“Sofia,” calls Antonia.
“Yeah?”
“Does Saul know?”
“No,” says Sofia, from near the front door of Antonia’s apartment.
* * *
—
Sometimes when they are alone Antonia wishes, fervently, silently, that Paolo would cross the expanse of sofa or table between them and seize her around the waist and peel the blouse from her shoulders, the skirt from her thighs. In the halfway space before she falls asleep, she can imagine the weight of his body; she fills with hot honey.
How thin the line is, Antonia realizes. How insubstantial the space between imagining and asking.
How easy it almost seems to cross over.
* * *
—
Sofia cannot bring herself to be sorry, but she is scared.
Some nights she lies awake and imagines hiding it. She spends sleepless hours designing baggy blouses, jackets with huge cowls, skirts that balloon out around her waist.
Sometimes she pictures herself and Saul and their baby, living wild in a cabin in the woods, or carrying tents on their backs like Indians. Saul would hunt for deer and she would gather acorns for flour and oysters to roast in the coals of their fires. They would dress their child in woven grasses. They would sleep curled into one another under the stars.
She fantasizes that her mother will embrace Saul and cry, and her father will clap him on the back and look at Sofia and be stern, but proud. They will plan a big wedding—outside, to be in plain view of both of their Gods, and Sofia will drape herself in jewels and silk and they will dance until sunrise.
She worries she will end up alone, baby strapped to her leaking breasts by an old scarf, hunting for pennies in the gutter.
She imagines it growing, but she can feel nothing.
* * *
—
She tells Saul first. He has not heard from his mother since the summer of 1941. He has not been alone in a room with Sofia since the night she spent with him in December. It is not in his nature to be angry with her for avoiding him. What can I do, he asks her. She does not look pregnant, and it is hard for Saul to comprehend what he is being told. What do you need. Sofia doesn’t need anything. If she stands and does nothing, she will still grow a human being inside her body. But she is happier than she would have imagined to be with Saul. He kisses her and something in Sofia blooms upward, something is hot and waiting, something has been dreaming of this moment. She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and pulls.
She invites Saul to dinner without telling her mamma, which she knows will send Rosa into an anxious spiral. But Sofia can’t figure out how to tell Rosa and Joey that Saul is coming without telling them why, and Saul wanted to be there. It’s my responsibility too, he says, with the very serious crease between his brows. The problem had turned into an “it”; had been shared; had been named, and so it had been called into being, into the world with them. Sofia gets into a cab and watches Saul walk away, scratching a nervous circle into the back of his head. Something about his slow steps makes her weepy, lumps like laughter she has to swallow down. You love him, a voice in her head says. You didn’t expect it, but you do. It sounds like Frankie. Shut up, Sofia responds. She turns her head forward. The cab moves toward Brooklyn.
Saul shows up at the Colicchio apartment early and Rosa is wiping her hands on a dishrag as she says, “Joey will be out in a minute.” He thanks her, because there is no way to tell her, actually, I am here for dinner. Luckily Sofia hears him enter, because she pops her head into the living room and says, “Mamma’s making meatballs. Would you stay?” and Rosa, after a shrewd look at Sofia, says, “Yes, of course, we wouldn’t hear of you going out in the cold, come,” and offers Saul a glass of wine, and sneaks down the hall to whisper with Joey. Sofia and Saul hear Joey say, “No, no meeting,” and they look at one another in furtive silence.
When dinner is served Sofia and Frankie and Saul and Joey and Rosa sit around the table in silence for a moment, staring at their untouched plates as the steam rises in curling columns toward the ceiling. They are all lit from the top down by the overhead bulb and from the inside out by the candles on the table. It is Frankie who eats first and eases them out of their silence.
Only Sofia finishes her plate: she is ravenous; every space within her cries out to be filled.
And then there comes a moment where everyone has paused, where the candles still flicker and the attention at the table moves and comes to rest on Sofia, and on Saul. And Sofia wipes her mouth with her napkin and laces her fingers together and her voice creaks open.