Fatima snorted. “Like who? I told you about her family.”
Luciano wanted to shrug away this responsibility to insist it wasn’t his problem, but the thought of this little girl trapped by her life with no way out. He took Fatima’s hand and started walking again, “Let’s say once and see how it goes.”
Massimo would be calling soon, Isotta chided herself. She had to tell her parents about him, despite the dread roiling in her gut. At least two of her sisters were ostensibly at Florence’s storied Pitti Palace for a concert of Mozart music, but more probably in their boyfriend’s beds listening to American rap. In any event, there were fewer opportunities for interruption. It was now or never.
“Mamma, do you want some help?” Isotta asked, wringing her hands behind her back.
Her mother, Caterina, sighed and handed the celery she was mincing to Isotta. “Yes, thank you. I don’t know why your sisters wait until the last possible moment to tell me they are bringing their boyfriends home for dinner after the concert. Of course I’m happy to feed them, but how am I going to make this pasta sauce serve ten people?” She opened a cupboard and pulled out another can of tomatoes. “Thank the Madonna we have this. The meat will be sparse, but that can’t be helped.” She sat on a dining room chair with a sigh, and picked up a magazine.
“Um, Mamma? There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
“Madonna mia, you’re not bringing someone to dinner are you?”
“No, no.”
“Good. Then again,” Caterina let out a screech of laughter, “who would you bring? That’s one thing we can say about our Isotta, she doesn’t exactly have suitors beating down our door.”
Isotta flinched. Her mother rolled her eyes, “God, Isotta. Don’t be so sensitive. You’ll find someone. It’ll take a little longer, what with the weak chin you got from your father and the bulging eyes you got from my mother, but you are a nice enough girl, with steady work. And since you are the youngest, you’ll eventually meet the friends of all your sisters’ boyfriends.” She chuckled and flipped the pages of her magazine.
“Well, Mamma. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. I did find someone.”
Caterina looked up from her reading, all the tension of her raised eyebrows leaving her mouth hanging open.
Isotta turned and scraped the chopped celery into the waiting bowl of diced carrots. Wiping her hands, she ventured, “Mamma?”
Her mother blinked, and shook her head. “What do you mean? You have a crush on a boy? It’s about time. Your father and I often wondered if perhaps you were . . . never mind, it doesn’t bear mentioning. Wait, it is a man, isn’t it?”
Isotta was glad her back was to her mother. The heat was creeping up her cheeks, as she conjured images of Massimo and his thorough maleness. She pressed her cool hands against her face, steadied herself, and pivoted back toward her mother, a few cloves of garlic in her hand. She focused on peeling them steadily while she answered, “Yes. It’s a man. But it’s not just a ‘crush’. I’m . . . I’m seeing him.”
Catarina sat up straighter. “Well! You are seeing a man. A man you’ve never introduced to your family?” Her voice tripped from confusion to iciness. “Who is he?”
Isotta waited to answer until she’d pounded each clove of garlic to dislodge the papery skin. “His name is Massimo.”
“He’s from Florence.”
Isotta squirmed. “Um . . .”
“Tuscan? Please tell me he’s Tuscan.”
“Actually, no. He’s from Santa Lucia.”
“Sicily?”
“No, Umbria.”
“Well, thank the Madonna for that.” She paused, “There’s a Santa Lucia in Umbria?”
“Yes, south, past Perugia, on the border of Le Marche.”
“Never heard of it. Then again, why would I?”
Isotta finished mincing the garlic and selected an onion from the basket. Holding it out toward her mother, Isotta waited for Caterina’s nod that she should chop it before crackling the peel off in shards.
“How would you meet an Umbrian?”
“He works for the bank.” Isotta faltered. If she said she met Massimo in Rome, her mother, less predisposed to turn a blind eye to her than to her sisters, was likely to put two and two together and realize that the overnight she had in Rome was not because of food poisoning, but because of something far more dire. If pressed, she decided to say that she met him here, in Florence.
Caterina’s eyes were still furrowed, as she slowly processed her daughter’s words.
“So you are seeing a man, an Umbrian man, whom you haven’t introduced to your family.” She smoothed her dress over her knees. “What’s wrong with him?”
Isotta, cutting the onion from pole to pole, looked up at her mother with wide eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that, Isotta. It’s a fair question. What’s wrong with him?” It is a fair question. Those familiar with the story of Massimo and Isotta will have wondered the same.
Isotta sighed, and began slicing through the halved onion. “Nothing, Mamma. Nothing is wrong with him.”
“Well, when will you bring him to meet us?”
“Next week?”
“Okay, then.” Caterina leaned back and began flipping the pages of her magazine again. She guffawed, “Looks like our little bird is puffing out, eh? Your father will be amused. And your sisters!”
Isotta scraped the diced onion into the bowl with the back of her knife. She set down the knife and pressed her hands on the counter to steady herself.
“Mamma?”
“Sì?”
“There’s more.”
“More?”
“Yes . . .”
The color drained from Caterina’s face. “Oh, my God, you’re pregnant.”
“No! No, I’m not pregnant. It’s just that . . .”
“Isotta! Tell me! What is it?”
“It’s just that,” Isotta closed her eyes and breathed deeply, gathering her courage. “We are getting married.”
Luciano stood in the piazza ticking off his internal checklist. The tea kettle was filled from the spigot in the alley. He would usher everyone quickly to the garden so he wouldn’t need to explain the
