“Well, yes,” she laughed, “maybe that, too, but actually for old Umbertina. It’s the family women’s quaquaversal plant—wherever one of Umbertina’s clan descends, there also will be rosemary planted, for where it grows, the women of the house are its strength.”

“And what of the men?”

“They should grow fig trees, maybe,” she laughed. “But seriously, don’t give it a sexist interpretation! It doesn’t take anything away from men if their women are as strong as they. Strong men deserve strong women.”

“Agreed.”

“We’ll just pit our strengths together from now on.”

“And the rosemary will help?”

“Yes, darling Bear, the rosemary will help. I’m planting rosemary here because our lives will soon be merging and here’s where our roots will be.”

“So you’ve finally learned how to cultivate your own garden.”

She looked at him lovingly. “I guess that’s what it is—my great-grandmother planted peppers and pole beans, I’m going to plant humanism. And don’t be offended, Jason, by my keeping my own name when we’re married. That’s the name I want to write under.”

“That’s all right with me, Tina. You can have as long and Italian a name as you want, but what of our children?”

“Oh, Jason, you’re so forward-looking—comes from your ancestors, I suppose, always looking out to sea at the long line of the horizon. Well, I guess we’ll just hyphenate the kids.”

“And I guess it’s time to go now. Back to the grind once more.”

“Yes, time to go,” she said. “But we’ll be back. The rosemary stays here to get rooted and the tin heart comes with me wherever I am. Just to remind me of the imprevedibile in life.”

Tina smiled over her shoulder at him as she went into the house to get her things for the trip back to New York.

She had done her planting and a sense of well-being pervaded her. Her place was marked; all the positioning to come, between her and Jason, would have this as focus.

46. Afterword

Afterword

An Immigrant Tapestry

All history should be told as people’s stories.

Helen Barolini, Umbertina

I thought of my work as a thread in the fabric of the whole national literature. When it was written in the late 1970s, that fabric seemed receptive to new designs and figures, it held the promise of becoming a splendidly variegated tapestry of many strands and colors.

Helen Barolini, “Umbertina and the Universe”