Free Household Saints by Francine Prose Page A

Catherine’s presence made them easier. The saddest old women, the ones with no time or patience for flirting, were impressed by how nicely Joseph talked to Catherine—nicer than their husbands had ever talked to them. And there was nothing the others liked more than to catch a wink from Joseph when his pretty little wife’s back was turned.
    Of course Catherine’s back was never completely turned, but she forgave Joseph the winks, just as his customers overlooked the short weights. For she knew that he was winking for her, cheating for her, and she felt that loyalty stronger even than love—the passionate bond of partners-in-crime.
    Despite Mrs. Santangelo’s predictions, the business flourished—and yet she was not convinced. She continued to oppose Catherine’s working, if for no other reason than that her Zio had never let her work. And she took consolation in the old saying that God will never allow your wealth to multiply faster than the number of mouths at your table.
    Soon enough, she predicted, the nightly creaking of bedsprings would put an end to Catherine’s working career. And so, like a besieged and dethroned queen, she retreated to the heart of her fortress and waited for her kingdom to be restored.
    The first sign came on a muggy Friday morning in September, almost a year after Joseph and Catherine were married. The store was crowded with women shopping for the weekend, each one with small talk for Catherine, a giggle for Joseph.
    Suddenly Catherine felt as if the floor were sliding out from beneath her feet and the sawdust rising up to meet her.
    As luck would have it, Evelyn Santangelo walked into the shop just as Catherine ran out.
    “Hey!” called Evelyn. “How’s the little cashier?”
    “Fine,” Catherine muttered through clenched teeth, then brushed past her sister-in-law and headed into the street for some air. By the time she returned, feeling only slightly better, half of Mulberry Street knew that she and Joseph were expecting a child—a fact which Catherine had yet to admit to herself.
    “Congratulations!” said Evelyn. “You look a little green around the gills. Wait. It gets worse. With me it was gasoline. Every time I pulled into a gas station, I had to run straight to the Ladies’.” She waved at the cars parked out on the street, to remind everyone that she was from the suburbs and drove a Chrysler.
    “Congratulations!” chorused the younger women, Americans like Evelyn, while the older ones bit their lips because it was bad luck to offer congratulations so early in a pregnancy.
    “What do you want?” Evelyn rattled on. “Boy or girl? How about a little boy cousin for my Stacey?”
    “What’s this?” Joseph was so surprised by the drift of things that he momentarily forgot the others’ presence. “Catherine, is this the truth?”
    “Could be,” said Catherine.
    “Isn’t that typical?” said Evelyn. “Papa’s always the last to know.”
    Until that morning, thought Catherine, there hadn’t been anything to know; except for two missed periods, she’d felt no different. But as soon as Evelyn and her big mouth were turned loose on Mulberry Street, Catherine’s pregnancy became an established fact. She had no physical symptoms; in the mirror, she looked exactly the same. But people talked to her, looked at her in a new way. It was, she thought, as if you knew you were Italian and everyone acted as if you were Chinese. Now, women she’d never spoken to felt free to offer advice, information, predictions of her baby’s sex:
    “Boys don’t show till the sixth month—then they pop out like mushrooms.”
    “The way you can tell is: It’s the girls make your gums bleed.”
    “You can’t be sure till the last month. Then, if your fingers swell, you know for sure it’s a boy.”
    But all the prophets agreed on two things. The first was that it made no difference, girl or boy, so long as the child was healthy. Which reminded them of the second: A woman in