She expertly spun the wheelchair toward the door.
Josephine’s heart did twists and turns. She thought of Valentina, so small and perfect and beautiful. She remembered the feel of cold, slippery ice in her hands on a summer day.
“Here we go, Mrs. Rimaldi,” the nurse said.
Josephine took a breath. The hallways tumbled past her, and she reached her hands out to try to keep her balance. She remembered a long-ago day when she tried to learn how to ride a bicycle, the off-kilter feeling as she struggled to stay upright.
“What’s that, Mrs. Rimaldi?” the nurse asked. “You want to take a ride on a bicycle?”
Josephine shook her head. The stupid girl, she thought. She had not been able to learn, her fear of falling too great. Basta, she’d said finally, getting off the thing and leaning it against the house. She had legs, didn’t she? Good, strong ones that could run across fields and climb hills.
“If there’s one Italian word you’ve taught me, Mrs. Rimaldi,” the nurse said, “it’s basta. Enough. Right?”
The wheelchair sailed over a bump and into a room that smelled sour, like the bologna her children always begged for, that her grandchildren ate in sandwiches made with American bread and ketchup.
Slowly, the room was bathed in light. The sun came through the windows, bright and warm. Josephine tilted her face upward.
“You all right?” the nurse was asking.
Josephine gasped. She could not catch her breath. In the distance, finally, Josephine saw him. Tommy Petrocelli, carrying a big block of ice that sparkled in the sunlight. She leaned forward, again reaching a hand out.
A bell was ringing, and footsteps hurried toward it.
The stupid nurse kept calling her name, but her voice was growing fainter.
Josephine blinked, trying to bring the images floating in front of her into focus. There was Tommy, smiling at her now. Was Valentina there with him? If she could see her daughter again, then she would die a happy woman.
That was when Josephine knew: she was dying.
So this is it, Josephine thought. When we die we do not think of our children who are waiting down the hall, or of the food we’ve cooked to nourish them. We do not think of all the breads we’ve baked, or the tomatoes we’ve grown, or the hours we’ve spent at their sickbeds. We do not think of the things we hoped for. We do not think of the things we loved.
No. It is the things we did not have, the love that broke our hearts, the child we lost, that come to us finally.
As the sun sparkled and Tommy neared, Josephine’s heart filled.
She smiled and thought one word.
Yes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I AM THE LUCKIEST WRITER I know with my dream teams at W. W. Norton and Brandt and Hochman. Thanks go to them, as always: Jill Bialosky, Gail Hochman, Erin Lovett, Jody Klein, Marianne Merola, and Rebecca Schultz.
And I have a dream team at home as well, and send thanks to Mary Hector for her enormous help; my husband, Lorne Adrain, and children, Sam, Annabelle, and Ariane, who inspire and support my writing life.
Parts of An Italian Wife were written thanks to fellowships at Yaddo and grants from Rhode Island School of Design. And gratitude goes to the editors who published sections of the book.
I would also like to thank Rebecca Doire, Coral Bourgeois, and Catherine Sebastian.
I grew up in a large, noisy, loving Italian-American family. Sadly, I’ve lost too many of them. But they live on in my heart and mind: Nonna, Mama Rose, Uncle Rum, Uncle Carmine, Nuneen, Auntie Etta; my uncles Joe, Brownie, and Chuckie; my aunties Rosie, Angie, Connie, Ann, and Dora; my cousins Cynthia and Peter; my own father Hood and brother Skip; my daughter Grace.
And for those still blessedly with me: Auntie Junie and Cousins Gina, Gloria-Jean, Tony, Becky, Chip, and all the others scattered around the country; Melissa (and Delila and Gus!); and mostly my mother, Gloria, aka Gogo, who makes me the luckiest daughter, ever.