Chapter 40

Vittorio sat at the head of the family table, surrounded by his mother, Aunt Antonia and Uncle Tomasso, Paolo and Annamaria, and Aunt Concetta and Uncle Vincenzo. Dinner was early that Sunday, because Vittorio wanted to visit Tina before he boarded the troop ship. He had enlisted in the army, a “doughboy” they called him in his olive drab uniform.

“How handsome you look,” Antonia told him when she arrived at the house, and made him try on his felt campaign hat. There was much reminiscing and joke telling, a conscious effort to keep this last dinner light.

Vittorio looked across the table at his mother. It seemed to him that she had aged in the month since he told her he would enlist. More silver streaked her dark hair, and her skin had lost its glow. The family tried to engage her in conversation, but Vittorio noticed how often she stole a look his way, her eyes lingering on his face.

Vittorio, too, wanted to commit to memory the faces before him. Aunt Concetta and Uncle Vincenzo were old now and no longer went out much, often sitting by the window to watch the children at play.

“It was so good of you to come today,” Vittorio told them. “You make me feel special.”

Dear Aunt Antonia and Uncle Tomasso. He was so glad they would be here to take care of Mama. With you, at least she will not be alone. Paolo and Annamaria. My lifelong friend has made a good choice. They are so happy together, especially now that a baby is on the way. And Paolo. He has always stood by me, even though he did not always understand. I will miss him. Mama. Most of all, Mama. She has given me my life, and her own as well, years of it, never complaining about her sacrifice. I love her dearly.

The time flew by all too quickly. “I must go now.” He rose and embraced everyone in turn.

“I wish I could go with you,” Paolo told him.

“You have a wife, and a baby soon. Besides, who would take care of the business? We need you here.”

“We want you to be the baby’s godfather,” Annamaria said.

He held her at arm’s length, grinning. “That’s the best news.”

Paolo hugged him again. “We’ll hold the christening till you get home.”

As he embraced Antonia and Tomasso, he whispered, “Look after Mama, will you?”

Aunt Concetta was the first to cry when he hugged her, and the other women followed.

“God be with you, my dear Vittorio.” Ottavia clung to him, the pain of all her partings not equal to this one.

He kissed her, his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll be fine, Mama.”

She reached up, and while she held his face in her hands, she said solemnly, “You will be, because no one can take my Vittorio from me.”

Antonia embraced Ottavia, and Vittorio rushed from the room. He didn’t look back, didn’t see his mother’s head limp on Antonia’s shoulder, tears streaming down her face. He strode along, lest he change his mind, putting space between where he walked and where he had left his heart.

He was glad he had saved Tina for last. She had begged him to let her come to the pier with him, but he preferred to say his goodbyes at home without the hubbub of thousands. He planned to take her for a walk so they could have some quiet moments without her family around.

“Where is your family?” he said when he walked into the unusually quiet kitchen.

“They had to go out,” she said, smiling as she led him to the sofa in the parlor. She sat close to him, and he put his arm around her. They sat there a long while, saying little, Vittorio taking comfort in her presence. Finally she looked up at him.

“I will wait for you. I love you.” She slowly unbuttoned his jacket, revealing his undershirt beneath, raised herself on her knees and pressed herself against him. He could feel the softness of her breasts as she danced an invitation with increasing passion.

A torrent of emotions assailed him—fear, loss, the future, here and now, life and lust. Together they pressed, burned, white hot. Pain.

She straddled him and raised herself up, her breasts at his face. She began to open her blouse, her voluptuous breasts enticingly close.

“Kiss them,” she commanded. “I want you to remember what you have to come home to.”

The boldness of her move was startling. Her flirtatiousness had held a fascination for him, he knew, and her passion for him a balm on the wound left by Kitty.

Kitty. He looked away, in his mind’s eye a vision of Kitty, her face smudged, her hair in unruly wisps, her smile like the sun. It was different with her. Why couldn’t he ever recapture the sweet passion he had for her? With resignation, he knew it would always be Kitty.

He picked Tina up and abruptly rose from the sofa. She suddenly became a pleading little girl. “You don’t want me? I love you. Please, Vittorio. Don’t leave me. Don’t go. Anything. You can have anything you want.”

He buttoned his jacket and looked at her sadly. “I wish I could.”

`”I’ll wait for you.”

He reached for his hat. “I have to go.”

“Vittorio!”

He shut the door and stepped into the street, still hearing Tina call his name.

