SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Two
They gave Cecco only a few moments to kiss my hand before the master of the house drew him back to his study. The men roared with several raucous rounds of toasts to our good fortune.
Alone again with the women, I did my best to smile as they each accepted refreshments in my honor.
“Drink this,” Sofia insisted, bringing me a cup of red wine.
It was the last thing I wanted in my nauseous state, but she would not accept to my feeble protests.
“My mother gave this to me when Ferrante and I were expecting our first child,” she explained. “It will make you feel better and settle the child. ‘Drink the red if you want a strong boy,’ mama said. ‘Drink white if you want a sweet girl.’”
Sofia waited until I managed a healthy swallow.
“Did it work?” I asked, wincing at the dry burn that followed the drink down my throat.
“Signore Vervio has five sons,” she explained with a simple laugh. “If my mother was right, I plan to ensure our next child will be a daughter.”
The woman’s resolve convinced me of the wisdom, and I suffered to swallow down another long sip.
We remained at the Vervio’s for another half hour before they sent us home. I remained adamant that we should not leave, assuring all that I felt fine. But after Cecco had downed three servings of a fine grappa that Signore Vervio brought out only for special occasions, the lady of the house sent us home for the evening, insisting that I must rest.
Soon after we arrived, a kitchen servant turned up at our front door with the dinner we had missed, a final gesture of thanks for the good fortune we had brought to their home. Along with the food were two flagons of wine, one of which the delivery boy noted was meant for me.
I refused any more when Cecco tried to place a cup in my hand, insisting I couldn’t manage another drop. In his joyous, drunken condition, he was only too happy to drink it for me as Apollonia served his dinner.
“You are the greatest blessing of my life,” he said tenderly, kissing my lips several times before releasing me to leave him for bed.
Had I not felt so ill, I might have wept at his sweetness.
I didn’t bother Apollonia with my garments and undressed alone before making my way to bed. I was grateful to find there the silence I needed to recover. Though my nausea subsided, and I found sleep, the sharp pains returned at three o’clock that morning. I did not realize what they meant, and I bore them through gritted teeth for hours, desperate for them to subside.
By the first light of dawn, I gave birth to Cecco’s first child, who arrived ill-formed, the size of my thumb, and swimming in a sea of blood.
Apollonia was the first to find me that morning, hearing my weak cries for help that Cecco slept through in his room down the hall. She had cleaned both the bed and I so well that when my husband later woke and learned of our loss, he didn’t believe either of us for several minutes.
“It’s my fault,” he told me, horrified at my ghostly pallor. “I should’ve made you drink Signora Vervio’s wine like she advised. I celebrated like a scoundrel, and God has punished us for my pride.”
He could not hide the tears his sorrow brought, and the sight of them left me with a searing anguish I bore long after my body healed.
Though Cecco silenced Apollonia, determined to not allow news of our tragedy to reach the town’s ears, it was inevitable that his peers should learn the truth. Signora Vervio called on me not three days later, and the moment I saw her pained eyes, I fell apart into her embrace.
“This happens,” she whispered after waiting for my bout of weeping to finish. “You’re not the first woman to miscarry. Nor will you be the last. And I mourn with you, my dear, truly I do. But your tears will dry one day soon. Life is packed with tests for us to overcome—it is the path God has set for us—and we have no choice but to walk it. In a few weeks, you and your husband will try for another. When the time is right, you will find yourself with child again. God willing, he will arrive strong.”
The woman’s words, delivered as plainly as my mother might have, rang true. They brought about the first inkling of relief I’d experienced in days. And by the time she bid me farewell with a warm kiss on each cheek, I had resolved to cast off my sorrow and see to my duty.
“You’re too thin to carry a child,” Apollonia admonished me in private that evening. “You hardly touched the food I prepared for you.”
“I still don’t feel well,” my timid answer came, stifled by her cross tone.
Though I was the ‘Signora’ of Cecco’s house, I was still weeks away from my sixteenth birthday, and the people in my life were much older. How could I view any of them as peers or beneath me? That I had grown to love and trust in Apollonia made her words even more harrowing.
“You are far too underweight,” she returned. “I can reach my fingers around your narrow arms. And your hips still look like a boy’s. A mother must have weight to carry a child.”
Tears threatened to overtake me, but I gritted my teeth and staved them off.
“I will eat more,” I said, presenting little better than a limp agreement.
“Signora Vervio’s recommendation of wine is sheer nonsense,” she continued. “If you swallow but a thimble-full, you have trouble standing. Fresh spring water mixed with honey, that’s all you should drink. Meats and pasta and cheeses—you must consume rich foods to enrich your body. And don’t nibble like a bird when I serve you a meal—eat your fill. Eat until you cannot bear to eat anymore!”
Apollonia took my hand and lowered her voice.
“In a month, you will be stronger. We can’t allow you to fail the Signore again.”
I gave into my tears and she hugged me, stroking my hair like a mother would. She held me just as she had during those dawn hours of my miscarriage, when I shivered and feared for my life.
During following days, I ate everything Apollonia placed in front of me. Even if it required me to stave off nausea, I swallowed it. I ate more even than my husband.
“It’s good for her,” she smiled approvingly at Cecco’s puzzled concern. “She has regained her strength. Look how beautiful her color is.”
After two months of committing to her weight-gain regiment, my body filled out better than either of us could’ve hoped for. My hips grew, my skin glowed, and my raven hair became thicker, lustrous like darkly polished wood. Even my breasts became those of a woman’s. Apollonia made countless jokes about how they were making my clothes look indecent when she helped me to dress.
The changes did not miss my husband’s notice, whose lust found me almost every night. Our love for each other grew as happiness found us again. By late autumn, just as both Signora Vervio and Apollonia had promised, the midwife confirmed the blessing of another child.