Mud threaded between her toes, puddles exploding as her little feet slapped the ground. Mamma always scolded her for not wearing shoes, but how could she resist the fresh fall of rain in the cabbage fields? The little girl paused for a moment to let her feet sink into the soaked soil, wiggling them and rubbing the granules between each toe before taking off again. 

She waved at the other plantation workers as she raced by, some ignoring her but others greeting the child before returning to their labor. 

“Get back to work, Gaby,” she heard her brother, about fifteen years her senior, yell at her as she passed. Running faster instead, she leaped over a puddle and continued through the miniature forest.

“Ninna nanna, ninna oh,” she sang one breath at a time. “Questo bimbo a chi lo dò? Se lo dò alla Befana, Se lo tiene una settimana.” Behind her father she passed, patting the hunched over man on the back. 

Over another puddle she jumped. “Se lo dò all’uomo nero, se lo tiene un anno intero.”

As she landed on the other side, something stabbed her arch, her foot enveloped in flames.

Tears burst from her face as she collapsed to the ground, crying and clawing at her foot. What could create so much pain?

“You’re all right,” Gaby heard someone running up to her shout, but through her blurred vision she could not recognize the voice. She wiped her eyes, but they only filled with more tears.

“Here you go, passerotta.” The person helping handed her a handkerchief, and she wiped her face with the earth-scented rag. 

“What did she do now?” her brother shouted from across the field.

“It is just a bee sting. She will be fine.”

Vision clearing, Gaby looked at her savior.

She recognized him as the young farmhand. Verdant eyes popping from a sunburnt ochre face he had not quite shaved. The young man needed a haircut, she thought, but her little heart froze when he brushed loose strands off his sweaty forehead. 

He unhooked his canteen from his belt and poured water on her foot. She whimpered, jerking her foot out of his hand. “Don’t worry,” he assured, taking her foot again and scraping the arch. “I get stung all the time. Look, I was stung yesterday.” Extending his hand, he showed her his left index finger, which, under all the dirt that coated it, had a dark red dot on the very tip. “They sting because they get scared. How would you feel if someone giant tried squishing you?”

 Catching her breath, she nodded. But her foot still ached, and every pulsating twang made another tear slide down her cheek.

“Where are your shoes?” Gaby’s father groaned as he and her brother approached them. “Your mother will be so angry with you.” Turning his attention to the young man, her father said, “Thank you, Alessandro. May you get her, Igor?”

“It is not a problem, Mr. Dell’Ora,” the young Alessandro breathed. He scooped up the muddy child and passed her to her brother, who slung her over his shoulder. “Hope you feel better, Gaby.” With a smile that stretched across his face, he waved at her as they all walked away. She gave a timid wave back, clutching the aromatic kerchief against her nose, staring at him as he returned to his work.

***

“What happened now?” Gaby’s mother sighed and rolled her eyes the moment the three of them entered the kitchen.

“Idiota stepped on a bee,” Igor grumbled as he set Gaby on the counter.

“Don’t put her there. She’s filthy.” Their mother waved her hand at the chair in the corner before walking to a cabinet across the kitchen for a jar of honey. With a rough hand, she dipped a finger in the syrup, grabbed the girl’s foot, and slathered it on the arch. “You should be working, not running around barefooted. What if Herr Neumann had seen?”

“Sorry, Mamma,” grumbled Gaby, twisting the corner of the faded indigo handkerchief around her finger. She scratched at the thinning fabric and its dotted pattern, noting a dark stain that looked like a fish.

“Igor, get me some eggs, please.” She waved her hand again, this time at her son, who nodded and left the kitchen. “Was she much trouble?” Mamma nodded her head toward her daughter.

Gaby’s father shuffled to the sink. “The boy helped,” he grunted, splashing some water on his face before taking a quick drink. “Just keep her here for now. She’s no good on the field today.” He kissed the backs of his girls’ heads and left the two alone. 

“I have too much to do today, birichina.” The woman dumped several cleaned potatoes in Gaby’s lap, wetting the girl’s apron. “Peel these.” Gaby took the peeler from her mother and obeyed her orders. 

Outside looked much more appealing. She finished skinning her first potato but found herself distracted by the sound of men talking out in the fields.

“Keep going,” her mother snapped her from her trance. The woman snatched the lone finished root from the child.

Starting on the next one, Gaby asked, “Mamma, where’s Alessandro’s papà?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Mamma answered, chopping the vegetables.

“And his mamma?”

