In the afternoon, they went to Panebianco for one last try. Panebianco, fat as a sow, laughed the way he always did when someone brought him a gift; then he studied Catena’s eyes for a long time, fingering her cheeks with his thick, light fingers.

“Ruined?” he continued repeating, with the air of a man who has all the answers. “Ruined? We’ll see about that! You’ll be leaving by the end of the month.”

Morning after morning with the baby in tow they would go to Panebianco’s; and Mamma Vita always brought a basket of eggs and fruit, a sack of grain, a hen, or a pair of pigeons under her cape because Panebianco, the poor man’s doctor, accepted any kind of payment.

But Catena’s eyes went from bad to worse; and when she’d get up in the morning, she had to hold a handkerchief over them till they adjusted to the light. She couldn’t take it any longer and began to lose faith, even in Panebianco, and insisted on changing doctors.

Toward the end of the month a letter arrived from Mariano. He was beginning to earn something; there were thirty-five of them, all from Mistretta, and they’d stayed together; even the women were employed. All bits of news that felt like slaps in the face to her. She read the letter over and over, full of anger. He seemed happy, and gna’ Vita thought again of gna’ Maria’s bitter words when she’d said one day that sons, once over there, even forget about the mothers who gave birth to them.

Catena lost all hope of leaving, and she no longer believed any of the doctors: tricksters, thieves, all of them, good for nothing but sucking blood from the poor. Panebianco alone had cost them six hens and who knows how much fruit and how many eggs.

In ssù ‘Ntoni’s little house, the days passed full of melancholy. There were neither holidays nor processions for the two women, always chores and church on Sunday, praying at the altar of Saint Lucy. Ssù ‘Ntoni had found a laborer to help him work the land, since his wife could no longer accompany him. He talked less and less, his thoughts fixed on his son, beautiful and strong as an oak, who was now working for others.

The baby wasn’t doing well either, growing poorly both because he was being nourished with bad milk and because instead of playing with the other little ones, he was simply passed from the arms of his grandmother to those of his mother, being all that was left to them of Mariano.

Catena had become somewhat of a recluse and even shunned her friends. In that small, olive-colored face, now gaunt as though a fire were consuming it from within, her eyes appeared much larger and much blacker because of the dark shadows that encircled them.