Paullina Simons - Bellagrand

But they were buried in the labor laws of Massachusetts. No one replied. She made one for Mimoo, and when it was steeped and sugared, she walked past the round table at which the radical knights sat, plotting and planning, and headed upstairs to her mother’s bedroom.

“Arturo says he’ll come for Christmas,” said Angela, her hand over his.

“I’ll come too,” Joe said. “If I’m invited.”

“Of course, Joe,” said Harry. “The more the merrier. Gina, you’re all right with Joe coming for Christmas dinner?”

“If he brings the turkey, why not?”

“Is your wife joking?” she heard Joe say. “Where am I going to get a turkey?”

“She’s joking,” said Harry. “She fancies herself as a bit of a comedienne.”

Mimoo was lying on the bed, still in her street clothes. She was salt and pepper gray now, heavier than when she had first come to America, but no quieter.

“About time you came to see your mother after being gone all day. How is he?”

“Why don’t you get under the covers, Mimoo?” Gina said, setting the cup of tea by the bedside.

“I’ll get under the covers when I’m good and ready. What did he say?”

“Who? Joe?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. What do I care what that fool has to say about anything? What did my son say?”

Gina sighed.

Mimoo turned away.

They sat for a few moments while downstairs boisterous voices planned unrest and street action.

“Help me get ready for bed,” Mimoo said. “I’m tired.”

Gina helped her mother up. “Don’t worry,” she said. “1912 will be better.”

“You sure about that?”

“I am.”

Mimoo laughed. “Do you not hear what’s going on in your very own kitchen? What are they conspiring about? Mark my words, it will be the worst year yet.”

“What are they always conspiring about? Strikes. Demonstrations. Petitions for better wages. It’s all talk, don’t worry.” She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I only know what I know. It’ll be a good year. You’ll see.”

“You know what would make next year a better year? If my son and that no-good husband of yours made amends, put the past behind them, sat down at the same table.”

“I’m working on that.” Gina unhooked Mimoo’s dress and underskirts, took off her stockings. She slipped the nightgown over her head and brought her a basin filled with water. When her mother was in bed, Gina laid Salvo’s money on the nightstand beside the cup of tea.

“He thinks money is going to make up for it?” Mimoo said. “Tell him I don’t want his money.”

“We tried that,” Gina said. “He didn’t speak to us for a year. He had a baby and didn’t tell us.”

“The way your brother gets around, how do you know he had just the one?”

“Mimoo!” Gina covered up her mother and kissed her.

Mimoo took her daughter’s hand, looked her over, touched her pale face, pushed the strands of her dark curls behind her ears.

“I’m good,” Gina whispered. “Don’t worry. Just tired.”

“What else is new? Did you hear? Your friend Verity is with child again.”

“ Dio mio, no. How do you know this?”

“I play bingo with her mother every Saturday. She told me. What is that, her sixth baby now?”

“Fifth, Mimoo. Stop it.” Gina rubbed her eyes. “How does she do it?”

“Clearly you haven’t taught Verity your foolproof methods of family planning,” Mimoo said. “Someone should tell her that human beings in many ways are like vegetables: quality and not quantity is what counts.”

Gina smiled, leaning down again to kiss her mother. “I learned that well,” she said. “No one can accuse me of disastrous overbreeding.”

“ Mia figlia , no one can accuse you of any breeding at all.”

The smile gone from her face, Gina stepped away to the door.

“Tell them to keep it down,” Mimoo said, clutching her rosary beads. “Some of us have to get up in the morning.”

HARRY WAS TRYING TO sleep, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Don’t give me this tired business,” she whispered. “You weren’t too tired for revolutionary blather.”

He put his hand over her mouth. “It was just blather. I’m exhausted.” He kissed her. “Tomorrow we’ll talk. As long as it’s not your usual Christmas sermon.”

“Which is …”

He mimicked her. “Harry, when oh when are you going to make amends with your family?”

“What a good question.”

“I’m sleeping. I can’t hear a word you’re saying. I’m dreaming you’re quiet.”

She shook him.

He groaned.

“Shh,” she said. “Or Mimoo will think we’re up to no good.”

“If only,” said Harry, his fingers pressing into her.

“First we talk, then we’ll see about other things.” They were conjoined under the covers of their small bed. It was cold. They pressed against each other to stay warm.

“I won’t be awake for the other things.”

But something was signaling to Gina that he might be.

“Why aren’t you nicer to Arturo?” Harry murmured into her neck. “Angela feels deeply wronged that you and Mimoo aren’t more friendly to him.”

“I’m friendly.” But it was true her mother was intractable when it came to Arturo. As if she saw black ravens above his head.

“American polite. Not Italian friendly.”

“I’m trying to be more American and less Italian in all my ways.”

His hands were over her body, under her nightgown, his mouth finding her mouth. “Please don’t. Anything but that. Be Italian, I beg you.”

“Italian then in all ways,” she murmured back. “Not just in this one way you love.”

“I’ll take the baby with the bathwater.” The blankets came off slightly as he clung to her, his mouth on her bare shoulders, the nightgown pulled away. She squirmed away from his mouth, she was hypersensitive, and what to say about that? Nothing really, except …

“Speaking of babies … um, listen … I wouldn’t mind a little baby, Harry.”

“What?”

“You mentioned babies.”

“I didn’t mention babies. I mentioned a metaphor.”

“I was thinking of an actual baby.”

“Since when?”

She didn’t want to confess that for a long time she had been counting out her days, crossing them off her womb’s relentless calendar. “For a little while now.”

“I thought we agreed no. We both said no.”

“We did agree this,” she said into the pillow.

He had been lying on top of her back. Now he climbed off. “Well, then.”

“Well, then nothing. I changed my mind. That’s the prerogative of being a woman.”

Harry sat up. He was perplexed in expression and body. Gina had to suppress an affectionate laugh. “How can that be?” he asked. “Every other week you’re distributing illicit pamphlets about some reproductive freedom thing or other. Just this morning I saw in your bag an article from Lucifer the Lightbearer.”

“Okay …” she drew out an answer. “Reproductive freedom also means having a baby, does it not?”

“Not according to your pamphlets. Have you read them?”

She didn’t want to admit she had stopped reading them. “I don’t know what to tell you. I want a baby.”

“So sudden?”

“We’re married six years. That seems sudden to you?”

“It doesn’t seem un -sudden,” Harry said. “Besides, you expressly told me no babies. Remember Chicago?”

“Yes, I remember Chicago. Our few brief days of rainy honeymoon bliss.” The only honeymoon they’d had, she wanted to add, but didn’t. “I was twenty! You can’t imagine that at twenty and still in college I would not want a child?”