Chapter 28
Dante leaned in to kiss Mira’s neck as she sat near the window in her studio, the perfect place for the autumn Mediterranean light to stream in over her loom. She shivered. Even after twelve years of marriage, he still gave her butterflies.
“How’s the work today?” he asked, placing a brown sack on the table near her. She smelled the almonds and knew it must be from the bakery near the port.
Mira arched her back and stretched her arms behind her to ease the ache in her shoulders. “Bene, bene,” she said. “I’m doing a veil for Tess Grenaldi and after that, back to the tapestry for Santa Croce.”
Dante shook his head. “I still think it’s odd that a Roman Catholic church asks for an altar piece from a Jewish weaver who uses ancient arts.”
“That church happens to be built on top of one of the earliest synagogues in Italy, and byssus weaving isn’t about taking sides. It’s been used in both Jewish and Christian vestments.”
Dante kissed her again. “Carry on, then, dear. I’ll leave it to you to mend the historic rifts of religion while I tackle that roof leak.”
“Don’t fall,” she warned. “There are only so many rifts I can mend in one day.”
Mira watched as Dante climbed the ladder to the studio’s roof, his legs passing her window as his feet stepped higher until they disappeared and she heard his footsteps above.
Though math was more his specialty, he did his best to keep things working around their small house.
The studio, though, had been a true labor of love.
After Mira and her mother’s explosive falling-out, Mira had marched home, her face flushed and her apron wet from tears. That had been Dante’s line in the sand.
“No more,” he’d said. “I won’t stand for it. You’re not working over there anymore. You can’t keep getting torn up like this.”
“I’m a water woman, Dante,” she’d sobbed. “That’s our workshop.”
“We’ll build a new one,” he’d declared. “Starting tomorrow.”
Building had been the easy part. Assembling the dyes, plants, and materials had been quite another task.
Mira waited for a day when she knew Zaneta would be at the market, and she’d let herself into the workshop.
She gathered everything she might need—tools, samples, cloth, and a few of the rarer dyes that she couldn’t easily replicate immediately—leaving plenty for her mother’s use.
If Zaneta wanted to keep the line of water women intact, she couldn’t begrudge allowing Mira something to work with.
Her father had heard noises and come to investigate. “Mira, you’ve come back.” He was relieved, she could tell, but as much as she hated to disappoint him, she’d shaken her head.
“Just to gather a few things. From now on, I’ll work from my own home, Papà. This space is too cramped for two of us.”
Luccio had looked at her sadly. “I know, Mira. This is probably for the best. Your mother—”
“Don’t make excuses for her, Papà.”
“She told me about your . . . your difficulties,” he stammered. Luccio was of a generation where men didn’t speak of female matters. “I’m so sorry, cara.”
Mira squeezed her father around his neck. “Thank you.” She shrugged. “I have Dante, and he’s more than enough.”
Luccio looked at the spools and plants in Mira’s baskets. “What will you do for a loom?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she’d admitted, tracing the scarred wood of the familiar ancient beast. “This one holds so much history. It’s the only one I’ve ever used.”
“Leave that to me,” he’d told her. “I owe you at least that.”
She’d taken his offer for what it was—a request for restoration. Her father was a man of few words, but she could tell what he’d been trying to say was that he was sorry both for what had happened between her and her mother and for whatever part he’d played in his daughter’s exodus.
A year later, after putting in long hours after school, tiling, sanding, and ensuring Mira’s studio was snug and full of light, Dante walked her outside their kitchen after the last laborer had driven away.
He led her, blindfolded, down the stone path that wound from their back door to the door of the studio.
She hadn’t been allowed in for the last two weeks of its construction, and she’d been giddy with anticipation of finally having a space of her own.
Dante had opened the door and guided her inside, where the comforting smell of dyes and the warm scent of wool and cloth hung in the air, mixed with fresh paint and cut wood.
“Now?” she’d asked, one hand on her blindfold.
“All right. Go ahead.”
