Excerpt from
CHAPTER 1
Today is the day my teacher, Miss Stoddard, comes to see my parents.
She sent them a letter telling them she wanted to come to our house
to discuss "the further education of Nella Castelluca."
The letter is official, it was written on a typewriter, signed by
my teacher with a fountain pen, dated October 1, 1924, and at the
top there's a gold stamp that says pennsylvania education authority.
We never get fancy mail on the farm, only handwritten letters from
our relatives in Italy. Mama is saving the envelope from Miss Stoddard
for me in a box where she keeps important papers. Sometimes I ask
her to show it to me, and every time I read it, I am thrilled all
over again.
I hope my parents decide to let me
go to school in Roseto. Delabole School only goes to the seventh
grade, and I've repeated it twice just so I can keep learning. Miss
Stoddard is going to tell my parents that I should be given the
opportunity to go to high school in town because I have "great
potential."
I am the third daughter of five girls,
and I have never been singled out for anything. Finally, it feels
like it's my turn. It's as though I'm in the middle of a wonderful
contest: the music has stopped, the blindfolded girl has pointed
to me, and I've won the cakewalk. I've hardly slept a wink since
the letter arrived. I can't. My whole world will change if my parents
let me go to school. My older sisters, Assunta and Elena, stopped
going to school after the seventh grade. Neither wanted to continue
and there is so much work on the farm, it wasn't even discussed.
I was helping Mama clean the house
to prepare for our company, but she made me go outside because I
was making her nervous. She's nervous? I don't know if I will make
it until two o'clock.
As I lean against the trunk of the
old elm at the end of our lane and look up, the late-afternoon sunlight
comes through the leaves in little bursts like a star shower, so
bright I have to squint so my eyes won't hurt. Over the hill, our
farmhouse, freshly painted pale gray, seems to dance above the ground
like a cloud.
Even the water in the creek that runs
past my feet seems full of possibility; the old stones that glisten
under the water look like silver dollars. How I wish they were!
I would scoop them up, fill my pockets, and bring them to Mama,
so she could buy whatever she wanted. When I think of her, and I
do lots during the day, I remember all the things she doesn't have
and then I try to think up ways to give her what she needs. She
deserves pretty dishes and soft rugs and glittering rings. She makes
do with enamel plates, painted floorboards, and the locket Papa
gave her when they were engaged. Papa smiles when I tell him about
my dreams for Mama, and sometimes I think he wishes he could give
her nice things too, but we're just farmers.
If only I could get an education,
then I could get a good job and give Mama the world. Papa says I
get my brains from her. She is a quick study; in fact, she taught
herself to read and write English. Mama spends most nights after
dinner teaching Papa to read English, and when he can't say the
words properly, Mama laughs, and then Papa curses in Italian and
she laughs harder.
I feel guilty being so happy because
usually this is a sad time of year, as the green hills of Delabole
turn toffee-colored, which means that soon winter will come and
we will have the hog killing. Papa says that if we want to eat,
we must help. All the chores around the killing used to bother me;
now I don't cry much. I just stay busy. I help stretch the cloth
tarps where the innards lay in the smokehouse before they're made
into sausage, and line the wooden barrels where the scraps go. I
have taught my sisters how to separate the innards and rinse them
in the cool stream of the springhouse. There's always plenty of
help. Papa invites all his friends from Roseto, and we make a party
of it. The dinner at the end of the day is the best part, when the
women make tenderloin on the open pit and Papa's friends tell stories
of Italy. It helps to laugh because then you don't think about the
dying part so much.
"Nella?" Mama calls out
from the porch.
"Over here!" I holler back.
"Come inside!" She motions
me over and goes back into the house.
I carefully place my bookmark in the
middle of Jane Eyre, which I am reading for the third time, and
pick up the rest of my books and run to the house. It doesn't look
so shabby since the paint job, and the ground around it is much
better in autumn, more smooth, after the goat has eaten his fill
of the grass. Our farm will never be as beautiful as the houses
and gardens in town. Anything that's pretty on the farm is wild.
The fields covered in bright yellow dandelions, low thickets of
tiny red beach roses by the road, and stalks of black-eyed Susans
by the barn are all accidents.
