“I’m fine, Elisabetta.” Her father opened his eyes, but to her surprise, they were wet with tears.
“Papa, are you in pain?”
“No, no.”
“What is it? Why are you crying?”
“My darling daughter, my little one, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Elisabetta could see that his gaze was connecting with her, though his pallor was still strangely gray. She gestured at his coffee, which sat cooling. “Do you want your coffee? Or something to eat?”
“No, I . . . don’t feel very well.” Her father closed his eyes, and Elisabetta embraced him, holding him close, as if keeping him with her, instinctively acting on an unspoken terror of the worst.
“The doctor will be here right away. You’ll be all right.”
“Elisabetta, I am so sorry for being such a terrible father. You know that, don’t you?”
Elisabetta’s throat caught with emotion. “Don’t say that. You’re a wonderful father.”
“No, I’m not, and I need you to forgive me. Tell me that you do.”
“What do you mean?” Elisabetta asked, stricken. “Why do you need to hear such a thing?”
“I do, and please tell me you forgive me, my darling. I feel so sick, and I want to go, I need to go, and I need to hear you forgive me. Do you?”
Elisabetta felt tears spring to her eyes, at a moment that she couldn’t acknowledge even to herself, in which her father seemed to be asking her permission to leave this earth. “Papa, I can’t answer you. I don’t want you to go.”
“Betta, please tell me you forgive me, and let me go.” Her father touched her arm, and Elisabetta began to cry, realizing the awful choice he was giving her and knowing that there was only one answer, even though it was the last thing in the world she wanted, for her father was all she had left.
“Papa, if there is anything to forgive, I forgive you.”
His expression changed instantaneously. The frown in his forehead vanished, and his lips curved into a smile that she hadn’t seen in years. His eyelids fluttered, and his eyes opened and met her gaze directly, full of a love that she could feel to her very marrow.
“Papa, don’t leave me alone.”
Her father’s serene gaze met her terrified one, and the light in him faded away, until all she saw in his dark irises was her own heartbroken reflection, and she knew that she had released him, even though she couldn’t bear that he was gone.
“Papa!” Elisabetta shook him, trying to wake him up, but nothing happened. He lay with his head to the side, his neck drooping as if it were stretched. Every muscle in his face slackened, and his mouth hung open, his jaw unhinged. His left arm flopped over the side of the couch.
Elisabetta burst into anguished tears, and sobs wracked her body. She held him close and felt his soul departing his body, ascending into heaven where he belonged, there to live in a heaven of Raphael-blue.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Elisabetta
August 1938
The afternoon sun beat down, dry and oppressive, and Elisabetta wilted at her father’s graveside, while the local priest conducted the service. Verano Cemetery was almost nineteen centuries old, one of the world’s most beautiful cemeteries, a suitably artistic setting for him to be laid to rest. Next to his grave was a carved marble statue of an angel in repose, on the headstone of a certain DiGiulio family. She sensed he would have liked that.
His own headstone was small and of gray marble, as she hadn’t been able to afford more. The ornate family mausoleums were in another section, but her father was being buried among humbler graves, some of which had large curved headstones bearing enameled portraits of the deceased. In his heyday, her father would have painted far better portraits.
Her head hung, and the black dress fit her poorly, as it was one her mother had left behind. She had been hoping all morning that her mother would magically appear at the church or at the cemetery, having read the notice of her father’s death in the newspaper. But that did not happen, and Elisabetta felt silly for holding out such a vain hope.
She had cried all the tears she could cry, having regained her emotional footing since her father’s death, busying herself with sending out notices, ordering flowers, and arranging for the Mass with the priest and for the burial with the undertaker. She had used her savings to bury her father, but that hadn’t been enough, so the fund for the indigent had contributed and the undertaker had extended her a partial credit, which had been kind.
Marco stood on her right, and Sandro on her left, and she felt touched that both of them had come. Marco had taken the time off from work, somber in his black uniform, and Sandro was in his dark jacket and pants, going in late to La Sapienza. Nonna stood behind them with her son, Paolo, and his wife, Sofia, and the only other mourners were a few slovenly drinking buddies of her father’s. She couldn’t help but harbor resentment at them for encouraging his drinking, working against her efforts even after his diagnosis.