As if in answer to his thoughts, her own responded: She would make the change that was called for, she would change her place for her children’s sake. But she wondered to herself if it would be pleasing to God, or not, that they change their place in the world. Would God see her and know her in the strangeness of the New World where Serafino said there were no churches for such as they? Or would they add to their sins and end up more miserably? She had to believe that God would bless them, and, as if to seal a bargain, she made a sign of the cross.

They left Castagna with their last possession, a donkey, bearing the children and bundles. They descended the path into the valley and passed by the ivy-covered ruins of the Norman abbey on the banks of the Corace.

Serafino stopped and told her to take a last look up at the village.

She said she would like a drink before they went on, and filled a jug at the water and drank from it, offering it also to her husband and the small Giacomo. Then they left the valley. She did not look back, but Serafino did and his blue eyes filled with tears, for he knew there was no coming back. And he knew that his strength was less now than it had been fifteen years ago; if he hadn’t won America over then, how would he do so now?

Chapter Three

Each step reinforced the feeling of the great wrench their lives had been given. Uprooted, they were set loose from their land and their people. For Serafino it was defeat; for Umbertina, confidence grew from the moment the children and bundles were put on the donkey and they walked the road to Soveria Mannelli, there to join the other emigrants headed for Cosenza and then the coast.

From that day Umbertina was never again alone, but always with others; among people talking, complaining, weeping, swearing, praying, eating, laughing, vomiting, urinating, lamenting. Sometimes she felt a longing beyond words or prayers, like a physical ache, to go back in time to the days of her solitude in the hills. Then she would be ashamed; she was a woman, with a husband and three sons, not a girl among goats. She never spoke of her feelings; she kept her thoughts in silence. But Serafino, simple as he was, could read the fleeting shadow of distress in her face and would bend over and say, “Coraggio, coraggio.” When he did so, her shame at her weakness was doubled. He was her companion, her friend.

At Soveria Mannelli they sold their last possession, the donkey, and bought bread and dried figs for the trip. Another bit of the money went to pay their way in the wagon that would take them to the sea. Umbertina was troubled at the small price Serafino got for the donkey. She saw how those who left their homes were truly without place or meaning, or protection—at the mercy of whomever they met in their journey, and with whom they could not bargain.