Roseto is only three miles away, but
it might as well be across an ocean. When the trolley isn't running,
we have to walk to get there, mostly through fields and on back
roads, but the hike is worth it. The trolley costs a nickel, so
it's expensive for all of us to ride into town. Sometimes Papa takes
out the carriage and hitches our horse Moxie to take us in, but
I hate that. In town, people have cars, and we look silly with the
old carriage.
Papa knows I like to go into town
just to look at the houses. Roseto is built on a hill, and the houses
are so close together, they are almost connected. When you look
down the main street, Garibaldi Avenue, the homes look like a stack
of candy boxes with their neat red-brick, white-clapboard, and gray-fieldstone
exteriors.
Each home has a small front yard,
smooth green squares of grass trimmed by low hedges. There are no
bumps and no shards of shale sticking up anywhere. Orange, yellow,
and purple bachelor buttons grow along the walkways in rows. On
the farm, the land has pits and holes and the grass grows in tufts.
Every detail in Roseto's landscape seems enchanted, from the fig
trees with their spindly branches to the open wood arbors covered
with white blossoms in the spring, which become fragrant grapes
by summer.
Even the story of how Roseto became
a town is like a fairy tale. We make Papa tell the story because
he remembers when the town was just a camp with a group of Italian
men who came over to find work in the quarries. The men were rejected
in New York and New Jersey because they were Pugliese and had funny
accents that Italians in those places could not understand. One
of Papa's friends saw an ad in a newspaper looking for quarry workers
in Pennsylvania, so they pooled what little money they had and took
the train to Bangor, about ninety miles from New York City, to apply
for work. At first, there was resistance to hiring the Italians,
but when the quarry owners saw how hard the immigrants worked, they
made it clear that more jobs were available. This is how our people
came to live here. As the first group became established, they sent
for more men, and those men brought their families. The Italians
settled in an area outside Bangor called Howell Town, and eventually,
another piece of land close by was designated for the Italians.
They named it Roseto, after the town they came from. In Italian,
it means "hillside covered with roses." Papa tells us
that when the families built their homes here, they positioned them
exactly as they had been in Italy. So if you were my neighbor in
Roseto Valfortore, you became my neighbor in the new Roseto.
Papa's family were farmers, so the
first thing he did when he saved enough money working in the quarry
was to lease land outside Roseto and build his farm. The cheapest
land was in Delabole, close enough to town and yet too far for me.
Papa still works in the quarry for extra money sometimes, but mainly
his living comes from the three cows, ten chickens, and twelve hogs
we have on the farm.
"Mama made everything look nice,"
Elena tells me as she sweeps the porch. She is sixteen, only two
years older than me, but she has always seemed more mature. Elena
is Mama's helper; she takes care of our two younger sisters and
helps with the household chores. She is thin and pretty, with pale
skin and dark brown eyes. Her black hair falls in waves, but there
is always something sad about her, so I spend a lot of time trying
to cheer her up.
"Thanks for sweeping," I
tell her.
"I want everything to look perfect
for Miss Stoddard too." She smiles.
There is no sweeter perfume on the
farm than strong coffee brewing on the stove and Mama's buttery
sponge cake, fresh out of the oven. Mama has the place sparkling.
The kitchen floor is mopped, every pot is on its proper hook, and
the table is covered in a pressed blue-and-white-checked tablecloth.
In the front room, she has draped the settee in crisp white muslin
and placed a bunch of lavender tied with a ribbon in the kindling
box by the fireplace. I hope Miss Stoddard doesn't notice that we
don't have much furniture.
"How do I look?" Mama asks,
turning slowly in her Sunday dress, a simple navy blue wool crepe
drop-waist with black buttons. Mama's hair is dark brown; she wears
it in a long braid twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck.
She has high cheekbones and deep-set brown eyes; her skin is tawny
brown from working in the field with Papa.
"Beautiful."
Mama laughs loudly. "Oh Nella,
you always lie to make me feel good. But that's all right, you have
a good heart." Mama pulls a long wooden spoon from the brown
crock on the windowsill. She doesn't have to ask; I fetch the jar
of raspberry jam we put up last summer from the pantry. Mama takes
a long serrated knife, places her hand on top of the cool cake,
and without a glitch slices the sponge cake in two, lengthwise.