****

Kitty had prepared a huge dinner for Charles, his favorite roast beef and blood pudding, but both merely picked at their food, his departure too much on their minds.

“I want you to keep busy. Perhaps you’d like to wrap bandages for the war effort. A number of my colleagues’ wives will be doing that. You’ll have the companionship of the women. And the Winthrops will look after you, you know that. Old Annie is a fine woman, and Arthur will be over in a minute if you need him.”

“Charles, I’ll be fine,” Kitty said bravely. “I want you to take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, or you won’t be able to take proper care of the men. Take your second pair of glasses. If you break the first, Lord knows when you’d be able to get them replaced.”

“Thank you for having those pictures made of yourself. I want to show my mother and father, if I get the chance to see them. And when I’m not looking at them, or showing you off to the other men, this is where they’ll stay.” He patted his chest pocket.

“I believe in God’s hand in everything,” she said. “He will send you home to me. And in the meantime, I’ll have a good companion.”

He watched her with raised eyebrows as she walked to the door off the porch and came back leading a young dog shivering in fear.

“Well, I never would have guessed. When did you get him?”

“I found him scratching at our back door this morning. The poor thing was starving, so I fed him and let him stay on the porch while I decided. You don’t mind if I keep him, do you?” She reached down to pet the animal, obviously a mix with his soft black coat and enormous brown eyes.

“I think it’s a splendid idea. He looks like he has some Shepherd in him. See how his ears are raised? He’ll be a fun companion and a great watchdog.”

Charles bent to pet the dog while Kitty put table scraps in a dish on the floor for him. The puppy ate with gusto and made soft lapping sounds as he finished a bowl of water.

“What shall I call him?” she asked as she cleared the dishes from the table.

“How about Skipper? Rex is also a good name.”

She looked at the pup, now settling in on a sunny spot on the kitchen floor, and shook her head. “I think I’ll call him Doughboy, for all the men overseas, and especially for you.”

He hugged her tightly, and she returned the embrace. They had had a good life together, lacking passion on her part but peaceful and congenial. There was no end to what she owed Charles, and she knew she would miss him.

As she clung to him, the tears welling up in her eyes, a bark from the dog made the two of them jump. He sat there next to his empty water bowl.

“He’s waiting for a refill,” Kitty said, laughing in spite of herself.

“He’s a smart dog.” Charles looked at Kitty with a smile. “Of course. He chose us.”

The tension of the moment broken, they began bustling around the house, Charles changing into his uniform and Kitty finding his second pair of glasses, extra handkerchiefs, notepaper, and pen for him. Time had slipped away, and now they had to rush to the pier, for the troop ship was due to depart at four thirty p.m.

****

Vittorio stood on the pier and looked at his watch. Three ten p.m. Surrounded by a thousand soldiers with their families and friends there to see them off, Vittorio was sorry he hadn’t agreed to have his mother, or at least Paolo and Annamaria, there to say goodbye. He felt incredibly lonely, alone in a sea of people.

Young men in uniform embraced young women. The love and warmth they showed each other only served to remind him that he had no Kitty to see him off and wait for him to come home. He was alone, afloat and alone. He scanned the crowd mechanically.

What am I looking for? In this crowd of humanity, I know no one and no one knows me. Or cares about me. I’m to be alone the rest of my life, dreaming of Kitty, obsessed with her. Imagining, as I do now, that the auburn-haired woman who caught my eye kissing that soldier is her.

****

“Charles, this crowd is unbelievable,” Kitty said as they pushed their way onto the pier through knots of people laughing, crying, hugging, shouting. Parting, they all whispered the same thing: “Farewell. God be with you. Till we meet again.”

Many of the women wore dark colors, but Kitty had consciously chosen a light color, a cream dotted dress with a cream straw hat to match, tiny daisies strewn across the brim. Determined to be upbeat, she wanted her clothes to be cheerful as well. They chatted about inconsequential things—a newspaper article he had read about a runaway circus elephant, the loose leg on a kitchen chair that he had meant to repair. She told him of a skirt her dressmaker had sewn for her pet cat, and the new variety of rose she had seen in a catalog. Around them was the hum of light chatter, punctuated by soft weeping, sometimes from moment to moment in the same knot of people.

The first horn blast from the ship and an announcement called the first regiment. Emotion swept the crowd. This was real, the moment of no return. For the soldiers still to be called, time gave them a push.

“We’re next.” Charles encircled Kitty and held her tight. “There’s so much I want to tell you. You have made me so happy. You’ve been my delight, my passion, my life.”

