Jake and Ben had given up their outside jobs, and with the Longobardi wholesale and importing business thriving they both thought of marriage. Both approached it pragmatically and took girls they knew and had grown up with: no surprises, but good workers. Both furthered the relationship with the Muzzis—Jake by marrying Amelia and Ben by marrying Jenny. So there it was: Umbertina was now more firmly connected to Cristina Muzzi and all her complaints than ever before.

But the girls, Amelia and Jenny, were docile, easygoing girls born to breed large families and never give trouble. They were neither whiners like Cristina nor headstrong and domineering like Umbertina. They raised no objections about living all together under Umbertina’s roof and seeing their husbands’ earnings doled out and supervised by their mother-in-law while they themselves depended upon her, too, for other expense money.

The marriages, however, started Umbertina thinking about leaving the Broad Street place and finding more suitable housing for them all.

17. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

As if luck had been too lavishly given to the Longobardis and a compensatory toll must be exacted, it came suddenly and claimed the thirteen-year-old Margherita, a beautiful healthy girl who took sick and died of quick consumption before Dr. Rossi could do anything for her.

In death she was laid out in the front parlor of the Broad Street house, where the neighbors and paesani came to pay their respects and cross themselves in the silent prayer that such a thing would not be visited upon their own families. Tuberculosis was prevalent among the mill workers and the mill workers’ children, with whom their own children, like Margherita, had contact in school. The women in black said their rosaries before the girl’s coffin and prayed to be spared. It was the last family function in the old house.

For Umbertina it was a crushing sorrow, reminding her of the terrible days in the tenements when she had lost Rocco. Why was it, she asked Serafino, that the Lord blessed them with one hand and took away with the other? Was there some kind of balance that had to be kept? Margherita was the favorite of her daughters, as Paul was of her sons. She was the girl in whom Umbertina saw herself—the same eyes, the same quiet, tenacious will, and the same love for the outdoors.

Serafino opened his hands wide in the age-old gesture of helplessness; he said nothing. He went with Jake to Calvary Cemetery and chose a site at its highest point, nearest the huge wooden cross that gave the cemetery its name. He bought a large grassy plot with places enough for twenty-four family members, and Margherita was the first of the Longobardis to be laid to rest in Cato.