No matter how many times I try to slice a cake in two, the knife
always gets stuck. Mama separates the halves, placing the layers
side by side on her cutting board. She spoons the jam onto one side,
spreads it evenly, and then flips the top layer back on, perfectly
centered over the layer of jam. Finally, she reaches into the sugar
canister, pulls out the sift, and dusts the top with powdered sugar.
Zia Irma's Italian Sponge Cake
1 cup cake flour
6 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon almond flavoring
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Sift
the cake flour. Beat the egg yolks until lemon-colored. Gradually
add the sugar. Blend the flour and almond flavoring in the water
and add to the egg yolk mixture at low speed. Add the salt and cream
of tartar. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they are
frothy and stand in peaks. Fold the egg yolk mixture into the whites
just until blended. Pour the batter into a 10-inch ungreased tube
pan. Bake for one hour or until cake springs back when lightly touched
in center. Let sit in inverted position until cool.
"Now. Is this good enough for
your teacher?" Mama asks as she lifts the cake onto her best
platter.
"It looks better than the cakes
in the bakery window." I'm sure Mama knows I'm lying again.
As nice as Mama's cake is, I wish that we were serving pastries
from Marcella's, the bakery in town. There's a pink canopy over
the storefront and bells that chime when you push the front door
open. Inside they have small white café tables with matching
wrought-iron chairs with swirly backs. When Papa goes there and
buys cream puffs (always on our birthdays, it's a Castelluca tradition),
the baker puts them on frilly doilies inside a white cardboard box
tied with string. Even the box top is elegant. There's a picture
of a woman in a wide-brimmed hat winking and holding a flag that
says marcella's. No matter how much powdered sugar Mama sprinkles
on this cake to fancy it up, it is still plain old sponge cake made
in our plain old oven.
"Is the teacher here yet?"
Papa hollers as he comes into the house, the screen door banging
behind him.
"No, Papa," I tell him,
relieved that she has not arrived to hear him shouting like a farmer.
Papa comes into the kitchen, grabs Mama from behind, and kisses
her. He is six feet tall; his black hair is streaked with white
at the temples. He has a wide black mustache, which is always neatly
trimmed. Papa's olive skin is deep brown from working in the sun
most every day of his life. His broad shoulders are twice as wide
as Mama's; she is not a small woman, but looks petite next to him.
"I don't have time for fooling
around," Mama says to Papa, removing his hands from her waist.
I am secretly proud that Mama is barking orders, because this is
my important day, and she knows that we need to make a good impression.
Roma and Dianna run into the kitchen. Elena grabs them to wash their
hands at the sink.
"I helped Papa feed the horse,"
Roma says. She is eight years old, sweet and round, much like one
of the rolls in the bakery window.
"Good girl," Mama says to
her. "And Dianna? What did you do?"
"I watched." She shrugs.
Dianna is small and quick, but never uses her dexterity for chores.
Her mind is always off somewhere else. She is the prettiest, with
her long chestnut brown hair streaked with gold, and her blue eyes.
Because Dianna and Roma are only a year apart, and the youngest,
they are like twins, and we treat them as such.
"Everything is just perfect."
I give my mother a quick hug.
"All this fuss. It's just Miss
Stoddard coming over." Assunta, the eldest, is a long, pale
noodle of a girl with jet-black hair and brown eyes that tilt down
at the corners. She has a permanent crease between her eyes because
she is forever thinking up ways to be mean.
"I like Miss Stoddard,"
Elena says quietly.
"She's nobody special,"
Assunta replies. Elena looks at me and moves over to the window,
out of Assunta's way. Elena is very much in the shadow of the eldest
daughter; then again, we all are. Assunta just turned nineteen,
and is engaged to a young man from Mama's hometown in Italy. The
marriage was arranged years ago; Assunta and the boy have written
to each other since they were kids. We are all anxious to meet him,
having seen his picture. He is very handsome and seems tall, though
you really can't tell how tall someone is from a photograph. Elena
and I think the arrangement is a good idea because there is no way
anyone around here would want to marry her. Assunta doesn't get
along with most people, and the truth is, most boys are scared of
her. "Teachers are the same wherever you go. They teach,"
Assunta grunts.
"Miss Stoddard is the best teacher
I ever had," I tell her.
"She's the only teacher you ever
had, dummy."
