“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.
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.