The train is almost in Montpelier. They have been on it for a long time, changing in Boston and eating the provolone and salami and fresh bread that Josephine packed. Elisabetta has only nibbled, wrinkling her nose at the sharp smell of the cheese and steadily sipping her apricot brandy.
“Not a lot,” Elisabetta says. Her eyes have grown heavy-lidded and her mouth looks puffy.
Josephine smiles. Maybe she would walk down the street in Montpelier, Vermont, and catch sight of a six-year-old girl, who looks like her, a girl on a bicycle, smiling with her hair blowing in the breeze. And then Josephine would walk up to that girl and say: You are mine.
“What’s funny?” Elisabetta asks, frowning.
She’s had a book open on her lap for a long time now, but she hasn’t even glanced at it. The book has a blue cover with a woman’s eyes looking out from it. When Josephine asked what the book was, Elisabetta said: Only the most brilliant book published this year. And when Josephine sounded out the title—The Great Gat-sby—Elisabetta rolled her eyes at her mother.
“I’m imagining wonderful things,” Josephine says.
Elisabetta grunts. “Such as?”
But Josephine just shakes her head.
Or maybe, she thinks as the train slows, the girl would look nothing like her. Maybe she looks like her father. Even thinking this makes Josephine’s heart lurch. What would it be like to see that face again?
Elisabetta stumbles slightly as she stands to get their valises from the compartment. The bottle of apricot brandy is empty, rolling about on the floor.
Josephine picks up the book. “You forgot this,” she says, holding it out.
But Elisabetta waves her away. “It’s too depressing,” she says. “Leave it.”
The eyes on the book stare out at Josephine. It seems wrong to leave it there.
“What?” Elisabetta says mockingly. “Are you going to read it?”
“You said it was brilliant,” Josephine reminds her.
“I changed my mind. All right?”
By the flush on her daughter’s cheeks and the thin layer of sweat on her forehead, Josephine sees that she is drunk. She thinks back to the night Elisabetta arrived home, how she tripped coming up the stairs. And then last night, she fell asleep on the sofa, early, her mouth open, snoring lightly.
They are in the aisle now, moving with the other passengers toward the door.
“Elisabetta,” Josephine says softly, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
Elisabetta turns around, shaking her mother’s hand from her.
“Betsy,” she hisses. “I told you it’s Betsy.”
“Betsy,” Josephine says. It comes out more like Bitsy when she says it. An ugly name, she thinks. Foolish-sounding. “You drank that whole bottle of brandy?” she asks.
“It wasn’t full,” Elisabetta says.
Their eyes meet briefly before Elisabetta continues down the aisle, the valise banging angrily against the seats she passes. The lies between them settle on Josephine. This is what happens, she thinks. Years pass. Wrongs are committed. Secrets take hold and the only way to protect yourself is to lie. A mother hopes her children don’t have to hide things from her. She watches Elisabetta’s green wool coat in front of her, the pleated back and fine workmanship in the stitches. She’s unhappy, Josephine realizes. The thought surprises her. This is the child who she knew was going to become something. Even as a little girl, Elisabetta was orderly, motivated. She used to write a little newspaper every week, full of stories about the neighborhood, with illustrations she drew accompanying them. Josephine imagined she might become a writer or a scientist. Someone important. Someone special.
The urge to take her daughter in her arms overcomes her. But she knows that Elisabetta would resist such an impulse. She never hid how much Josephine and her sisters and brother embarrassed her. One Christmas she went all by herself to the five and dime and bought a bottle of cheap perfume for Josephine. She wrapped it in shiny blue paper and tied it with silver ribbon. Wear it, Mama, she’d said when Josephine opened it. Wear it every day. That was when Josephine understood that she repulsed her in some way. She’d done it too, for Elisabetta. She’d sprayed a big spritz of the overly floral perfume on herself each morning. But Elisabetta never seemed to notice.
Josephine follows her daughter out of the train, carefully stepping down the steps onto the platform. It is cold here in Vermont, much colder than back home. The air cuts through her thin coat and makes her shiver. How did a mother keep a baby warm in the winter in such a cold place? She thinks of all the children she swaddled in blankets she’d knit for them. Even now she can feel the weight of them in her arms. But this daughter she never held, who had wrapped her in soft wool and held her close enough to let her own warmth spread to her?