She’d whipped off the blindfold to find the space full of people shouting “Sorpresa” and toasting her with raised glasses of Vermentino.
Carmina’s family was there, and Signor Donetti with plates of his cookies.
Mira saw several women she’d gifted with byssus over the years and a colleague or two from Dante’s school who’d come to see the project that had taken all his free time and energy over the past year.
The inside walls had been freshly whitewashed and hung with tidy shelves holding spools of thread organized by color.
She recognized Carmina’s hand in such efficiency.
There was a sink along one wall, handy for rinsing tools and for the constant fresh water needed for washing the byssus.
Tight lines of rope had been strung across one corner near the windows where she could hang flock to dry.
Dante had framed a series of photos and arranged them on one wall.
He’d captured images of their favorite places on the island: the rocky shore where she went to offer her song to the sea, a grand view of the water from one of the high points on the island, one of the nuragic ruins bathed in sunlight and shadow, and the isolated lagoon where the byssus grew.
Mira’s eye fell on one other that she didn’t recognize at first; it wasn’t from Sant’Antioco.
When she realized what it was—a photo of the cove where she’d led Dante out into the sea on their Sicilian honeymoon—she’d met his eyes and blushed, smiling.
The studio couldn’t have been more perfect.
“Thank you! Thank you!” she’d gushed. “It’s perfect.
I can’t wait to get to work here.” The gatherers had parted then, opening like the Red Sea and drawing Mira’s gaze to the window, where her father sat on an olive-wood stool in front of a beautiful loom, a loom of her very own.
“Oh.” Mira’s hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes welled with tears.
Her father had risen and ceded his seat to Mira, and she’d run her hands over the loom’s parts, the upper and lower crossbeams between which she’d be able to weave her own worlds of creation, the spindles and distaff and bobbins that had been sanded smooth by her father’s hands.
It was beautiful, made of juniper wood and pieced with the precision of an engineer, a perfect replica of the one she’d used all her life.
“Papà,” she’d said. “Papà.” Those were the only words she’d managed to croak before she dissolved into tears. Luccio had hugged her tightly.
“I hope you like it,” he’d whispered. “It should last a good long time. Be worthy of passing down someday.” Then he’d stopped, stricken by what he’d said. “I—didn’t mean—I’m sorry,” he’d sputtered.
“It’s all right, Papà. I know what you meant. Thank you for this. I’ll treasure every minute on it.”
The only one absent that night had been her mother, but even that couldn’t have spoiled Dante’s surprise.
Mira had her own byssus studio, her private space where she could work and receive visitors, where she could create and sing and weave.
After everyone had gone and all the glasses and cookie crumbs had been cleared away, Dante and Mira had gone for a chilly walk on the shore near the byssus lagoon beneath a smile of yellow moon that reflected in golden waves of light on the dark water.
Mira drew Dante’s hands to her waist and tilted her chin to look up at him in the pale moonlight.
“Dante Barone, you’ll never be able to top that studio.” Mira kissed him. “Thank you.”
“It makes my heart happy to see you so happy,” he’d told her. “I’m especially glad you recognized the photos on the wall.”
“There was that one I couldn’t place at first,” she’d teased.
“Let’s see if we can jog your memory.” He’d taken Mira’s hand and turned to the sea, but she shrieked, swatting him.
“It’s too cold. We’ll freeze!”
“Maybe January isn’t the best time for swimming under the moon. Let’s go home.”
They raced each other along the shore, sand flying from their feet, and burst breathless and flushed through the door of their house, casting their clothes in a hasty pile on the yellow wood floor.
With Dante hammering on the roof of the studio, Mira walked outside for some fresh spring air and nibbled a handful of dainty amaretti cookies.
She should ask Dante to stop bringing these home, Mira thought.
Either that or she needed to swim a bit more each day.
She was getting thicker around her middle.
Approaching thirty, she no longer had the metabolism that she once did.
Mira toyed with her long braid, noting that it, too, had a few wiry strands of gray twisting through the plait.
