Maria gave them both a look of disgust and strode over and snatched the baby from Nainsi’s limp grasp. Maria started to bounce him and make soothing sounds, but he continued to scream.
“He’s hungry,” Sarah said. “He won’t stop until he gets something to eat.”
“I’ll get him something from the kitchen,” Antonio offered, earning a scornful look from every woman in the room.
Mrs. Ruocco glared at Nainsi. “Feed the bastard, you whore.”
Maria gasped in shock. “Mama, what are you saying?”
Her nerves fraying from the baby’s cries, Sarah took him from Maria and gave him back to Nainsi, forcing her to offer him her breast again. The baby’s cries ceased instantly, leaving the room in silence except for the happy sounds of suckling.
Maria was still gaping at Mrs. Ruocco. “Mama?”
“I know it,” the woman said angrily. “Antonio, he just a boy. He not know what to do. She must show him.”
Antonio flushed scarlet, revealing the truth of his mother’s theory, and he shot Nainsi a glance that could’ve curdled her milk.
“She is whore,” Mrs. Ruocco continued. “She try get husband and home for her bastard. She trick Antonio. She trick whole family!”
“No, Mama,” Maria insisted. “You can’t know that. Look at the baby. He looks just like Antonio!”
Newborn babies seldom resembled anything more closely than an elderly man who’d lost his hair and his teeth.
This one did, at least, have the black curly hair of the Ruocco family, but beyond that, any resemblance would be entirely in the eye of the beholder.
“Look at baby, Maria,” Mrs. Ruocco said, pointing an accusing finger. “Is he sick, like baby born too soon?”
Maria looked at the baby, her face reflecting her refusal to accept the truth. “We are lucky, Mama. God has blessed us by making him strong enough to live. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” she reminded her.
“I want my grandson to live,” Mrs. Ruocco corrected her.
“This baby, he nothing to me.”
“You can’t be sure,” Maria argued desperately. “Mrs.
Brandt, tell her! She can’t know for sure!”
This was what Sarah had dreaded. If she confirmed the truth she knew, she would condemn Nainsi and her baby to abandonment and perhaps even death. A woman with a newborn would fare poorly on the streets, and few families would welcome a daughter back home after such a scandal, if Nainsi even had a family. But if Sarah lied, she would be doing an injustice to Antonio and his entire family. She thought of King Solomon with the sword, ready to cut the baby in two. If only she had his wisdom, and if only one of her choices were the right one.
“Look at her,” Mrs. Ruocco said, gesturing at Sarah.
“She know truth, but she cannot say. She want protect baby. Look at baby. He too big and too fat. Count to nine, Maria. Nine month was June. Antonio did not know this whore in June.”
Tears stood in Maria’s eyes, and she looked at Sarah, silently pleading for her to deny it. Sarah still couldn’t bring herself to say the words, but she gave Maria the slightest nod.
Maria’s face crumpled, and Nainsi howled in fury. “You can’t believe her!” she cried to Antonio. “Mama is paying her. She’ll say anything to get her money! You know this is your baby. Come and look at him, and you’ll see!”
But Antonio was already shaking his head. He’d obeyed his mother all of his life, and he wasn’t going to defy her now. He turned and fled the room.
“Come back here!” Nainsi shrieked hysterically. Then she turned to Mrs. Ruocco. “This is your grandson. You have to believe me! He promised!”
This time it was Maria who slapped her into silence. The baby, who had drifted off to sleep, startled and then settled down again into sweet oblivion.
“That husband of yours almost knocked me down the stairs,” a new voice said a few moments later, and Sarah looked up to see a buxom Irishwoman in the doorway. Her faded orangey hair and the curve of her face made her an older version of Nainsi. “What’s the fuss about, anyway?”
she asked of no one in particular, seemingly unaware of the tension in the room. Then she saw the infant cradled in Nainsi’s arms. “Ah, and that would be my grandson, would it?” she asked, a smile breaking across her worn face. “What a handsome lad, and look at all that hair.”
Nainsi gaped at her for a long moment and said,
“Mommy.” Then she burst into tears.
2
Sarah would always remember the next few minutes as a blur of angry hands gesturing and lots of incoherent shouting. Nainsi blurted out the accusations the Ruoccos had made against her, and Mrs. O’Hara rose to her daughter’s defense, or at least her voice did. The two older women started screaming invectives at each other in a variety of languages while Nainsi sobbed and Maria wept silently.
Sarah took the sleeping baby from his mother, marveling for the thousandth time how infants could sleep through anything. She laid him gently in the cradle that had been lovingly prepared for him, probably by Mrs. Ruocco herself, and wondered what would become of him. At least Nainsi had a mother. Judging by Mrs. O’Hara’s clean but well-mended clothes and her work-roughened hands, she might have a difficult time taking not only her daughter but the baby back into her care—but at least there was a chance they wouldn’t end up on the street.
When the din had died down to a manageable level, Sarah said, “Excuse me,” startling everyone into silence.
When she had their full attention, she continued. “This is an unfortunate situation, I know, but Nainsi and the baby need some peace and quiet and some rest.”
Mrs. Ruocco looked at the girl in disgust. “We will not bother her anymore. I want her out of my house, her and her bastard!”
“You dago cow!” Mrs. O’Hara cried. “You’d put her out five minutes after she birthed your grandchild?”
“That bastard is no my grandchild!” Mrs. Ruocco replied indignantly.
“Mrs. Ruocco,” Sarah said as calmly and reasonably as she could. “Nainsi and the baby shouldn’t be moved tonight. I know you’re angry right now, but if anything happened to either of them, especially that innocent baby who has done nothing to deserve it, you’d regret it for the rest of your life.”
Sarah wasn’t sure if this were true or not, but she hoped Mrs. Ruocco would be willing to assume the finer feelings Sarah had assigned to her.
For a moment, she feared she’d misjudged her, but then Maria said, “Please, Mama. What will people think if we put her out tonight? I’ll look after them until . . . until they’re strong enough to go.” Her voice broke on a sob, and she looked longingly down at the baby, sleeping angelically in his cradle.
Mrs. Ruocco muttered something in Italian and threw up her hands in disgust. “Do what you want, Maria, but I do not want to see this one’s face again. When Mrs. Brandt say, they must go. Both of them.”
Maria’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Grazie, Mama.”
“Yeah, thanks for being so generous,” Mrs. O’Hara echoed acidly. “You’ll regret this, you’ll see. My girl ain’t no liar, and your boy don’t get out of his responsibility so easy. They was married in the church, for life.”
Mrs. Ruocco ignored her. “Mrs. Brandt, I am sorry you see this. It is not right. Come downstairs. You will eat before you go. I will fix you special meal.”
“Oh, that really isn’t necessary,” Sarah said politely, longing for the peace and quiet of her own home with her own tiny family. But then her stomach growled audibly.
“You will eat,” Mrs. Ruocco decreed, and left the room.
No one spoke until they heard the stairway door close behind her. Then Mrs. O’Hara turned back to Nainsi.
“You stupid cow!” she snapped. “I told you them dagos is nothing but trouble! I guess you think you can come back home with me and I’ll take care of you and your baby.”
Now that her mother-in-law was gone, Nainsi’s confidence returned. She drew herself up and smoothed the