“No, Charles, over and over, I owe you my life.”

“If I shouldn’t come back…”

“Charles, of course you’ll come back, and I’ll be waiting for you.”

They kissed and fell silent, holding hands. Suddenly, her mind was on Vittorio. She had thought of him many times since the war began. He had said he would serve. Had he already gone? Or, she thought with a stab, did he have a child to bind him further to his wife, and to keep him at home? She couldn’t bear the thought.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a dark-haired man. Vittorio! The thought leapt up but died as quickly. Don’t be a fool, she told herself. What are the chances, after all this time, of the two of us being together on this pier, the same day, the same time? She dismissed the thought and turned her attention to Charles.

“I’ll write all the time. Don’t feel bad if you can’t answer my letters. I know you’ll be…” Her voice trailed off. Nonsense, foolishness. It looks like him, but I’ve been fooled before.

That fluid, athletic walk. Her heart caught. It can’t be. Those eyes that used to be only for me. The look I’ve never stopped loving…

He doesn’t see me, and he’s heading right toward me. I can’t catch my breath. Dear God in heaven, it’s him!

****

Despondent in his loneliness, Vittorio walked around the pier. The crush made it impossible to avoid the clusters of people, and he stopped trying. There was little comfort in brushing shoulders, in overhearing snatches of the drama of parting. The sight of a marine kissing a beautiful young woman was especially poignant for him. He felt the loss of Kitty all over again. He turned away quickly and, unseeing, walked on.

Vittorio had his hand on the shoulder of a man to his left, to prevent the man from backing up as he passed. Someone placed a hand on his right arm.

“Vittorio,” she said. He knew her voice, had heard it in countless reveries and despaired of hearing it again. He turned toward her, and their eyes met. She was as he remembered her, her face that delicate oval, the translucent skin, the blue-gray eyes, intelligent and loving. It was the face he had dreamed of so many times, in his despairing moments, hope only a thread to be grasped at. The face he saw whenever he looked at another woman.

Here she stood before him. She wore a hat with daisies dancing around the brim. It sat at a jaunty angle, and from it fell unruly wisps of auburn hair. “Kitty,” he breathed. It was heaven, it was magic, it was undying love that put her here. He could not take his eyes from her.

****

Kitty looked into his eyes, as beautiful as his loving looks, his smile a caress. Charles stood there silently, watching them. Her hand was still on Vittorio’s arm when Charles stepped forward.

“Charles, this is Vittorio Rossi.”

He extended his hand. “Vittorio, this is…” She hesitated, unwilling to say it. “My husband, Dr. Charles Lawrence.” The words were painful in her throat.

Vittorio’s face paled. He extended his hand mechanically.

“I believe I took care of you once, set your arm after a two-by-four fell on it.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, a smile frozen in place. He looked at Kitty. “I’ve looked into the sky thousands of times and asked why the sun and moon never met. Now I know why. I’d better be going. Good luck to you both,” he said stiffly, and disappeared into the crowd.

Charles looked intently at Kitty. “Strange. You knew the man whose arm I set.”

“He is…was…someone I knew.” A second horn blast rent the air, and Charles’ regiment was called to board, saving Kitty an explanation that she could not make.

She felt shaken by the meeting, her mind on Vittorio as Charles kissed her goodbye.

He held her at arm’s length, studying her face. “I love you,” he said, and with a final embrace, left her waving mutely as he headed toward the ship.

She waved until he was out of sight. She had made a solemn vow, but Kitty felt her promise melt in flames, fueled by the urgency of her love for Vittorio and the overwhelming need to find him.

She scanned the crowd on tiptoe, then flew from group to group, her hand shading her eyes, her thoughts oblivious to anything but finding Vittorio. She had seen the sadness in his eyes and knew she had to find him.

I can’t lose him now, before he goes off to war. No matter if he is married, I must talk to him and make him understand what happened. I can’t lose him a second time.

She scanned every group, her hands on people’s shoulders, craning her neck to see over heads. He was alone, standing at the very edge of the crowd, staring into the water. In spite of the numbers of men in uniform, she knew his build, his thick brown hair, could read the sadness in the unaccustomed sag of his shoulders.

Suddenly, she felt shy. She approached and touched him on the shoulder.

“Kitty!” Then a guarded look. “I should say ‘Mrs. Lawrence.’ ”

“Please, don’t. I must talk to you. I came to explain what happened to me,” she pleaded.

