Rosa grabbed the fork out of Lia’s hand, her mouth pursed in disapproval. “Non parla inglese al tavolo, è maleducato.”
Lia blinked, her face solemn. “Com’ si dice maleducato in inglese?”
Aunt Quinlan said, “Rude. The word in English is ‘rude.’”
Lia grabbed her fork back from her sister with a wrenching motion and thumped it on the table, tears brimming and ready to fall.
“It’s not rude. Italian is not rude. Everybody should speak Italian! If I have to speak Italian and English, then everybody else should speak English and Italian!”
She put out her lower lip in a thunderous gesture of rebellion and cast an accusatory look around the table, daring someone to disagree.
Before Rosa could stop sputtering long enough to answer, Anna said, “You know, Lia, you’re right. Aunt Quinlan speaks Italian, and you speak Italian, and everybody here speaks Italian. Except me, and Margaret.”
“Margaret is learning Italian,” Rosa said, almost under her breath.
“Then I had better catch up,” Anna said.
That got her one of Margaret’s rare wide smiles.
“In the meantime, I don’t want you to have to keep a story to yourself if you only know it in Italian. So go right ahead.”
Aunt Quinlan reached over to put a hand on Lia’s head. “And listen now, my henny. The next time you have a point to make, you can do it without shouting and people will still listen to you.”
Lia wrinkled her nose as if she doubted this bit of wisdom, but she also nodded. Reluctant acceptance, Anna thought. She wondered how long it would last.
“So I’ll need an Italian tutor,” Anna said.
Both girls raised their hands, and so did Jack. She elbowed him, not too gently. “I was hoping you’d volunteer,” she said to the girls. “But I’m going to need more help still. I’ve got somebody in mind. I’ll bring him by for you to approve.”
Jack looked at her doubtfully, and Anna kept her smile to herself.
? ? ?
THAT NIGHT WHEN they went to bed, Anna told Jack the story of how her parents met.
“My mother went to New Orleans to study medicine with Uncle Ben’s brothers, because they ran a clinic there and took on students. This was long before Dr. Blackwell—the one who founded Woman’s Medical School?—long before she fought the battle to be the first woman admitted to medical school. Women who wanted to study medicine had to apprentice.”
“Have you told me about your uncle Ben?”
Anna pointed to a particular portrait. “Ben Savard. He met Aunt Hannah when she was in New Orleans during the war of 1812, and they settled in Paradise. Ben’s half brother Paul was the head of the clinic, and my mother studied under him. Aunt Hannah thought he would be the best teacher for her because he wouldn’t put up with her nonsense, but he also wouldn’t take offense when she turned out to be smarter than everybody else.”
“Was she?”
“Smarter than most, I think. So Ben’s brother Paul had a son who went to France to study medicine; that was Henry Savard, my father. My mother was two years into her studies in New Orleans when Henry came back from Paris, qualified in medicine and surgery too. He wasn’t happy to find that my mother had taken his place and had won everybody over. My mother took exception to him, too. At first.”
“And they fell in love and got married,” Jack prompted.
“It was a stormy romance, or so the story goes. But yes, they fell in love and got married. By that time my aunt Hannah said there were more people in Paradise than she could doctor, and so my parents decided that they’d move north and practice medicine with her. Which is what they did.”
The tree frogs were making music outside the window. For a long time they lay listening and then Anna roused. She said, “What about your parents?”
He stifled a yawn. “That’s a story they tell every year on their anniversary. I think you should wait to hear it from them.”
“Is that an Italian custom?”
“A family custom, I’d say. You might want to think about the story you’ll tell, when the time comes.”
And then he fell asleep, as if he hadn’t just handed her an assignment to worry over for the next eleven months.
28
NEW YORK POST
Wednesday, May 30, 1883
ARCHER CAMPBELL RETURNS WITHOUT HIS SONS
TESTIMONY GOES ON TWO HOURS
Mr. Archer Campbell, whose wife died under mysterious circumstances last week, has returned home after a fruitless search for his four missing sons, ages two months to five years. He last saw the boys the day before their mother’s death, when she took them away from home and out of the city to a destination and fate as yet undetermined.