when she said, “Yes.” Life was as it should be and how it was meant to be.
Sì. Finalmente.
TWO
Nunzio and Giovanna were born not long after the unification of Italy. As a child, Nunzio would climb on his uncle’s donkey, with a stick for a bayonet, and pretend he was Italian revolution general Giuseppe Garibaldi, riding into town to exile the foreign rulers. Giovanna would cheer and wave a red cloth. When their elders said the word “Risorgimento!” Giovanna and Nunzio could hear the defiance, hope, and passion in every syllable. Now, years later, it was different. It was as if the adults were saying an ex-lover’s name. There was still an attraction in their voices, but you could hear the betrayal.
One of the changes since unification was that sometimes Giovanna and Nunzio went to school. School was the rented room of a teacher sent from the north. The professore never lasted long, but when there was a professore in town, Giovanna’s and Nunzio’s parents insisted that they go. The town was supposed to build a school with money from the north, but the school was never built, and the money disappeared. Despite fleeing teachers and nonexistent classrooms, somehow Giovanna and Nunzio learned