Magda noticed that Chiara carried a cesta, which she heaved onto the dining room table. As Chiara opened the basket and took out baked goods and what looked like a small styrofoam cup of coffee, she chattered brightly, “I can’t remember the last time I went a few days without seeing you. I asked around, and nobody had seen you anywhere. And anyway, it wouldn’t be like you to go away this close to the sagra. I started worrying that you were ill.”
“I’m not ill,” though the way she slumped into the tall back chair belied her words.
“Hmm. I can’t say you look well.”
“Well, Chiara. That’s awfully rude.”
“Not rude. Just honest. Can I air this place out? It’s . . . well, it’s none too fresh smelling in here.”
Magda nodded mutely while Chiara threw open the shutters and opened the windows, allowing the air, scented with mint that grew close to the ground in Magda’s yard, to enter the dimness of the room. Turning to Magda, Chiara asked, “What’s going on? You left the bar all in a huff, and then Luciano said you almost collided with him in the piazza before racing down an alley, and then you seem to have not left the house in days. Days which, by the look of it, have not found you deep in kitchen projects.” Or hygiene, Chiara added to herself, silently.
“Luciano said that? I’m surprised he’d noticed. Drunk as a monkey, that one.”
Chiara rolled her eyes as she turned her back to Magda to flutter open a cloth to lay the food on.
“Yes well, it’s been a trying time for him.”
“You mean because of Isotta and how she’s a dead ringer for Giulia?” Magda’s eyes brightened, and she leaned forward eagerly.
“Mmm,” Chiara answered noncommittally. “In any case, he’s been sober when he’s come in the bar the past couple of days.”
Magda waved the words away with sound of impatience. “Come on, Chiara, we’ve seen him fall on and off the wagon with dizzying speed.”
“Yes, well, as far as I can see, the best predictor of success is how many times one tries. If that’s true, this time may well stick.”
Magda rolled her eyes. “Oh, Chiara, you really do insist on seeing the best in people don’t you?”
Chiara smiled and put the basket away without comment.
Magda seemed to recollect herself and tightened her robe around her, lifting her chin. It is challenging to be haughty in a bathrobe, but Magda was doing an admirable job.
Chiara sighed. “Anyway, I was worried about you. When you ran out—”
“I was fine.” Magda answered, tightly.
Chiara narrowed her eyes. Then, food set out, she sat down.
Magda mumbled, “Well, I was.”
“Magda. Seriously. I’ve known you for a lot of years. I don’t think I have ever seen you lose your composure, even when your husband disappeared. You bolted out of my bar like someone set your hair on fire.”
Magda shuddered, the smell of burning hair suddenly filling her nostrils. She shook her head, forcing herself to stay present.
“Well, Chiara, we may not be what you’d call ‘close’ but I’d say you know me better than anyone in this closed up backwater of a town.”
Chiara stiffened involuntarily. “Ma dai, Magda. Santa Lucia is no bustling metropolis, but really . . .”
“There’s certainly no value in welcoming strangers, you have to admit that.”
Chiara pushed a cornetto towards Magda and then took one for herself, pulling off the tip with a satisfying stretch. “Well, that may be true,” she conceded. “But you haven’t exactly embraced the townspeople either.”
“What? How can you say that? You know how hard I work to get people to better themselves and their businesses!”
Chiara pulled off another piece of cornetto, revealing the cream within. “I’m not sure I’d exactly call that ingratiating yourself with the townspeople. In any case, my point is, something rattled you in my bar, and I want to make sure there’s nothing I can do.”
“Oh, yes. Well.” Magda cleared her throat. “The amulet, and what you said about mothers. It brought back some memories.”
“Where is the amulet? I thought it would be on a chain around your neck or something. You didn’t lose it again, did you?”
“No, it’s right here.” Magda opened her hand to lay the amulet on the table.
Chiara’s sharp intake of breath drew Magda’s notice to her own hand. The amulet was stuck to her hand by a series of cuts. The blood had welded the metal to her palm and she shook her hand irritably.
“Magda. What is it about that amulet?”
Isotta walked out of the alimentari. Luciano breathed to gentle his instinctual stutter at the sight of the woman who looked so like the child he lost. But he had noticed, in watching her, that her eyes, unlike Giulia’s, were constantly wary.
He had so wanted to hate her.
Hate the woman who took the place of his daughter. How could she have slid into the spot once reserved for his beautiful girl? Living in the house she once tidied, bedding the man she once cherished, mothering the child she once coddled. It was this last that was the most painful. Every time he saw Isotta with Margherita, a pain clawed his chest so furiously it took all of his prayers for intercession, all of his self-command, to keep from turning toward a bottle of wine for solace.
Margherita herself didn’t remember him. The last time he’d held her had been at her mother’s funeral, when she’d been barely a year old. She hadn’t understood what was happening. She had kept turning toward the back of the church, no doubt waiting for her mother. But her mother was gone. Along with the baby brother or sister that had just taken hold in this world.
He remembered Giulia’s face when she told him and his wife about the pregnancy. If her mother hadn’t been so ill, Giulia probably would have guarded her secret a bit longer. There had been so many disappointments. But that was Giulia.