She's right, of course. I have only
ever gone to Delabole School. For most of the last year, I've helped
Miss Stoddard teach the little ones how to read, and when school
is dismissed, she works with me beyond the seventh-grade curriculum.
I have read Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë,
and loved them all. But now Miss Stoddard believes I need more of
a challenge, and she wants me to go to a school where I will learn
with others my age.
Assunta leans on the table and eyes
the cake. Mama turns to the sink. Papa has gone into the pantry,
so Assunta seizes the moment and extends her long, pointy finger
at the cake to poke at it.
"Don't!" I push the platter
away from her.
Assunta's black eyes narrow. "Do
you think she'll be impressed with sponge cake? You're ridiculous."
I don't know if it's the way she is looking at me, or the thought
that she would deliberately ruin a cake for my teacher, or fourteen
years of antagonism welling up inside of me, but I slap her. At
first, Assunta is surprised, but then delighted to defend herself.
She hits me back, then digs her fingernails into my arm.
Mama pulls me away from her. Assunta
always ruins everything for me, but this is one day that cannot
be derailed by my sister. "What's the matter with you?"
Mama holds on to me.
I want to tell my mother that I've
never wanted anything so much as the very thing Miss Stoddard is
coming to talk to them about, but I've made a habit of never saying
what I really want, for fear that Assunta will find some way to
make sure I don't get it. Mama never understands, she can't see
what kind of a girl my sister really is, and demands that we treat
each other with respect. But how can I respect someone who is cruel?
My parents say they love each of us equally, but is that even possible?
Aren't some people more lovable than others? And why do I have to
be lumped in with a sister who has no more regard for me than the
pigs she kicks out of the way when she goes to feed them in the
pen? Assunta is full of resentment. No matter what her portion might
be, it is never enough. There is no pleasing her, but I am the only
one around here who realizes this.
Elena, who hates fighting, hangs her
head and begins to cry. Dianna and Roma look at each other and run
outside.
"I should tell your teacher to
go straight home when she gets here, that's what I should do,"
Papa says. Assunta stands behind him, smooths her hair, and smirks.
She tells Papa I threw the first punch, so it is I who must be punished.
"Please, please, Papa, don't
send Miss Stoddard away," I beg. I am sorry that I fell for
Assunta's jab, and that the whole of my future could be ruined by
my impulsive nature. "I am sorry, Assunta."
"It's about time you learned
how to behave. You're an animal." Assunta looks at Mama and
then Papa. "You let her get away with everything. You'll see
how she ends up." Assunta storms upstairs. I close my eyes
and count the days until Alessandro Pagano comes from Italy to marry
her and take her out of this house.
"Why do you always lose your
temper?" Papa asks quietly.
"She was going to ruin the cake."
"Assunta is not a girl anymore.
She's about to be married. You musn't hit her. Or anyone,"
Papa says firmly. I wish I could tell him how many times she slaps
me with her hairbrush when he isn't looking.
Mama takes the cake and goes to the
front room.
"I'm sorry," I call after
her quietly.
"You're bleeding," Elena
says, taking the moppeen from the sink. "It's next to your
eye." She dabs the scratch with the cool rag and I feel the
sting.
"Papa, you musn't let her meet
Mr. Pagano before the wedding day. He'll turn right around and go
back to Italy."
Papa tries not to laugh. "Nella.
That's enough."
"He has to marry her. He has
to," I say under my breath.
"They will marry," Papa
promises. "Your mother saw to it years ago."
Papa must know that the deal could
be broken and we'd be stuck with Assunta forever. Bad luck is wily:
it lands on you when you least expect it.
Papa goes out back to wash up. I put
the jar of jam back in the pantry. Elena has already washed the
spoon and put it away; now she straightens the tablecloth. "Don't
worry. Everything will be fine," she says.
"I'm going to wait on the porch
for Miss Stoddard," I tell Mama as I push through the screen
door. Once I'm outside, I sit on the steps and gather my skirts
tightly around my knees and smooth the burgundy corduroy down to
my ankles. The scratch over my eye begins to pulse, so I take my
thumb and apply pressure, something Papa taught me to do when I
accidently cut myself.
I look down to the road that turns
onto the farm and imagine Assunta in her wedding gown, climbing
into the front seat of Alessandro Pagano's car (I hope he has one!).
