Throwing up into the chamber pot two weeks later, Vincenzo beamed at her from the doorway. “Poof!” he said. “I only have to look at you and you get pregnant.” He laughed, proud of himself.
Josephine spent all morning throwing up. When she finally had nothing left, she lay in that hot August heat, imagining this baby inside of her. Tommy’s baby. In a way, she would have Tommy with her forever. She tried to picture it, this child. What if this baby had Tommy’s blond hair? Other than Jacques LaSalle, no one here had hair so pale. Everyone would know. They would remember how she had kept asking for him. They would remember how he always delivered the ice to her house last, even though she was in the middle of the street. As soon as she let herself imagine it, she realized she had to do something.
Josephine went to see Father Leone. She had a lie all ready to tell him. He brought her into his study and offered her a glass of wine, which she eagerly took. Father Leone had one too. He placed the bottle on the coffee table, and came to sit on the red leather sofa, right beside Josephine.
“You’re worried about something?” he said kindly.
Josephine nodded. Adultery and lying to a priest, surely she was headed for hell.
Father Leone placed his hand over hers. “Tell me,” he said.
She liked his voice. It was smooth, like the wine he served her. “I’m pregnant again, Father,” she said. “But with six children already, and at my age . . .” She shook her head.
The priest refilled her glass. “Go on,” he said.
“I just wondered if you knew any families who wanted a baby, who maybe couldn’t have one of their own.”
“Such a selfless thing to do,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I remember your offering to God, Josephine. I think about it often. How selfless you were. But what does Vincenzo say about it?”
“I haven’t told him,” she said, shaking her head again. “It’s complicated.”
The priest didn’t answer. Josephine gulped at her wine. How foolish she had been to come here. A priest wasn’t going to protect a sinner. She should have tried instead to find Tommy. Even without money or English, it might have been possible. Wasn’t he her soul mate? The man she loved? She was crying now, and Father Leone lifted her chin and looked right at her, just like he’d done that day in the church.
“Whose baby is it?” he said.
“How could you ask me such a thing?”
“You cannot get help or forgiveness unless I know the truth, Josephine.”
Her mind was swimming from wine and early pregnancy, from having lost Tommy, from desperation.
“You don’t have to tell me who the father is,” the priest said. “But don’t lie to me about the situation.”
Josephine studied the ruby in the ring the priest wore. It was red and shiny. “Pretty,” she said absently, and touched the ruby with her free hand.
“It can be arranged,” he said, “for you to have the baby in a hospital. Many women do this now, and if you can convince Vincenzo to send you, then all we do is tell him the baby died. The nuns there will give it to a family who can’t have their own baby. No one will ever know.”
Josephine was crying harder, pressing her face into Father Leone’s jacket. His collar was scratchy against her skin.
“But if you don’t tell me the truth . . .” he was saying.
“Fine, fine,” Josephine said, “it isn’t Vincenzo’s. I can’t keep this baby; it isn’t his.”
“This service,” the priest said. “There’s a fee.”
She looked up, surprised. “I don’t have money.”
“Hmmm,” he said. His eyes drifted from her face to her breasts, which had grown even fuller in pregnancy. “Perhaps we can arrange something,” he said. He met her eyes again. “Do you understand?”
Josephine stood up. “I can’t . . .”
“Of course you can,” he said harshly. “You gave yourself over to me so easily that day. Remember? I asked you and you did it.”
“For God,” she said, foolishly.
“Do you believe that I am a holy man?”
“Of course.”
“When you offer yourself to me, aren’t you giving yourself to God?”
Josephine hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“You don’t think I take such things for my own pleasure, do you?”
“No!” she said quickly, even though she didn’t know what she thought.
“I have dedicated my entire life to God, haven’t I?” he asked her. His voice was kind again.
Out of nowhere, Josephine found herself thinking of the war in Europe. The whole world had gone mad. Isn’t that what everyone was saying? Magdalena from down the hill said that soon they were all going to have to speak German, unless we won the war and killed all the Krauts.
Father Leone was waiting patiently, smiling his gentle priest smile. What was left to lose? Josephine wondered. She drank her wine and closed her eyes, but she was not yet to the place where the room was spinning, so she poured more into her glass.
Father Leone laughed. “You like wine, don’t you?” he said. “Enjoy it!”