dread,’ Francesca said quietly. ‘When will you tell Marco?’
‘When I bring the boy home.’
‘You will not warn him?’
‘No. I want there to be no argument.’
Marco lived a life of certainties: work, faith, and marriage. Most of the complexities of existence could be explained either by reason or by fate, and so, when he saw Teresa carrying the child, he was convinced that she was holding a new niece or nephew.
‘Francesca?’ he asked. ‘She can’t stop.’
‘The child has come from Francesca but she is not the mother.’
‘Who is?’ He smiled. ‘Have you stolen him?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Then what are you doing?’
‘I want to keep him,’ Teresa said suddenly.
‘He’s not ours to keep.’ Surely she was joking.
‘I found him,’ she continued quietly. ‘Six months ago. On Ascension Day.’
‘And what have you done?’
‘Francesca has weaned him for me.’
‘Then Francesca can keep him.’
‘No.’
It was the first time she had ever denied him.
Marco stepped back. ‘You’ve always intended to keep him – without talking to me, without asking my permission?’
‘I meant to tell you, but I knew that you would be angry.’
Why could he not understand? Did he not remember how she had been mad with the lack of a child? ‘I have to keep him. He is a son. For both of us.’
‘Not mine.’
‘Please,’ she appealed, and then immediately regretted the fact that she sounded so keen to appease.
‘Give him to the priest. Or to another mother. Take him back to your sister.’ This was what he had dreaded all these years: another man’s child.
‘I can’t,’ Teresa answered simply.
‘If you won’t give him away then I will,’ Marco replied, as if ending the argument.
‘No,’ she said.
‘He can’t stay,’ Marco reiterated.
‘Look at him.’
‘I can’t,’ said Marco firmly. ‘I won’t.’
‘Please,’ Teresa begged. ‘Look.’
Marco raised his eyes and studied the child. How could he be a father to someone so unlike himself? He tried to reason. ‘Can’t you see the disgrace?’
Teresa looked down at the child, and then directly into her husband’s eyes. ‘People will forgive us.’
‘They won’t,’ Marco asserted. ‘They’ll think you a whore.’
‘They know that I was never pregnant. They have seen me. Why else am I called barren?’
‘Then they’ll think it mine, that I have been with another.’
‘I don’t care.’ Teresa was suddenly fierce again, determined. ‘If you loved me then you would love the child.’
‘You know that I love you. But how can I love a child that is not mine? Do not ask me to do this. Have I not done enough for you? Cared for you? Loved you?’
‘But can’t you see?’
‘Please …’ Marco reasoned.
‘No. I ask you. I beg you,’ his wife replied. ‘I will do everything. You don’t have to talk to him. You don’t even have to look at him if you don’t want to. Just let me be with him.’
‘Rather than with me.’
‘It is not a choice between you and the child.’
‘It seems that it is.’
‘No,’ said Teresa once more. She realised, for the first time, that she liked the sound of the word: its percussive defiance. ‘He can work for you. We will need an apprentice.’
‘Don’t think of such things.’
The child began to wake and cry.
‘You see?’ said Marco.
‘I will care for him. You need do nothing. I will keep him away from you. Nothing about him need concern you.’
Teresa took the boy to the back of the house and fed him the bread softened in milk that she had prepared. She would hide him in the house for the night, stay with him, and protect him against her husband.
She laid the baby on a small upturned wooden bench that she had lined and covered in blankets. He would be safe with her. She would remain with him all night. Perhaps she would never sleep soundly again. Her life was guarding this child: against her husband and against the world.
‘Paolo,’ she said quietly. ‘I will call you Paolo.’
When Teresa woke she knew that something was wrong.
Her son had disappeared.
This was the punishment for all the elation he had given her. She could hear the men downstairs, laughing as they began their day’s work. She must ask them, force them even, to tell her what had happened.
‘Where’s Marco?’ she asked the stizzador, as he stoked the furnace.
The man shrugged.
‘Have you seen the child?’ she asked the apprentice.
‘The bastard?’
‘Not the bastard. The child.’
She felt the fury rise inside her. This was how they spoke. Already the apprentice had learned.
‘The foundling.’ It was as if he was correcting her.
‘My child,’ she shouted.
For a moment there was silence. The two men turned away.
Teresa walked outside and looked down the street. It started to rain, sudden and hard, momentarily confusing her. She tried to think how far Marco’s anger could stretch and the panic made her wild. She ran through the streets, asking all who would listen. She asked the boat builders, vintners, bakers, and butchers; the masons, shoemakers, coopers, and carpenters; the smiths, the fishermen, the barber, and the surgeon if they had