He held up his hand. “It’s not necessary. You made a choice. I’ll try to understand.”

“I didn’t make a choice. That’s what I want you to know. Fate took my choice from me. I was in an accident that day, the day we were to elope.”

“An accident! It’s not possible; I checked everywhere.”

“I was on my way to the bank. I had saved a little money that I wanted to use for us. Remember, there was a fierce lightning storm? The storm frightened a team of horses, and they ran over me as I crossed the street.”

“Ran over you?” His face went white, and he moved to touch her, but stopped himself.

“I was in the hospital for months.”

“I looked in every hospital. I even searched the morgue. I was desperate. Why didn’t you get in touch with me?”

“I lost my memory for a long time. I nearly died.”

“That was what I was afraid of at first. But I couldn’t find you in any hospital.”

“Someone had stolen my purse, so they didn’t even know my name. I had no memory of my name, or where I came from, or what I was doing on the street the day I was hit.”

“But you got your memory back,” he said, almost accusing her.

“Yes, I did, and I came looking for you. That’s when I found out you had moved to Boston and gotten married. I knew you were gone from me forever.”

“Married! Who told you that?”

“Paolo’s landlady.”

“The Polish woman? I don’t think she even knew my name.”

“Then you aren’t…” She drew in her breath. “Aren’t married?”

He shook his head. “Kitty, I’ve never wanted to marry anyone but you.” He looked away from her and said, almost to himself, “And I still do.”

“How could this happen to us?” She placed her hands on his arms.

He looked down with an ironic smile. “And now you love another.”

“No! Charles is the doctor who saved my life. If it weren’t for him, I would be dead now. I felt I owed him, but even so, I didn’t agree to marry him until after I searched for you and heard you were married.”

They gazed at each other, the truth sinking in slowly, all the years apart finally understood. They still loved each other.

At that moment a man in the crowd brushed past Kitty and knocked her hat off, unsettling her carefully arranged curls. It was the old Kitty, hair in disarray. Laughing, they reached down simultaneously to pick up the hat, but Vittorio reached it first. Her hat in his hand, he swept his arms around her and kissed her, his strong arms encircling her as though he would never let her go.

Solemn promises swept away in his arms, Kitty responded with a passion she had felt only with him, and now that feeling buried so long flooded through her. She was drowning in him.

For Vittorio, kissing her was tantalizing. He longed for all of her. He wanted her forever, for years and years.

Again a loud blast from the ship reminded him that he had only moments.

They drew apart. “Will you write to me?”

“Of course, my love. Is it fair to you? I have taken a vow.”

“I want all of you, right now, today, but that isn’t possible. I’ll take what I can. We are at war. Who knows what the future may bring?”

She put her hand to his lips. “Hush. God be with you.”

Nearby, a man began playing the accordion, a war song, with sad-happy lyrics. Vittorio slid his arms around her waist and they began to dance, singing softly to each other. “Though we’re apart/ You’re always in my heart/ I’ll dream of you then/ Till we meet again.” They swayed, barely moving, drinking in every second, making it last. She loved the rough feel of his jacket against her cheek, the scent of her hair as he kissed it.

Fate had dealt them a terrible blow but, perhaps relenting, allowed them these moments together. In her quietest time alone, she would relive these moments in every detail. And Vittorio, in the narrowest trench at night, weary from battle, would look at the sky and gain strength from his precious moment in time.

Another blast from the ship’s stack and they knew their meeting was also a parting. He kissed her tenderly.

“I love you, Vittorio.”

“And I love you, Kitty.”

He ran to the end of a line of marines waiting to board ship. Ignoring an officer, she ran over to him. She pulled a daisy from her hat. “Here, to remember me by.”

He smiled as he opened his jacket. Next to his heart was a dried daisy wrapped in a small piece of cloth, to which he added the daisy from her hat.

“Could that be…?”

He nodded. “That’s the daisy you picked for me the day I told you I loved you.”

“Oh, my darling.”

She flung her arms around him, and he picked her up off the ground. They clung to each other fiercely until the line began to move.

“I must go,” he said, setting her down.

She crossed her heart. “You will be here, as you always have been. Godspeed.”

She watched until he was out of sight, then walked to the far end of the pier to get as good a view of the ship’s rails as she could. She scanned them diligently, but with a thousand men crowded there, she could see neither Vittorio nor Charles.

She waited until the ship sailed from the harbor, until it became a tiny speck on the horizon, a floating city she couldn’t board but which carried her entire life—her husband and the man she loved.