The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [80]
Only the mother sensed the sadness behind Octavia’s smiles and gay talk. For sitting in the apartment again, seeing the rooms crammed with beds and clothes closets and strewn with the belongings of children, had made Octavia feel a wave of despair. As the afternoon wore on into evening, she watched her mother perform all the remembered, endless chores—the dish washing; the ironing of fresh clothes; lighting the kerosene stove in the kitchen and the coal stove in the front room; with twilight, the putting on of the gaslight that caged the room with shadows; and finally, preparing the children for bed. Octavia thought of what she would be doing at the sanitarium now, this minute. They would be in the garden taking a walk, she and her girl friend. They would be in their rooms waiting for dinner and gossiping about the romances going on. They would all be eating together and afterward playing bridge in the game room. Octavia felt nostalgic for the life she had left, the only life she had known devoted to the care of one’s self, health and pleasure, without worry and responsibility. She felt awkward in her own home, and her family seemed strangers to her. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she never noticed how stiffly her mother moved about the house.
At bedtime, when Gino and Vinnie were undressing by the folding bed in the front room, Gino whispered to Vinnie, “She didn’t curse one time the whole day.”
Vinnie said, “I guess you can’t curse in the hospital and she forgot.”
Gino said, “I hope so. It sounds lousy when a girl curses, especially your own sister.”
SO NOW THEY were alone in the kitchen, Octavia and Lucia Santa. They sat at the great round table with its yellow oilcloth cover. The coffee cups glared white before them. The ironing waited for Lucia Santa in a corner of the room. A pot of water hissed on the kerosene stove. From down the hallway of bedrooms came the soft sighing breath of the sleeping children. In the pale yellow light of the kitchen they faced each other, and the mother told of the troubles of the past six months. How disobedient Gino had been, and even Vinnie and the small ones. How Larry and his wife, Louisa, had not helped as much as they should, and how she herself had been ill but had never had anything put in the letters to Octavia that would distress her.
It was a long recital and Octavia only interrupted to say at intervals, “Ma, why didn’t you write me, why didn’t you tell me?” The mother replied, “I wanted you to get well.”
There was no gesture of affection between them. Octavia said gently, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll be back to work next week. And I’ll see that the kids do all right in school and help in the house.” She felt a surge of strength and confidence and pride in her mother’s need of her. In that moment all her strangeness fell away. She was home. When Lucia Santa began to iron, Octavia went to her room and got a book to read to keep her mother company.
When Octavia had been home a week, she and the welfare investigator finally met. Octavia had been sweet; happy to be home, she did not show her old bossiness, and never cursed or screamed.
She bustled into the apartment about four in the afternoon and was surprised to see Mr. La Fortezza, his feet on a chair, sipping his light coffee and eating his ham sandwich. Mr. La Fortezza took a good look at her boldly handsome face and put aside his delicacies. He rose to his feet like a gentleman. “This is my daughter,” Lucia Santa said, “Octavia. My eldest.”
Mr. La Fortezza, abandoning his Italian manner, said in a friendly American voice, briskly, casually, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Octavia. Your mother and I have had some good long talks. We’re old friends.”
Octavia nodded coldly and her great dark eyes made the gesture one of dislike, a dislike she had not meant to betray.
Lucia Santa, anxious at this discourtesy, said, “Come have some coffee and talk to the young man.” To Mr. La Fortezza she added, “This is the smart one, she reads books all the time.”
“Yes, do have