He revs the engine, and as the car lurches and we wave, her new
husband will honk the horn and we will stand here until they disappear
onto Delabole Road, fading away to a pinpoint in the distance until
they are gone forever. That, I am certain, will be the happiest
moment of my life. If the angels are really on my side that day,
Alessandro will decide he hates America and will throw my sister
on a boat and take her back to Italy.
"Nella! Miss Stoddard is coming!"
Dianna skips out from behind the barn. Roma, as always, follows
a few steps behind. I look down the lane, anchored at the end by
the old elm, and see my teacher walking from the trolley stop. Miss
Stoddard is a great beauty; she has red hair and hazel eyes. She
always wears a white blouse and a long wool skirt. Her black shoes
have small silver buckles, which are buffed shiny like mirrors.
She has the fine bone structure of the porcelain doll Mama saved
from her childhood in Italy. We never play with the delicate doll;
she sits on the shelf staring at us with her perfect ceramic gaze.
But there's nothing fragile about Miss Stoddard. She can run and
jump and whoop and holler like a boy. She taught me how to play
jacks, red rover, and checkers during recess. Most important, she
taught me how to read. For this, I will always be in her debt. She
has known me since I was five, so really, I have known her almost
as long as my own parents. Roma and Dianna have run down the lane
to walk her to our porch; Miss Stoddard walks between them, holding
their hands as they walk to the farmhouse.
"Hi, Nella." Miss Stoddard's
smile turns to a look of concern. "What did you do to your
eye?"
"I hit the gate on the chicken
coop." I shrug. "Clumsy. You know me."
The screen door creaks open.
"Miss Stoddard, please come in,"
Mama says, extending her hand. I'm glad to see Miss Stoddard still
has her gloves on; she won't notice how rough Mama's hands are.
"Please, sit down." Mama tells Elena to fetch Papa. Miss
Stoddard sits on the settee. "This is lovely." She points
to the sponge cake on the wooden tray. Thank God Mama thought to
put a linen napkin over the old wood.
"Thank you." Mama smiles,
pouring a cup of coffee for Miss Stoddard in the dainty cup with
the roses. We have four bone china cups and saucers, but not all
have flowers on them. Mama gives a starched lace napkin to her with
the cup of coffee.
"Don't get up," Papa says
in a booming voice as he enters the room. Papa has changed out of
his old work shirt into a navy blue cotton shirt. It's not a dress
shirt, but at least it's pressed. He did not bother to change his
pants with the suspenders, but that's all right. We aren't going
to a dance, after all, and Miss Stoddard knows he's a farmer. I
motion to Dianna and Roma to go; when they don't get the hint, Elena
herds them out.
Mama sits primly on the settee. Papa
pulls the old rocker from next to the fireplace. I pour coffee for
my parents.
Miss Stoddard takes a bite of cake
and compliments Mama. Then she sips her coffee graciously and places
the cup back on the saucer. "As I wrote you in the letter,"
she begins, "I believe that Nella is an exceptional student."
"Exceptional?" Papa pronounces
the word slowly.
"She's far ahead of any student
her age whom I've taught before. I have her reading books that advanced
students would read."
"I just finished Moby-Dick,"
I announce proudly, "and I'm reading Jane Eyre again."
Miss Stoddard continues. "She's
now repeated the seventh grade twice, and I can't keep her any longer.
I think it would be a shame to end Nella's education." Miss
Stoddard looks at me and smiles. "She's capable of so much
more. I wrote to the Columbus School in Roseto, and they said that
they would take her. Columbus School goes to the twelfth grade."
"She would have to go into town?"
"Yes, Papa, it's in town."
The thought of it is so exciting to me I can't stay quiet. How I
would love to ride the trolley every morning, and stop every afternoon
after school for a macaroon at Marcella's!
"The school is right off Main
Street, a half a block from the trolley station," Miss Stoddard
explains.
"We know where it is." Papa
smiles. "But Nella cannot ride the trolley alone."
"I could go with her, Papa,"
Elena says from the doorway. She looks at me, knowing how much it
would mean to me.
"We cannot afford the trolley
twice a day, and two of you, well, that is out of the question."
"I could walk! It's only three
miles!"
Papa looks a little scandalized, but
once again, Elena comes to my rescue. "I'll walk with her,
Papa." How kind of my sister. She was average in school and
couldn't wait to be done with the seventh grade. And now she's offering
to walk an hour each way for me.