A movement caught Mira’s eye, and she looked up to see a flock of dark-brown swifts dancing in the currents high above.
The pale outline of the moon was still visible, the faint gray shape no match for the sun’s glare in the blue sky.
She sighed. Absently, Mira stared at the moon, wondering at its faraway partnership with the tides she knew intimately here below.
The pressing nudge of a thought tugged at her as she brushed the sugar from her fingers, the last of the cookies eaten.
She’d long ago stopped measuring her own body by the moon, but now, she thought, what if?
She glanced up at Dante, shielding her eyes against the sun. His strong back was bent over as he tacked new tiles to the roof. “I have to run an errand,” she called. “I might be gone for a while.”
He waved in response, intent on his task. “Keys are on the hook. I’m almost done up here. I’ll clean that grouper you brought, and we can have that for dinner when you get back.”
In a fog, Mira took the keys from their hook by the door and started the car.
She headed toward town, but instead of following the easy, winding road to the port, she detoured and took the faster route that led to the land bridge and the larger island of Sardegna.
She wanted a market where she would be less likely to be recognized, though even on the big island, as they called it, all the locals knew one another.
This couldn’t wait until after the weekend when the clinics opened.
Mira thought she might burst before then.
She skipped the nearest market and opted for one on the eastern side of the island, where most of the tourists gathered.
It was offseason, which meant diminished crowds, but it would have to do.
Mira parked and sat in the car for a minute, gathering her courage and trying to remember what breathing felt like.
She only had to wait behind one other customer, and when it was her turn, she pushed the pregnancy test across the counter, along with a bottle of water and a packet of the biscotti Dante liked with his coffee, as if they could camouflage the issue.
She managed a tight smile as she gathered the items and hurried to the car.
Once inside, the old mix of hope and disappointment flooded back so vividly, it was almost as if she could taste it on her tongue.
She couldn’t make it back to the house without knowing, but neither could she go back into the market and use the restroom.
She felt like a guilty teenager skulking around.
Instead, Mira crossed back over the land bridge to Sant’Antioco and pulled over near a sandy path shielded by scrubby forest. She ducked into the brush and worked her way far enough from the road where she wouldn’t be seen.
She spent enough hours outdoors that taking care of basic needs as they arose was common. She told herself that was all this was.
A pair of red deer bounded through the trees about twenty feet from where she squatted in the brush, holding the white stick beneath her, and Mira nearly toppled over, but she gripped the test stick like a lifeline.
Gathering her dignity, she marched back to the car, poured water on her hands and shook them dry, and waited.
Positive. Mira’s hands trembled on the wheel as she drove the rest of the way home.
How many years had it been since they’d last been through this?
She’d thought they were done, that she was past even having to be mindful of this chance.
Once or twice, Mira had thought to ask her mother about her own experience—how old had she been when she’d stopped bleeding—but they’d never talked of such things before, and they surely wouldn’t now.
Her stomach lurched as memories from all the other losses flooded back. How could they have been so careless?
The savory smell of fresh breaded grouper fingers met Mira before she even opened the door to the house. The sun had almost set—she’d been gone longer than she thought—and the once pale moon had gathered strength and now glowed white across the water’s surface.
“What?” Dante asked as soon as he saw her face. His hands froze over the pan of fish strips. “What’s happened?”
Mira sank into a chair at the table and slid the market sack over to him.
She clutched the half-empty bottle of water and biscotti in her hands.
Dante snatched up the bag and looked inside.
He pulled out the test and stared at it for a full minute, not saying a word.
His brow furrowed as he looked at her in confusion.
“I couldn’t believe it either,” said Mira, her voice ragged with emotion. She stared down at her hands. “Oh, I got you some biscotti.”
Dante turned off the stove and shoved the pan off the heat.
He knelt on the floor beside Mira and laid his head in her lap, his arms around her waist. They stayed like that while darkness fell, lengthening the shadows on the walls until finally the whole kitchen was cast in shades of charcoal and gray.