José’s father had died in his sleep within the first years of his son’s exile in South America. His mother, though, was still alive, her notorious stubbornness defying death. Two of his brothers lived in town, having taken over their father’s merchant business. Mrs. Garibaldi stood at the docks, a stout woman dressed in black. Her blond hair stuck out like straw under her black cap. “Peppino!” she exclaimed, grabbing José by the face and kissing him. “Peppino mio.” She brushed away tears.

She turned to me. “She is so dark! I didn’t expect her to be so dark.”

“Mamma,” José said in an attempt to get her to stop.

Mamma Garibaldi looked up at her son. “Our family has prided itself on not looking like southerners.” She reached up, touching his golden-brown curls. “It is a shame none of your children will have your looks.”

“I think Menotti looks like his father,” I said in defense of my children, feeling an annoyance grow inside me. There was always an implication when someone remarked that a child didn’t look like their father, and I didn’t like the downcast looks Mamma Garibaldi gave my children.

She huffed. “Perhaps if he had been born in Africa.” She looked down at Menotti. “But what can you do when their mother is from South America.” She tsked as she turned from us and started walking.

I looked at José. “I thought you said she was a kind woman.”

José shrugged. “She’ll warm up to you.”

I looked to Mamma Garibaldi, who walked ahead of us, navigating the narrow cobbled streets with the deftness of someone half her age, not caring if we could keep up. I doubted my husband’s words. “I have dinner ready,” she said. “It’s been getting cold. You should have gotten here sooner.”

We followed her up the stairs to the family apartment, which took up the whole floor. “We will have to live like sardines with so many people in our tiny home,” she complained as we entered.

The Garibaldi flat boasted a modest entrance hall, the cream tile gleaming in the evening light. The walls were decorated with paintings of faraway hillsides dotted with wildflowers. Mamma Garibaldi pointed to the left. “That way to the bedrooms. The children will share one room. José, you can have your old room. Anita will have the spare room next to mine.”

“Mother, don’t you mean that Anita and I get our own room?”

“No, I do not. My son will not commit bigamy under my roof,” she said, leading us through a set of double doors into the formal parlor.

I stiffened. After all these years, an ocean away, I still couldn’t escape my past. My grip tightened on Ricciotti as Teresita clung to my skirts. How could I be so foolish? I would never be more than the disobedient girl who never learned her place.

Red blotches appeared on José’s neck and chest. He took me by the elbow and whispered in my ear, “Stay here, let me talk to her.” José led his mother out into the hall while I sat on the light pink couch holding Ricciotti, with Teresita and Menotti on either side of me. Bits of the conversation flowed into the parlor.