He wasn’t the biggest baby Sarah had ever delivered, but he was certainly one of the biggest. His body was rounded and padded with the fat that forms during the last month of development. His cheeks were full, his chin double, and his head was covered with coal-black hair. He let out a wail to match the one his mother had given earlier as soon as the cool air of the room touched his wet skin. So much for Sarah’s fear that he wouldn’t be able to breathe. That was the problem that killed so many infants born before their time. But this baby wasn’t early at all.
“It’s a boy,” Maria said happily, showing the first real emotion Sarah had seen. She had towels ready to dry him off, and Sarah handed the baby to her.
As Maria took the baby and cradled him, Sarah couldn’t help thinking she looked almost beautiful as the joy lit her face. Under ordinary circumstances, no one would consider Maria Ruocco beautiful. If anything, she was plain, her face round and nondescript. Her figure was squat and would probably run to fat later in life, just as the dark fuzz above her upper lip would eventually become a mustache. Her hair was thick and dark, but it grew low on her forehead, and she wore it parted in the middle and pulled straight back, a style that only emphasized how plain her face was.
“Is it over?” Nainsi asked weakly. So far she’d shown no interest in the baby, only relief that she was rid of it.
“Almost,” Sarah said. A few minutes later, Sarah had her cleaned up and resting comfortably in a clean nightdress.
“Would you like to hold your baby now?”
Nainsi frowned slightly. “I guess. I don’t know much about babies.”
“You’ll learn,” Sarah assured her.
Maria had washed the baby and wrapped him in a blanket that had obviously been purchased for his arrival. Maria had quieted him down, and he now lay peacefully in her arms, staring up at her face in fascination. As it dried, his hair had begun to curl. Sarah thought of the handsome Ruocco boys and their glistening black curls.
“You should try to nurse the baby right away,” Sarah said. “It will help you recover more quickly.”
Nainsi frowned again, looking askance at the bundle in Maria’s arms. “Do I have to?”
“Of course you have to,” Maria said sharply. “You are his mother.” Even still, she surrendered the child with obvious reluctance. Perhaps she was thinking how eager she would be to nurse her own child. Sarah knew how anxious Maria had been for a baby when she’d first married Joe. That was five years ago, and she still had yet to conceive. She’d consulted with Sarah several times, and Sarah had given her every scientific and old wives’ remedy she knew, but to no avail. Not for the first time, Sarah questioned the ways of the world where women like Maria were barren, and girls like Nainsi had babies they didn’t want.
“I’ll go tell everyone,” Maria said when Nainsi had settled the baby in her arms. “It’s dinner, our busiest time, but they’ll want to know. I should be helping them, too, now that the baby is here.”
“Let Valentina help,” Nainsi said nastily. “She never does anything but sit on her skinny bottom and complain.”
Maria’s lips tightened, but she swallowed whatever reply she might have made. She’d probably gotten good at that with a mother-in-law like Patrizia, Sarah thought. “I will send Mama up to see the baby,” she said instead, knowing that would have more effect on Nainsi than anything else she could have said.
The girl’s face flamed, but Maria was gone before she could respond.
“Let me show you how to feed the baby,” Sarah said to distract her.
Nainsi showed no enthusiasm for the process, but the baby’s instincts prevailed and soon he was latched on and sucking vigorously. Nainsi looked down at him doubtfully.
“I don’t think I have any milk.”
“It hasn’t come in yet. That takes a few days.”
“What if it doesn’t, though? What if I don’t have any at all?”
“You will,” Sarah assured her.
“Some women don’t. I’ve heard the old biddies talking.
Can’t I feed him with a bottle instead?”
“It’s not very good for the baby,” Sarah warned her.
“Sometimes they even get sick.” And die, Sarah thought, but she didn’t say it.
“She wouldn’t like it if it got sick, would she?” Nainsi asked.
Before Sarah could think of an appropriate reply, they heard the stairway door open and the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hall. Mrs. Ruocco appeared in the doorway, and this time she was breathless.
“Maria say he is alive,” she said in wonder.
“Yes, he’s just fine,” Sarah said.
She said something softly in Italian that might have been a prayer and crossed herself, then went the bed where Nainsi was still nursing the baby.
Someone had come along behind Patrizia, more slowly, and now he reached the doorway, too. Antonio looked no less apprehensive than he had when she’d seen him downstairs.
“You’ve got a healthy son,” Sarah told him.
He gave no indication he’d heard her. He was staring at the girl in the bed.
Mrs. Ruocco leaned over and whipped open the blanket covering the child. He was too engrossed in suckling to even notice, but everyone else saw how Patrizia reared back in shock at the sight of the chubby, pink, obviously full-term infant.
She turned accusingly to Sarah. “He is not too early.”
Sarah drew a deep breath, choosing her words carefully.
“He’s healthy and strong. Your grandson will live,” she added, reminding the woman that that had been her wish.
Mrs. Ruocco glared down at Nainsi, who had taken a sudden maternal interest in her son. She tucked the blanket carefully back over his bare legs and actually cooed at him.
Then she lifted her gaze to her mother-in-law with an odd defiance, as if to ask what she intended to do now.
Mrs. Ruocco turned to Antonio, who didn’t seem to have understood the meaning of any of what had happened. She asked him something angrily in Italian, and he answered her defensively.
“What are you saying about me?” Nainsi demanded.
“Talk in English so I can understand!”
If Sarah had thought Mrs. Ruocco’s gaze intimidating before, it was positively murderous now. “I ask when was the first time he go under your skirt,” she said between gritted teeth.
Nainsi’s cheeks burned scarlet, but she looked over at Antonio. “And what did you tell her?”
“August,” he said, still not certain what it meant. “You should be glad the baby isn’t sick,” he told his mother plaintively.
“He not sick because you not make him in August,” the woman said fiercely. “And if you did not, who did?”
“What are you saying?” Antonio asked. “That this isn’t my baby?”
“Yes, that is what I say,” Mrs. Ruocco informed him.
“She’s crazy!” Nainsi insisted. “You’re my husband. This is your baby!”
The baby had lost his grip on Nainsi’s breast, and he started to cry in protest. No one paid any attention, least of all his mother.
“Don’t listen to her!” Nainsi pleaded. “She hates me because I’m Irish. She’d say anything to turn you against me!”
Sarah thought that might well be true, but in this case, she had to agree with the older woman, who was shouting at Antonio in Italian again. He started shouting back, and they both began waving their hands to emphasize their points. Sarah couldn’t understand a word, but she knew exactly what they were talking about. Mrs. Ruocco was jab-bing her finger into his chest, and he was throwing his hands in the air to indicate he was as puzzled about the situation as she was.
Between the shouting and the baby wailing, no one heard Maria coming until she stepped in between the two and pushed them apart. “Stop yelling! You’re making the baby cry!”
For the first time they seemed to notice it was crying.
