Gina’s mother was the wife of a coalminer and she always said, Gina, whatever you do, don’t marry a coalminer, but then she did. Well, she was a coalminer’s daughter, it was what she knew, but her mother was right. Gina kept trying to get Mario to better himself and to learn another trade, one that would keep him at home more, but he was not bright or disciplined enough, none of the Julianos are. He wasn’t really good-looking either — he had the meaty Juliano face and big ears — but he was a good football player and that was a big deal back then. It still is. Her daughter’s boyfriend is on the football team. Mario was also a good Catholic boy and when he learned he was going to be a father he did the right thing, and she has always been grateful for that. He was a little resentful about it, though, and didn’t hesitate to play around if the occasion arose; Catholic boys don’t take the sin of fornication very seriously. As she put on weight she could see that she was becoming less attractive to him and had no choice but to slim down or let him look elsewhere, and it was just too hard to lose so many pounds. And besides, she wasn’t all that enthusiastic about having more babies, even if making them had, for a moment that was always much too short, its fun side.
Mario was one of the seven who barricaded themselves off the night of the mine accident and left an undershirt tacked up outside with their names on it. COME AND GET US, it said. But they came and got them too late and only Giovanni Bruno was still alive, though he didn’t even have his name on the shirt, and that’s why all those people are out at the mine hill today. If they only knew Giovanni Bruno like she knew him, they wouldn’t be making such fools of themselves. Faith is a good thing, it never hurts anybody, but it would be better if people all believed the same religion and didn’t keep inventing new ones. The undershirt is in the mining museum up in the state capital. As Mario’s widow, Gina went up there for the presentation, and she was famous for a while and was interviewed on television in her black dress with her children around her. And she did miss him, though mostly because, with the children to raise, she needed his income, which is why, even though she could just see Mario scowling down on her from Heaven, she took this job in city hall, thanks to her cousin Demetrio in the police department and the child-minding help she gets from the family, especially her Aunt Delfina Romano, who never married and always said marriage was the ruin of women. For a while after the disaster, all the younger widows were competing for the same single men, but there weren’t enough of them to go around what with so many getting killed in the mine, it was like musical chairs, and Gina had a weight problem that disadvantaged her. Also three small children. Men don’t get excited about other men’s children. She was briefly wooed by one or two guys who remembered her when she was cuter, but nothing came of it. Her heart wasn’t really in it. Some of her friends did remarry, but mostly those have not been happy marriages.
It was still cloudy and dark when the lights went out, but now the sun is pouring through the high dusty windows. She’d clean them, at least from the inside, but her boss told her not to leave the desk. Whatever you do, don’t leave the desk! What if the phone came back on and the President rang and she was up a ladder and couldn’t get down in time to answer it? Though maybe all that was just a fib and she might as well go home like the sheriff’s radio dispatcher Tessie Law-son, whom she saw walking through the corridor with her new sister-in-law, leaning into each other and giggling like schoolgirls. They are always laughing together over some private joke or other (now it was something about “taking cover”); it can be quite annoying.
City hall is a heavy stone building, often called “the Fort” for not much leaks in from the world outside nor is much distributed to it, but Gina can hear beyond its thick walls the muffled sound of helicopters and motorcycles and sirens. Is something happening? A distant boom rattles the windows. Could be a last clap of thunder, but you never know. It has been quiet in Mr. Castle’s office for a long time, and Gina decides to risk the mayor’s anger by knocking and telling him that the phone is not working and she has to go to the hospital to be with her cousin Concetta Moroni because Concetta’s father-in-law has died. Whenever she says something like that her boss always says it’s like everyone in town is one of her cousins — here he usually adds in a few swearword modifiers — and that’s very nearly true, at least in her part of town. Her own children would be related to her in some way even if she hadn’t given birth to them herself. She gets no answer and knocks again, louder this time, and calls out his name. Still nothing. She can hear running footsteps out in the corridors, doors slamming. She fishes her key out of the desk and opens his door: no one there. They must have left by the other door, the one at the back that leads out into the hall where the men’s room is. The mayor was upset about what was happening out at the mine hill; maybe that’s where they went. Or they’re out there in the street where the noise is. But he could have let her know. If the President had called, what would she have told him? Well, that it was turning into a nice day here and he should come for a visit, she could show him around. The children will be at the pool by now, so with the mayor away and phones and power out, the afternoon is hers. The furniture store is having a summer sale, which is more or less a continuation of their winter sale. Maybe she’ll make an offer on that pretty stuffed chair in the window with the orange-and-green flowered pattern, give her daughter the old red one now that she’ll soon be setting up a home of her own. Paychecks are late this month, probably because of the holiday, but her credit is good. Desperate as they are, they’d probably sell it to her even if she had no credit at all. Then she’ll go pick up some nice hamburger and fresh buns and a bag of charcoal and marshmallows to roast and have a picnic supper tonight in the backyard. Invite Aunt Delfina and her daughter’s boyfriend, get him thinking in the family way, only hoping Aunt Delfina doesn’t chase him off. The President is welcome to join them. He can wear Mario’s old “Mister Good-Lookin’ Is Cookin’” apron and grill the burgers. If she has time, she could haul the old baby crib out of the basement and clean it and repaint it. Decorate it with little colored stickers from the dimestore. She’ll drop by there on the way home, and at the same time she can buy some more blue yarn (she’s betting on a boy). The booties and bonnet are almost done; she can start a matching jacket. There’s lots of time. She picks up her needles and knitting but, just as she tucks them in her bag, there is a sudden flash of light—