Mr. Ruocco set a brisk pace, and Sarah had to ask him to slow down a bit to accommodate her.
He apologized profusely. “It’s just that Mama said to hurry.”
“Is it your wife having the baby?” Sarah asked. “Isn’t her name Maria?”
“Yes, Maria, but no, she is not the one. It’s Antonio . . .
his wife.”
“Antonio?” she echoed in surprise. She’d thought him just a boy, too young to be married already and now with a baby on the way. “Isn’t he the youngest?”
“No, Valentina is the youngest. ’Tonio is the youngest boy, though.”
“Oh, yes.” She’d forgotten about the girl. Valentina didn’t spend much time in the restaurant. The Italians kept a close watch on their daughters.
They’d come to the corner, so they had no more opportunity for conversation as Mr. Ruocco helped her dodge horses and wagons and piles of manure in the death-defying process of crossing the street to arrive safely at the other side. Each intersection provided the same challenge, and with Mr. Ruocco practically running in between each one, Sarah learned nothing new about the family or their situation.
At last they saw the weathered red awning that shaded the front of Mama’s Restaurant on Hester Street. Because it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, no hungry customers stood in line, waiting for a table. Instead, the other two Ruocco brothers sat forlornly on the stoop, smoking cigarettes and looking as useless as men usually did when a woman was giving birth.
“This must be the proud papa,” Sarah guessed, smiling at the younger man.
They both jumped to their feet, and Sarah saw she’d been right in remembering Antonio as little more than a boy. He couldn’t be twenty yet, and the expression in his eyes was pure terror. “You’re the midwife?” he asked almost desperately.
“That’s right, and I’m sure everything will be fine,” Sarah assured him.
“It’s too soon. The baby is coming too soon,” he informed her.
She glanced at Joe, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned this to her, but he avoided her gaze. “Get out of the way, so she can go inside and get to work,” Joe said gruffly, and the two men parted instantly to make way.
Sarah noted as she passed that the other brother also looked worried, even if he wasn’t as terrified as Antonio.
“Mama!” Joe called as they entered. “Mrs. Brandt is here!”
The dining room was deserted except for two old men in the corner, drinking grappa and arguing. The checked tablecloths had been swept off and straightened from the lunch service and readied for the evening meals that would be served here. In the afternoon sunlight, the room looked like something from the Old World, with its plaster columns where ivy climbed and draped along the ceiling, and the paintings of the beautiful hills of Italy.
Joe turned to Sarah. “Come, I’ll take you upstairs.”
Like many business owners, the Ruocco family lived above their restaurant. As Joe led her toward the back of the dining room, a small woman burst through the kitchen door and came bustling toward them.
“Grazie, Mrs. Brandt,” she said, drying her hands on her apron as she came. “You are good to come so quick.” Patrizia Ruocco was a legend in Little Italy. Fifteen years ago she’d come to America with her three small boys, not speaking a word of English, and against all odds, she’d built a successful business. “You, Giuseppe, go with your brothers,” she said, waving a hand at Joe as if he were a pesky fly. “Give me bag,” she added, taking Sarah’s medical bag from him before he turned to go. He seemed almost grateful to escape.
“Upstairs, please,” Mrs. Ruocco said, leading the way to a door in the corner of the room. Patrizia Ruocco stood less than five feet tall, but hard work had made her strong. She carried Sarah’s medical bag as if it were filled with feathers, and she climbed the stairs without even losing her breath.
Once her hair had been jet black and probably her best feature, but now it was streaked with gray. Her body was rounded and womanly—still firm even in middle age—but oddly, she gave no impression of softness. Perhaps it was her dark eyes, which seemed as if they could cut right into a person’s soul.
The stairs were narrow and twisted around, designed to take up as little space as possible in the house. Two flights up, Mrs. Ruocco opened another door into a hallway. Sarah could see that several bedrooms with neatly made beds and spotlessly scrubbed floors opened onto it. She could also hear moaning.
Mrs. Ruocco stopped and turned back to face Sarah.
“The baby, he come too soon,” she told Sarah gravely. “This Irish trash . . .” She caught herself, and her face tightened as she tried to control a fierce anger. “This Irish girl Antonio bring to us,” she continued deliberately, “she is dropping my grandson too soon.”
“How much too soon?” Sarah asked, remembering her rash promise to Antonio that everything would be fine.
“They are married only . . . not six months,” Mrs. Ruocco said, the admission a vile taste in her mouth. “The baby was started before they marry, but not long before. A month, maybe two.”
Sarah nodded. A month, or even a few weeks, could make such a difference—the difference between life and death for the infant. She’d know when she talked to the mother if they had those weeks or not. “Sometimes babies who are only a couple of weeks early don’t live,” Sarah warned her.
“If this one is two whole months early—”
“I will do anything for the baby to live,” Mrs. Ruocco told her fiercely. “I will pay anything you ask. I want my grandson.”
If force of will could give the baby life, this one would live to be a hundred. “I’ll do the best I can, but God is the one who decides these things, not me,” Sarah reminded her.
“He better decide my grandson lives,” Mrs. Ruocco hissed before turning and leading Sarah down the hall.
As they approached the last door on the right, the moaning grew louder and a female voice cried out. “It’s coming again! Mary, Mother of God, make it stop!” The last word ended in a shriek of agony.
Mrs. Ruocco set Sarah’s bag on a chair just inside the door and hurried over to the bed where a girl even younger than Antonio lay, wailing like a banshee. Before Sarah could guess what she had in mind, Mrs. Ruocco drew back her hand and slapped the girl soundly across the face.
The wail ceased instantly, and the girl gaped at her in shock, holding a hand to her burning cheek.
“Stop screaming,” Mrs. Ruocco ordered her. “You disturb your husband.”
The girl blinked stupidly, but she didn’t utter another sound.
Mrs. Ruocco turned to the other woman in the room, whom Sarah hadn’t yet noticed. She recognized her as Maria Ruocco, Joe’s wife.
“Mrs. Brandt, she here,” Mrs. Ruocco told Maria. “Do what she say. If she need anything, get.”
“Yes, Mama,” Maria replied calmly. If the sight of her mother-in-law slapping her sister-in-law had alarmed her, she gave no indication.
Mrs. Ruocco turned back to Sarah, who still stood trans-fixed in the doorway. “If you must choose, save baby.”
The girl on the bed gasped but quickly covered her mouth when Mrs. Ruocco turned that razor-sharp gaze toward her again. Satisfied the girl was adequately intimidated, she nodded and took her leave, ushering Sarah into the room and closing the door behind her.