Carina reached for the cruet and drizzled olive oil over the garlicky circle her Mamma formed. She had to admit Papa was tending Quillan as carefully as she would herself.
Mamma lifted the dough onto the cornmeal-sprinkled baking stone and slid it into the oven. “I have fresh prawns for supper.”
Carina looked at the bowl of large gray prawns, their legs like stunted tentacles gathered in the curl of their bodies. “Shall I devein them?” She reached for the small sharp knife when Mamma nodded. What would Quillan think of prawns? Fried with butter and oregano and lemon until they turned pink and firm, their edges crisp and golden. She closed her eyes and pictured his expression as he filled his mouth with a new flavor.
“What is it?” Mamma touched her hand.
Carina opened her eyes, picked up a thin-shelled prawn. “I was thinking how Quillan would look when he tried it for the first time.”
“Has he had no shrimp?” Mamma swabbed the marble counter with a hot cloth.
Carina shrugged. “He never saw a crab until San Francisco.”
“What did he think of it?”
“He thought it tasted better than it looked.” She dangled the prawn from her fingers. “He has a point.”
Mamma laughed. “That’s why we don’t allow men in the kitchen.
It’s better they don’t know.”
Carina sliced the blade down the back side of the prawn, splitting the shell and cutting shallowly into the translucent flesh beneath. With the tip of the knife she lifted out the thin blue vein that was really the animal’s intestine. Why was it a woman could deal with that thought, but Tony and others grew pale, contending they would never touch a prawn again—until, of course, a plate of them was set sizzling before them in savory buttery sauce.
“Quillan would try anything I make. He loves to watch me cook.”
“You’ve let him in your kitchen?” Mamma slapped the cloth onto the counter with a soft plop.
Carina pictured Mae’s kitchen with the long board table where she had served Quillan that first meal of cannelloni, how he had lingered over each bite. What would Mamma think that she had fed him right there at the table where she prepared it? And then the time he had watched her make the ravioli, mixing the pasta with her fingers, the intensity in his eyes as he watched.
She smiled. “Yes, Mamma. Quillan is welcome in my kitchen.”
Mamma stared at her a long moment. “Then where can you be separate?”
Carina considered that. She knew what Mamma was asking. Where was her woman’s place, her refuge from a husband’s expectations, her place to control, to rule. She picked up a second prawn. “I don’t want to be separate. I want to be one.” She looked up into Mamma’s face. She had no doubt Mamma loved Papa, but she had never fought for that love as Carina had. Could she understand?
Brows raised, Mamma lifted the cloth and squeezed the excess water into the washbowl. “You are na?ve, Carina.” She smiled. “But maybe . . .
not so much, eh?”
Carina laughed. “You should see him, Mamma. He watches me as though I speak the lasagne into being. He says it’s magic. He thinks my fingers are magic.”
Again Mamma paused. “Is it possible—could it be I’ve missed something all these years?” She looked around the room where the women had always gathered to prepare meal after meal, their world.
“What are you thinking, Mamma?” Carina held the knife poised over the fragile shell.
“I’m trying to imagine your papa in here watching me.” She slowly folded the cloth and laid it on the edge of the counter.
“And?” Carina held her breath.
“I would take a spoon to him.”
“Mamma!”
Mamma shook her head, laughing. “It’s no use, Carina. Your papa could no more sit in here than I could tell him how to grow his vines or cure his patients. We are what we are.”
“But, Mamma . . .”
“No, Carina. Some things don’t change. Maybe . . . maybe it’s different with your man. He is not . . .”
“Italian?”
Mamma shrugged. “Who can explain the humors that flow in the blood?” She rested her hands on the counter. “If you had chosen Flavio . . .”
Carina met her mother’s eyes. Would she be condemned again? Would this time of connecting end here with that name mentioned?
Mamma sighed. “Flavio would not have watched you cook, Carina.” Her heart swelled. It was true. Flavio was her own kind, but she had chosen Quillan, or God had.
“Your home will not be the same as mine.” There was a wistful note in Mamma’s voice.
“Not so different, Mamma.”
Smile lines crinkled at her mamma’s eyes. “Not in the bedroom, eh?”
Carina looked up, startled.
“Not when your sons come, nor your daughters.”
Carina’s heart constricted. “I don’t know, Mamma.” Her cycle was again irregular. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d bled.
Mamma waved her hand. “Your husband is capable still. I asked Papa.”
Carina flushed. Her parents had discussed that? She swallowed the pain in her throat. “It’s not Quillan I’m worried about. After my miscarriage Dr. Felden was unsure if I could—”
“Don’t say it, Carina. Of course you can.” Mamma crossed herself, then sobered. “It must have been awful.”
Carina nodded slowly, tears stinging her eyes. And then she was in Mamma’s arms, the knife and prawn lying where she dropped them, and the scent of Mamma’s lemon water and the soft flesh of her throat against Carina’s face. She poured out the story of the terrible men and her own temper and the disastrous price her baby had paid. She sobbed.
“Cara mia.” Mamma stroked her hair. “And where was your Quillan?”
Carina sniffed. “Away.”
Mamma rocked her. “Ah, tesora . . .” She dropped a tear of her own to Carina’s face. “If you can forgive him that, you must truly love him.”
“With all my heart, Mamma.”
Her mamma pressed her face to Carina’s hair. “Then God will provide, eh? You hear, Signore? Give them a child again.” She squeezed Carina and released her.
Carina laughed, suddenly seeing that Mamma’s scolding was really a deep belief that God could and would answer her prayer. Carina knew God would do as He saw best, but silently her heart added its own plea.
“I’ll finish the prawns. You go wash your face.”
Carina sniffed, grateful for the release the tears had given, but ready to be through with it. She went to the bathhouse and washed, then toweled her face dry and drew in a deep settling breath. God was good. His perfect will would be done. Surely she and Quillan would both recover. She just had to be patient.
She went outside and drank in the spring scent of waking earth, budding and blooming shrubs and bulbs and nut trees. The Gravenstein apple trees would soon be profuse with blossoms and the scent from the rows of forty orange trees just behind the barn indescribable. Everywhere life quickened, and she had to believe it God’s promise that hers and Quillan’s too would be restored.
Feeling almost buoyant, she wanted to see Ti’Giuseppe. Quillan had taken so much of her time and concern that— “Mrs. Shepard!”