The Oracle of Cumae by Melissa Hardy
Author:Melissa Hardy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2019-09-26T15:32:22+00:00
Summer ended and autumn began; winter came, closing in around Montemonaco like a tight fist and, with it, a strong Bora—the bitter cold and squally wind that howls in from the mountains of Central Europe on its way to the Mediterranean, bringing with it sleet and snow and, on one dark and raging night in early March, Pasquale Assaroti, soaked to the skin and half frozen. We had had a letter some months before with the news that Concetta was expecting a baby in the spring—most likely in the latter part of April—and now here was Pasquale in the last days of March, whey-faced and grim. It was clear something was wrong.
“What is it, Pasquale?” my mother asked.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. Instead he removed a packet from under his sodden great coat and handed it to my mother.
She took it from him with trembling fingers. “Addio, Pasquale! Has something happened to our Cetta?”
Pasquale looked distraught. “I cannot say it. Please. Read.”
Mama broke the seal on the letter and opened it with difficulty—her hands were shaking. She scanned the first few lines, before throwing the letter down and bursting into tears.
“What is it, Esperanza?” my father cried.
“It’s…I…” was all she could manage.
“What is it?” my brothers clamored. “What does the letter say?”
“Read it to us, Mari!” Papa instructed me.
I picked the letter up with trepidation and peered at the spidery, correct handwriting for a moment, trying to get a purchase on its loops and swirls. Then, “Dear Signor Umbellino et familia,” I read haltingly, “I am writing to you at the behest of my cousin, Cesare Franceso Adolfo Bacigalupo, Esquire, who is too bereft at the moment to do it himself. I regret to inform you that your daughter, Concetta Umbellino Bacigalupo, died in childbed on this day, March 15, 1821. It would appear that her constitution was not all it was purported to be. On the bright side, your grandson, who is to be named after his father and his grandfather and so forth and so on, that is to say, Cesare Bacigalupo VI, is alive, if not precisely thriving. It appears he was born before his time and, as a consequence, is very small and red and quite unattractive. A wet nurse has been secured for the infant. However, my cousin most earnestly requests that his wife’s sister, whose unusual name I cannot for the moment recall, come at once to Casteldurante to assume care of the child, as it is all that I can do to manage the household and, besides, I am a maiden lady and unused to squalling infants. Yours, Antonella Aiello.”
I glanced up from the letter, my own eyes filling with tears. My sister was dead at scarcely seventeen and now I would never see her again. The desolation I experienced at her loss was the most profound and intense of my short life and I surrendered myself to it completely. What a sad place
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