Angela’s whole face changed. She looked down at the baby like she’d been handed an ancient treasure. The baby grabbed her finger and held on.
I watched her, and I saw something I had never seen in her before. Not a new thing—an old thing, finally let out. Angela looked up at me, and then away, quick, the way a person looks away when there is too much to see.
Marco came up behind me and put his arm around my neck. “You gonna make me a cousin, or what?”
“Working on it,” I said.
He laughed. “I see that.” He glanced at Angela, then at the baby, then at me, and his face went very serious for a second. “She looks good, Pietro. You did good.”
I didn’t say anything. He hugged me harder, then let go, embarrassed by his own feeling. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
We went down the steps, into the mud. The sun was high, the air full of the noise of spring birds. Marco led the way into the rows, stopping here and there to point at a particular graft or a spot where the buds were coming in thicker than last year.
He talked about the vines the way some men talked about cars, or women, or the markets. “This one’s stubborn, but she’ll come around. See the graft? I almost lost her last March, but look at her now.” He touched the stalk with something like reverence.
I tried to listen. I tried to care. But my mind was on Angela, on the way she had held the baby, on the way she had smiled and then looked away, her face open and unguarded. I wanted to freeze the moment. I wanted to keep it safe, so nothing could ever take it from her.
Marco picked up on it. “You’re not listening,” he said. Not a question.
“I am,” I said.
“No, you’re thinking about her.” He smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s a good look for you.”
We walked in silence for a while.
He said, “You’re going to do it tonight, aren’t you.”
“Yes.”
He grinned, teeth white in the sun. “She’ll say yes.”
“I know.”
“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for letting us stay here.”
“Like I said, cousin, any time.” He slapped my back, a heavy whump that echoed down the row. “I’m proud of you,” he said. Then, softer: “She’s proud of you too. Even if she never says it.”
We walked back toward the house.
In the yard, Serafina and Angela were on the grass, the baby between them on a blanket. Angela was holding Vittoria’s foot and making faces at her. Serafina was watching the baby, but every now and then she glanced at Angela, and I saw in her face the look that had passed between me and Marco in the vines: she knew, she understood, she was happy for what had happened here.
When we came close, Angela looked up. She had tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. Just letting them be there. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and smiled at me.
“Look,” she said. “She’s smiling.”
“It’s gas,” Marco said. “Don’t trust it.”
Serafina flicked his ear. “It’s a smile. She likes Angela.”
Angela blushed. She handed the baby back to Serafina and stood up, dusting grass off her jeans.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” she said to me.
“In a minute. I need to get the rest of the wine from the cellar.”
She nodded. She touched my shoulder as she passed me, the same way she always had: light, but sure.
Marco and Serafina went inside, the baby making small noises, the two of them bickering quietly about whether it was time for the next feeding.