"Thank you, Elena," I tell
her sincerely.
"Girls, let me speak with Miss
Stoddard alone."
The look on Papa's face tells me that
I should not argue the point. Mama has not said a word, but she
wouldn't. Papa speaks on behalf of our family.
"Papa?" Assunta, who must
have been eavesdropping from the stairs, comes into the room. "I'll
walk her into town." Elena and I look at each other. Assunta
has never done a thing for me, why would she want to walk me into
town?
"Thank you," Papa says to
Assunta and then looks at me as if to say, See, your sister really
does care about you. But I am certain there must be some underlying
reason for Assunta to show this kind of generosity toward me. There
must be something in it for her!
"I am starting a new job in town
next month," Assunta explains to Miss Stoddard. Elena and I
look at each other again. This is the first we have heard of a job.
"I am going to work at the Roseto Manufacturing Company. I
have to be at work by seven o'clock in the morning."
Elena nudges me. Assunta has been
keeping secrets. We had no idea she was going to work in Roseto's
blouse mill.
"School begins at eight,"
Miss Stoddard says.
"I'll wait outside for them to
open the school. I don't mind!" Miss Stoddard smiles at me.
"Really, I'll stand in the snow. I don't care!"
"Nella, let me speak to your
teacher alone." Papa's tone tells me he means it this time,
so I follow Elena up the stairs and into our room.
"Can you believe it? I'm going
to school!" I straighten the coverlet on my bed so the lace
on the hem just grazes the floorboards.
"You deserve it. You work so
hard."
"So do you!"
"Yes, but I'm not smart."
Elena says this without a trace of self-pity. "But you, you
could be a teacher someday."
"That's what I want. I want to
be just like Miss Stoddard. I want to teach little ones how to read.
Every day we'll have story hour. I'll read Aesop's Fables and Tales
from Shakespeare aloud, just like she does. And on special days,
like birthdays, I'll make tea cakes and lemonade and have extra
recess."
Assunta pushes the door open.
"When did you decide to work
at the mill?" Elena asks her.
"When I realized how small my
dowry would be. Papa's money is all tied up in cows. I don't want
Alessandro thinking he got stuck with a poor farm girl." Assunta
goes to the window and looks out over Delabole farm. "But he
is getting stuck with a poor farm girl, so I have to do my part."
I never thought about a dowry, but
it makes sense. Of course we have to pay someone to take Assunta
off of our hands. Who would take her for free?
"I'm sure Alessandro isn't expecting-"
Elena begins.
Assunta interrupts her. "How
do you know what he expects?"
The funny thing is, I've read all
of Alessandro's letters to Assunta (she keeps them hidden in a tin
box in the closet), and I don't remember a single word about any
expectations of a dowry. But now is not the time to point that out.
If she knew I read her private mail, she'd do worse than scratch
me.
"Alessandro is a lucky man."
Elena and Assunta look surprised. "You're very kind."
I smile at Assunta. "You didn't have to offer to walk me to
school, but you did and I appreciate it."
"You will have to work for the
privilege." Assunta crosses her arms over her chest like a
general and looks down on me.
"The privilege?"
"I'm putting you to work for
me. You will make all the linens for my hope chest. And when I pick
my house in town, you will make all the draperies. And for the first
year of my married life, or until I decide otherwise, you will be
my maid. You will cook, do our laundry, and clean my house. Do you
understand?"
So there it is: the catch. Assunta
wants a maid. I'd like to tell her that I will never clean her house,
or sew for her, or do anything she asks of me, because from as far
back as I can remember, I have hated her. I pray every night that
God will stop this hate, but the more I pray, the worse I feel.
I cannot be cured. But I want to be a teacher, and no matter what
I have to do to reach that goal, I will do it. I don't want to stay
on the farm my whole life. I want to visit the places I read about
in books, and find them on maps that I have studied. I can't do
any of this without Assunta's help. "It's a deal," I tell
her. Assunta smirks and goes back downstairs.
"She should walk you to school
just because she's your sister. How dare she make you pay for that?"
Elena is angry, but she knows as well as I do that in this house,
Assunta is the queen, and we serve her. If I have to scrub a thousand
floors to go to Columbus School, the exchange will be worth it.
From the Hardcover edition.
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