eyes on her. She glanced through the window at the vine-covered hills in the twilight, then back at her father. Each time she looked up, his intent gaze was focused on her face. Had her mother said something about Signor Carlucci after all? Catarina hoped not.
Then she noticed her mother shooting her father secret looks as she passed the eggplant, and Catarina sensed a certain frisson. She gazed at a crack in the plaster on the wall while she tried to calm herself, then she gave her mama a look that said, “Why did you tell him?” but her mother had barely shaken her head when her father cleared his throat, effectively silencing the boisterous conversation going on among Mateo and Catarina’s sisters and their husbands who were trading good-natured barbs at the far end of the dining table.
“We’ve had a letter from America,” he said, puffed up and full of importance. Catarina felt her heart skip a beat. So, it was something after all. But she hardly knew the Brunellis. Why was her father acting like a simple letter was suddenly a family matter?
“And?” dared Mateo. The only one who would even think of pressing their father who usually took his sweet time to get a story out.
“As it turns out, Franco Brunelli is looking for a bride.”
“So are all the bachelors in the world,” snickered Lorena, one of Catarina’s safely married sisters. “But they don’t write letters about it. They go and pick whatever flower they like from the bouquet.”
“Lorena, don’t be sbocatta. Your smart mouth always got you into trouble,” said another sister.
“This is different,” Babbo continued, combing his fingers through his increasingly sparse hair. “The Brunellis live in America—in a place called San Francisco—but their son doesn’t want to marry una Americana, who will never know the Italian ways. He wants a woman who will remind him of his roots. Of his true home. Someone who understands Italian customs and speaks the language.”
“So, he should come to Italy. Stay a while and meet a nice Italian girl, marry her, and bring her back to San Francisco,” Catarina’s mother chimed in, a tone in her voice implying that something about Franco’s situation was ridicola. But Catarina didn’t see the problem. So, this Franco wanted to come meet an Italian woman to marry. It wasn’t uncommon. Lots of men came back to Italy to marry. What did that have to do with their family?
They all looked at Catarina’s father. A table full of questioning looks. His lined, weathered face seemed to be full of mischief.
“Is that what he wants? To stay here while he looks for a bride, Babbo?” Catarina asked.
“Well, no,” he said. “He can’t afford the time away from the family business,” her father answered. “They’re jewelers and work is busy. Signor Brunelli can’t let Franco leave the store for a few months. So they have written to us for help,” he spread his palms as if his friend was at the table with them.
“How are we supposed to help?” Mateo asked.
“Allora, they inquired after one of my beautiful and talented daughters,” explained Catarina’s father, as he looked at Catarina. Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth and looked around to see all eyes on her.
“He must be desperate!” laughed Mateo, trying to lighten the suddenly tense mood, but he shot Catarina a glance as if to say he was sorry even as the words came out of his mouth.
“Shut up, idioto!” Maddelana said, and cuffed her brother on the side of the head. “What are you talking about, Babbo?”
“Well, as you know, our family and the Brunellis go way back. Vittorio Brunelli was like a brother to me when we were young. His parents were like my second parents. We grew up together and when he moved away it almost killed me,” he added dramatically.
Catarina’s mother rolled her eyes good-naturedly at her husband’s melodrama. He felt everything so strongly.
“So now, his youngest, Franco, wants a wife. It only makes sense that he turn to me, his best friend since childhood, to find a respectable girl for him. We have five daughters. Four are married. One is not.”
At that statement all eyes again turned to Catarina. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
“Surely you don’t mean for me to go off and marry some boy I only met once as a child?”
“Of course not, Catarina,” said Babbo, as relief rushed over her, but then he followed with, “but, you know Franco. Don’t you remember him? And he’s not a boy anymore. He’s a grown man. He has a business. He makes a good living.”
Catarina looked at her father as if he were a stranger.
“I met him once when I was a little girl. Surely that doesn’t count as ‘knowing him.’ Not like I know the boys from our village. Are you going to make me marry him? Are you sending me away?” she asked, anger and terror simultaneously flashing in her eyes.
“Catarina, don’t listen to him!” interrupted her mother, who slapped her palm onto the table—a look of exasperation on her face. “I will not have my daughter moving to America and marrying someone we hardly know,” she turned to her husband, “even if you have known his father since you were toddlers running in diaper cloths through the orchards.”
“We would never force you, Catarina,” Babbo told her, “but it’s something to think about. Something for us to talk about,” his face showing her just how serious he was. “You don’t have a good opportunity here. We don’t have much to offer to you, mia cara. You live in a poor house with a small orchard and have to work as a maid. Whomever you marry here might get sent away to fight when the war breaks out—and war is coming. I wish it weren’t so,” he said, glancing around the table at his sons-in-law, “but it is. And even if it doesn’t happen, then what? You marry the son of another poor farmer and move to his house and take care of his mother while you get poorer and poorer?”
“Emiliano! Why are you saying this?” Catarina’s mother gave him a meaningful look with a nod at their other girls, sitting around the table with their husbands, who all worked on either their families’ land or their own. “These men are good, honest, hardworking men. If Catarina does so well, I, for one, will be proud.”
“Celestina,” Catarina’s father answered back. “You know I have all the respect for our sons-in-law, but in America Catarina wouldn’t have to work so hard. I’ve heard the roads there are all paved instead of made with stones, unlike most of the roads in our village. There are markets full of food, and she could go pick what she wanted off of the shelf.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Maddelana chimed in, agreeing with her father. She took her husband’s hand. “I love our life here,” she smiled at him, “but if we could go to America, we would go imediatamente.” She paused, as an idea popped into her mind. “In fact,” she looked at her youngest sister with hope in her eyes, “if Catarina goes, maybe she could sponsor us once she’s married.”
“I bet she could,” her babbo answered. “As I said, the Brunellis are jewelers,” he continued. “They live well in San Francisco. Franco makes a good living.”
“But this is my home” Catarina stammered. “I wouldn’t know anyone there. And what about Anna and Maria Nina?” Catarina thought of her two best friends. They knew everything about each other. They grew up together and always knew that they would marry boys from the village and raise their own children where they, themselves, grew up.
“If I left here, if I moved to America, I might not ever see you again,” she said. And then immediately regretted it when both her parents looked away from her, instead of denying that it might be the case.
“You’re going nowhere, Catarina,” her mother said, and then scraped her chair back from the table and started collecting the dishes. Catarina and her sisters dutifully followed her lead, and the conversation ceased for the moment. But Catarina knew it was something she would ponder during the long, sleepless night.