The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [83]
Octavia was surprised and even a little shocked. The memory of her own father’s death swept over her; she felt again that terrible sense of loss a little girl had felt. What if by some miracle he had been brought back to life, as now they could bring her stepfather back to life? She suddenly thought that she could never look Gino and Sal and little Aileen in the face if she did not bring their father home.
She said, “I think we should talk to Gino and Sal. After all, he’s their father. Let’s see how they feel. Maybe we should bring him home, Ma.”
Lucia Santa gave her daughter a searching look which seemed to judge and find wanting. It was a look that always disconcerted Octavia because it was so impersonal. Then she said, “What can children know? Leave them alone, they will have enough woe later on. And we cannot afford to bring their father home.”
Octavia said softly, bowing her head over her coffee, “Ma, let’s give it a try, for the kids. They miss him.”
When the mother answered her voice was surprisingly contemptuous. She shook her head and said, “No, my daughter, it’s easy for you to be kind and generous. But think: when it all becomes so difficult and you regret your generosity, you will have to suffer. And how angry you will be that your generosity inconveniences you. This has happened to me before. Beware the goodhearted, tender people who give because they know not what their generosity will cost. And then later become angry, spurn you when you count on their humanity. How my neighbors flocked to help me when your father died, how I wept at their goodness. But alas, we cannot be eternally good, eternally generous; we are too poor, we cannot afford it. And even your aunt, who was rich, she rebelled. It is so good—it feels so wonderful to be generous for a short period of time. But as a steady thing, it goes against the grain, it’s against human nature. You will get tired of your stepfather, there will be quarrels, shrieks, curses, and you will marry the first man you meet and disappear. And I will pay for your large, open heart.” She paused. “He will be sick for the rest of our lives.” With these words she condemned and sentenced her husband forever.
The women washed their coffee cups. The mother lingered in the kitchen to wipe off the table and sweep the floor; Octavia went to her room thinking of how she would talk to the children in the morning, realizing as she did so that she wanted to absolve herself from guilt.
In bed Octavia thought of the mother, her callousness, her cold decision. Then she remembered that she had left the letter in the kitchen. She rose and went down the hall in her slip. The light was still on.
Lucia Santa sat at the kitchen table with great bags of sugar, salt, and flour, filling the sugar bowl, the shakers, and copper flour jar. The letter, with its great black official seal and the printed government envelope, lay in front of her. She was staring down at it as if she could read, and seemed to be studying every word. She looked up at her daughter and said, “I’ll hold the letter, you can answer it in the morning.”
Gino, lying awake beside the sleeping Sal, heard everything through the open Judas window between the bedroom and the kitchen. He felt no resentment, no anger at his mother’s decision, only a queasiness like a stomachache. A little later the light went out in the kitchen, he heard his mother go past his bed to her own room, and then he fell into sleep.
Lucia Santa did not sleep. She reached out in the darkness to touch Aileen and found the smooth skin and the bony shoulders, the little body huddled against the coolness of the plaster wall. In the touch of that innocent, vulnerable flesh she drew some strength. This was a life she touched, and in her keeping. She was the protector of them all, she held their fate in her hands. From her would come the good and the evil, the joy and the travail. It was for this she had cast her husband into the pit.
But this was not enough. She brought before her eyes the times he had struck her, cursed his stepchildren, raved through