“I could take something from what we have at Ranucci’s,” he said, “and send him a money order.” He spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

For the first time in their married life, Umbertina looked at him with anger. He was a man of over forty and she a young woman in her twenties, already thick with childbearing and heavy now with her newest pregnancy.

Her face flushed and she screamed, “Let Beppino make his way as we did! He hasn’t a wife or children. He can work.” It was the first time she had shown rage at him and her eyes filled with tears at her feelings. “You are a fool!”

Serafino felt the same hurt as a child who is turned upon by someone he loves. He was astounded at her reaction and what he considered her hardheartedness. “Non hai sentimenti” he said chidingly.

“Feelings!” she threw at him in anger. “Why should I have feelings for a grown man like Beppino who lives in his own home while my children live in the land of strangers in this sty,” she screamed. “You have the sentiment and no brains to go with it!”

For years she had been silent and stoic, bearing everything. But now the time had come for her to take charge, and she would do so whether it meant disrespect to her husband or not.

Serafino was crushed. He did not fight back or give her the blow she deserved. “What do you want from me, Signore Dio!” he said in a self-pitying tone.

“I want you to get us out of the city. Now I am having another child and we are still here. Giacomo is eight and Benedetto six . . . maybe they remember what it was to see trees and the sun shining. But this new baby and Paolo—what will it be for them? To live in this room or on the streets? Even the goats in my father’s pen were let out into the hills. Are we worse than the animals?”

“We will go, we will go,” Serafino muttered in a tired, defeated way. He was already forty-four and he had never recovered all of his strength after his health had broken. Could he be sure to find other work if he left what he had? The work was steady now in New York; he had his paesani in the saloon with whom he found pleasure playing cards.

But Umbertina had different ideas: to have a piece of land, to be again in the open air under the sun working the soil—most of all, to use their strength for themselves.

Before the beginning of a third summer was upon them, Umbertina took things into her own hands and had Anna Giordani write to Domenico Saccà in Cato for her. She couldn’t send a written message to her relative Giovanni Muzzi directly because he was as illiterate as she. She told Anna Giordani to write Domenico, asking him to find out what work Serafino could have in Cato and to see if Giovanni Muzzi could find them a place to live. Domenico could answer through Anna Giordani.