Hortense got off the bus at the Philadelphia Museum. She walked through the sculpture garden, past the fountain, which misted her face, carried by the summer breeze.
Once inside, she showed her alumni card from Cheyney College, which gained her admittance, picked up a map, and moved into the atrium. The marble room was filled with pale blue natural light that poured in overhead from a skylight. As she moved through to the galleries, where the immaculate white walls were the backdrop for paintings by Caravaggio, she became enthralled by the colors: skies of turquoise, gold clouds with gleaming silver hems, a burgundy landscape speckled with lavender foliage. The characters in the paintings fascinated Hortense; their features reminded her of the colorful Palazzini clan, who showed emotion in matters great and small with the same intensity.
Hortense did not wander through the galleries, or join a walking tour: she had a specific mission. A traveling show of ancient maps was making its way across America through the museum system and was on view.
Hortense pulled a newspaper article out of her purse. The Philadelphia Bulletin explained that maps of Italy, dating back to 1350, including those of the Veneto region, would be on display, under glass, because they were very rare, and in delicate condition. The Carole Weinstein exhibit would only be on display for a month. Minna had wanted Hortense to visit Venice someday, but since that was unlikely, the maps would show what she was missing.
Hortense skimmed past the bright murals, pastel paintings, and sculptures and found the maps. She waited her turn as a group of students huddled around them, stepping aside when a professor and his class from Temple University studied one.
When the students had moved away from the display case at last, she took out pencil and paper, making a list of the names of the villages of the Veneto. She also wrote down the names of various streets, bridges, and palazzos in the city of Venice before she moved to a diorama depicting Treviso and the farms that crowned the hills at the foot of the Dolomites.
Her eye fell on a particular palazzo outside a town called Godega di Sant Urbano. Villa Hortensia, owned by the Borda family, had once been visited by Michelangelo.
“Well, I’ll be,” Hortense mumbled to herself. She walked over to the window and wrote Villa Hortensia Fine Italian Tomato Sauce.
Her dream now had a name.
Hortense got on the bus for the return trip to Charlotte Street, disembarked, and changed to the crosstown. She bounced slightly up and down on her heels as she waited at the bus stop. She had pep, enough to go around and enough to spare. She climbed aboard the crosstown bus, taking a seat by the window. As it turned in to her neighborhood, it stopped at a light. She was looking out the window when she saw her husband on the corner of McDowell, standing alone and checking his watch. Hortense reached up to try to open the window to holler a quick hello, but the latch was stuck. She gave up and sat back down.
A woman joined Louis. Hortense recognized her from church. It was the new lady—a widow, if she recalled. Hortense’s stomach dropped inside her as she witnessed her husband lean down and lightly kiss the new member of their church on the lips. She rose up out of the bus seat as Louis kissed the woman again.
Louis Mooney offered the woman his arm, and she took it as naturally as the bus driver had taken Hortense’s fare. Louis had not offered his arm to Hortense in that manner in years. She watched as her husband behaved splendidly, like a duke. It was as if she were observing a man she had never met, displaying manners she had not seen since she was a girl, when her father deferred with similar respect to her own mother.
Hortense broke out in an anxious sweat. The bus couldn’t move, locked in a traffic jam, as her life flew by. Every mysterious thing about Louis Mooney that had confounded her over the years came into focus. The bus lurched forward back into traffic, careening past the next stop and the next as Hortense’s mind reeled. The litany of excuses Louis had rendered regarding his whereabouts so poorly over the years began to line up in her mind like file folders, one after the other. Because she was a faithful woman, it took her eyes to convince her of the truth. She reached up and yanked the rope to stop the bus, then gripped the handle on the back exit bar tightly, fearing her legs wouldn’t hold her. She could not breathe.
As soon as the door opened and fresh air hit her face, she began to cry. She had convinced herself long ago that the love that had brought them together in the first place could be salvaged if they prayed together and committed to saving their marriage. She had intended to pay attention to Louis again, to give him what he needed, but time, work, and other obligations had created too much distance. It made it harder for her to reach Louis across the divide, when it should have been easier.
Her mother, long passed, had taught her that a man only treats a woman poorly when he’s behaving poorly behind her back. Hortense knew that Louis had struggled, and it was all right if he needed to take out his disappointment on her. After all, she was his wife. She could keep the ugliness hidden, and she had, for many years. It didn’t hurt any less to understand it, or to see it. And now, Hortense didn’t care if anyone saw her misery either.
A stranger, a young woman of twenty, placed her hand on Hortense’s arm before reaching into her purse. Her white-gloved hand shuffled through its contents until she found a starched white cotton handkerchief, which she gave to Hortense. The girl’s skin, the color of rich coffee, was unlined and clear. “You all right, ma’am?”
Hortense took the handkerchief and dried her tears.
“You keep it.” The young woman patted Hortense on the arm before joining the crowd on the sidewalk.
Hortense stood under the awning, holding the handkerchief. She wasn’t weeping for her marriage, or for the loss of her husband, or even for having her high hopes dashed. She wept for the time she had lost. There was no getting it back. She stepped out from under the shadows of the awning and into the sunlight. If there was one thing Hortense Mooney knew how to do, it was walk in the light.
*