Chapter 29
Arrested hope is a feeble-winged bird hopping about on earth instead of tasting the wind and clouds as its nature demands.
On an endless loop, Mira reminded herself, as the weeks passed and she waited for the pregnancy to end, that it meant nothing, would come to nothing.
Although she was further along than she’d ever been before, fourteen weeks now, she kept her heart prisoner in an airless chamber, out of the reach of hope or the slightest pangs of anticipation.
It was like eating handfuls of sugar and denying the tongue’s sensation of sweet, forcing instead the thought sour, sour, sour.
Frankly, it was exhausting. Mira slept more than she ever had in her life.
It was easier than the constant warring going on inside her.
Dante was cautious and attentive. Mira could tell he worried about her, hovering and watching her at the loom when he was home from work.
“Maybe you could let Zeta do the dyeing this time?” he asked.
“Everything we use is natural, plant based,” Mira replied, shrugging. What did it matter?
“Have you told her yet?” he asked once her belly grew large enough to be noticed. “Or your father? Even Carmina?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Telling just means untelling. Let’s just leave it.
I wear a loose bathing suit and tie the basket around my waist when I swim.
No one’s said anything. Soon, we’ll leave off swimming, so I won’t have to explain.
” He brought her lemon tea, goat’s milk, her favorite pecorino sardo with sea-salted crackers.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but she knew it was his way of coping, helping.
Late summer was rainier than usual, and they kept indoors, with Mira often draped under a blanket, staring out the window while her tea grew cold, an idle hand tracing her swelling abdomen.
When she wasn’t napping, she frenetically worked at the loom, weaving magical scenes of nuragic gondolas ferrying women beneath a phasing moon.
Carmina called a few times, concerned Mira might be sick, but Dante put her off enough so that she quit.
All couples went through rough patches, and Dante hinted this was one of theirs and they needed some space.
One evening after dinner, while Mira washed their dishes at the sink, she froze, letting the water overfill a glass until it spilled onto the floor.
“Mira?” Dante set down the plate he had dried. “Is everything okay?” She turned the water off and burst into tears, and Dante pulled her close.
“Should I call the doctor?” he whispered. He’d been walking on eggshells, she knew, waiting for Mira to signal what she needed.
“No,” she cried. “It’s never lasted this long before.” She pulled away and grabbed his hand. “I thought I’d imagined it, but this time it was real.” She wiped her nose with the dish towel and put Dante’s hand on her side. “There.”
A swish and a flutter, and Dante pulled his hand away, his eyes round. “Was that . . . ?”
Mira nodded. It was the first time either of them had felt a baby move. Before, she’d miscarried long before any quickening. He put both hands on her belly, waiting. They were rewarded with another kick and tumble large enough that they saw Dante’s hand move.
Dante opened his mouth to speak, but Mira put her hand to his lips and shook her head.
Don’t voice it, her heart screamed, don’t say it out loud.
Don’t let yourself hope. He understood, but he hugged her close.
Mira felt the change in him, the energy that buzzed through his body into hers.
He hadn’t been quick enough; hope had escaped its prison.
Autumn was getting underway, bringing with it a respite from the lagoon, so Mira no longer saw her mother almost daily.
They’d forged a fragile peace but were nowhere close to sharing secrets.
Mira was bigger and clumsy, and her back ached from having to lean across her belly to reach the loom as she worked.
Carmina visited for the first time in ages, her youngest son with her, bearing soup and bread for the friend she believed to be recovering from a stubborn illness.
When Mira opened the door, the folds of her dress and apron weren’t enough to hide her secret.
Carmina grasped Mira by the shoulders and stared full into her face.
“How could you not tell me?”
Mira hugged Carmina to her, surprising herself with the relief that came with the news.
“We assumed there would be nothing to tell, and then time got away.” They both cried openly.
Mira was doing more and more of that these days; her emotions tumbled out so frequently, Dante could barely keep up.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve. I just didn’t dare—”
“When?”
“I’m seven months.”
“Your parents?” asked Carmina.
Mira sheepishly picked at the folds of her apron. “We’ll tell them. Dante’s wanted to for a while, but I’ve had to warm up to it. All the added pressure.”
“A baby, Mira!” Carmina beamed and squeezed her friend’s hand. “After all this time.”
Her parents were almost as shocked as Mira had been by the news, and they stood in stunned silence for several seconds before her father shouted and broke out the wine.
He pumped Dante’s hand and slapped him on the back and hugged her, gingerly avoiding her middle.
Her mother clasped her hands together, and her thin lips opened into a smile.
Then she ducked out of the room and left the others to their celebration.
Mira shot a glance at Dante. Her reaction was anticlimactic, but at least they’d received a smile, no small grace, given the cold war that had been stewing between them for years.
Just as they were sitting down to wine and antipasti, with hot tea for Mira, her mother entered the room and sat beside her.
“Your brothers have given us grandsons to spare,” she said. “Not a girl in the bunch.”
Here it is, thought Mira. I can’t just have a child; it has to be the right sort.
Even if Johann’s and Isaac’s wives had produced girls, they wouldn’t have technically been in a direct female line.
Zaneta startled her by taking her hand. “For you,” she said, pulling a bracelet of byssus from her pocket.
She tied it around Mira’s wrist and whispered the familiar prayer.
It was lovely, delicate but impossibly strong: “Like a woman,” Zaneta used to say.
Embroidered with the tiniest Hebrew letters, even in the dim room, the bracelet seemed to draw light to itself to display its golden shimmer.
Mira perched her glasses on her nose and examined the delicate threads more closely to make out the word. Blessed.
“Do you know,” she breathed, running her fingertips over the bracelet, “this is the first piece of byssus I’ve ever owned?”
“You’ve never asked,” said her mother.
Before Mira could respond, her father interrupted. “It’s stunning, Zeta. A treasure.”
“Thank you,” she said, giving her father a pointed look. “I know what it took to make this. The stitching is perfect.”
Satisfied, her mother nodded and met her eyes. “For a healthy child, a quick delivery, and a daughter.”