* * *
Domenica stood at the screen door of the McVicars homestead and took a deep breath before knocking.
Grizelle appeared at the door. “I know why you’re here.”
Domenica followed her inside to the kitchen. The house held a dank smell even though the windows were open and the hawthorn tree outside the window was in full bloom with white blossoms.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. McVicars.”
Grizelle kept her back to Domenica and gripped the counter. “I went into town this morning. I saw the paper and I didn’t buy one. I didn’t have to. I knew. I walked by the list of the dead at the post. I knew his name was there and I did not want to see it in ink, on a wall, with all those people standing around. But I looked. He was on the list.”
“He was a devoted son. The funeral—” Domenica began.
“There will be no funeral,” she said without emotion. “He died at sea.”
“The merchant navy would like to—”
“I don’t care about the merchant navy. I told him to join the British navy. Better assignments. Did he listen? Not once.”
“But, Mrs. McVicars—”
“They took my son and now he’s dead. There is no medal or certificate etched in gold that will bring him back to me. They can keep their trinkets.”
“He died a hero.”
Grizelle spun around and faced Domenica. “To whom? To the Tallies? Your people? Bunch of crooks. The Germans? You watch. They’ll own us in short order. They have bombs. They will flatten us from the air with the Luftwaffe. The Austrians? Who cares about them? Do they care about me?”
“This is about your son. He should be remembered.”
“I have my memories.”
Domenica thought it odd that her Victorian mother-in-law possessed the same demeanor in tragedy that she displayed under ordinary circumstances. Grizelle didn’t appear to grieve but to sulk, as if it were an inconvenience that her son had gone off and gotten himself killed in service to his country.
Grizelle poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot. She did not offer a cup to Domenica. She covered the pot in a tea cozy shaped like a cottage sewn from bits of velvet and felt. The cottage had windows and a door. Tiny felt lilacs spilled out of the corduroy window boxes. The whimsical tea cozy was a touch of warmth in a house with none, and an indication that there was a time when Grizelle imagined a happy home.
Domenica tried to picture Grizelle McVicars in her youth as a loving mother, but it was impossible. Grizelle clung to disappointment like the morning glories on the roof with their twisted arabesque stems that gripped the copper gutters like fingers. A lifetime of disappointment had hobbled her good nature. Grizelle was on an emotional crawl that dug her deeper into the pit of her own unhappiness. There was no way to comfort her. Nurses called these patients “malcontents.”
There was no common courtesy either. There was not to be an offer of a cup of tea, or a biscuit, or a memory to share with her daughter-in-law.
“Mrs. McVicars, I know you are heartbroken, and I am too.”
Grizelle did not respond.
Domenica continued. “I must ask you for something, because you’re the only person in the world who could help me going forward.”
Grizelle spun around. “There is no money. You are entitled to nothing. If I had an extra quid, I wouldn’t give it to you. You were barely in his life.”
“You misunderstand. Let me finish. I don’t want money. You’re his mother and you should keep all reminders of him, including any change you find in his pockets. But if you could spare a photograph of him, I would be grateful.”
Grizelle’s eyes were wild with fury. “If I had a photograph, I would rip it into pieces before I would ever give it to you. You are the reason I lost my son.”
Domenica was ushered out of the house. Grizelle slammed, then locked the front door behind her. The gray clouds that had gathered over Glasgow dropped low in the sky like a clutter of pots. The rhythmic tings of rain on the roof made a sound that reminded Domenica of the inn in Manchester on their wedding night. There hadn’t been a radio with music, so they danced by the fire to the sound of the falling rain.
John had chided her because the Italian girl never remembered her umbrella in bonny Scotland. His wife was not one to think of rain when the sun was shining. Domenica waited for the storm to pass, but it soon became clear that the downpour was the beginning of something far worse. She ran out into the rain and did not look back.
VIAREGGIO
Now