“Doesn’t have one of those either. That’s why he’s here.”

“He’s as old as Berni, isn’t he?”

“Why all the questions?” The woman shut off the sink. “Finish those potatoes.”

Gaby popped out one of the potato’s eyes, sending it across the kitchen. “Where does he live?”

“In his quarters, like the rest of us. Are you done with those potatoes?”

The child looked down. She had six more to go. “What does he do?”

“Whatever the Neumanns tell him to do, now stop,” her mother huffed, grabbing the half-peeled vegetable and the peeler out of the girl’s hand. In five quick swipes, she finished it and tossed the peeler back in Gaby’s lap. 

Gaby tucked her chin into her chest. Stealing one more glance outside, she returned to peeling.

As she reached the last potato, she could hear adults talking from the other side of the kitchen door. Two years in the country and she still struggled with her German. She heard something about a family and dinner party but understood nothing else. The door swung open, and Gaby jumped, slicing off a piece of her nail.

Two tall, well-dressed men followed a white-haired woman dressed in the nicest clothes she had ever seen. The woman asked Mamma something before pointing at Gaby. While the woman wore a smile, but Gaby did not like her tone.

The two women began discussing something, most of which Gaby did not understand or pay attention to. Keeping her head down, Gaby eyed the men standing in silence. She recognized them as Mrs. Neumann’s sons but could not recall their names. The shorter and skinnier of the two stared at his mother, nodding along with the conversation and setting down a large slab of pork wrapped in paper. His glasses made him look smarter, in Gaby’s opinion, than the other brother, who stood with his arms tight across his chest. Jaw locked and mouth nothing more than a line across his face, he looked more like a statue of a dictator than a person. His presence scared her enough that she locked her attention onto her potato for about ten minutes until they all left. 

Gaby and her mother finished cooking in silence.

***

Mamma tucked Gaby into bed. Tight. Gaby could not move her arms. Livino, her little brother, snored beside her. Mamma stroked her daughter’s head, humming atonally as she stared at the wall in front of them. 

“Why weren’t we invited to the party?” Gaby looked up at her mother, waiting for a response, but the woman continued staring into nothing. “Was it because of me?”

“Go to sleep,” her mother replied, stopping her petting.

“I’m sorry we weren’t invited,” she said as she twisted around to face her mother better. “I promise to wear shoes next time.”

Her mother stiffened. “The Neumanns have parties all the time, cara. You don’t know this because you work in the fields. We’re not invited because we are simply the help.”

“But Letti is at the party.”

“Nicoletta is working with the waitstaff. She does that so she can watch Livi and Penelope for me during the week.”

“I want to go to the party, too,” Gaby mumbled. 

“No, you don’t.” Resuming her stroking, Mamma continued, “They’re all rich people. You’d be bored.” She patted her daughter’s head one more time before finishing, “Go to sleep now. All this talking will wake the babies.” She cupped her hand around the bedside candle and blew it out before leaving the children for the night. 

Gaby waited for her mother’s footsteps to fade before untucking herself and tiptoeing to the window that faced the Neumann’s manor. The windows glowed with a warm amber as outlines of upper-class people passed by. 

What beautiful dresses the women must wear. The highest quality of silk with striking heels. Perhaps adorned with precious gems and hair so delicate it felt like clouds. They must pick at the food and toss away whatever they did not finish. Maybe they listened to the latest music or played the piano and sang with drinks in hand. When they went home, they probably tossed their coats on the floor for the help to clean. Their pajamas, she assumed, soft and warm, and their beds even softer, even warmer. They must fall asleep fast, no worries keeping them staring at the ceiling until the early hours of dawn. In the morning, they might sleep in. Enjoy breakfast with their children, chatting about stories in the newspaper, planning the day’s activities. Did they plan to go to the zoo? Or perhaps the theatre or croquet in the afternoon? 

Her toes felt like ice, so Gaby shuffled back to her bed and slid herself in, careful not to bother Livi. The boy slept without qualms, drool dripping from his mouth and one arm dangling off the side of the dense mattress. Gaby fixed the blanket to cover both of them and curled up next to him for warmth. She wished she had a warmer blanket. A bigger bed. A bigger house. More food, food that tasted better. She wished her older brothers all lived with them instead of another quarter, because they did not all fit in one. She wished her father had more time to spend with her. That her mother did not scold her so much for running without shoes. She wished she had shoes that fit.

All her wishing charged her mind. Eyes wide open, she stared at the ceiling and traced the cracks with her sight.

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