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They had warned her about Turiddu. 

It was no secret in the village that he had had relations with Lola before he left for the service. But in that time she had married Alfio, and so Turiddu turned his attentions away from Lola and to her. To Santuzza, little Santa, quiet, demure, seldom seen or heard, the daughter of a miser, little Santuzza who lived on a vineyard on the edge of town.

They had warned her about Turiddu, but who could blame her for falling for him? Such a handsome, strong young man, with his easy humor and dashing uniform and a mouth made for saying all the right things. 

He was a perfect suitor, always bringing her flowers or small presents, and it was almost enough to ignore the half-crazed look in his eyes at night. That dark glimmer haunted her dreams, but the man sleeping beside her put her at rest. She loved him so much she forgot what it meant to sin. Whispers in the village turned to talking. Talking turned to accusations, scorn, derision. Never towards him, only her. Only Santuzza who had strayed from God's light, sleeping with a man out of wedlock. 

She went to Mass; she sought forgiveness, but found little. It didn't matter, not then. With Turiddu by her side she could take on the world in all of its cruelty. 

He loved her!

No, no. Already he repented, his affections towards her forgotten.

Go home, Santa, he cried in a wine-sodden fury. Go home and leave me be, for I have never loved you. He raised his hand towards her, and she flinched away before he could strike her. 

She fled his home in tears, only to find him outside her father's house the next day with flowers and kisses. He loved her. He would make it up to her. 

Santuzza learned after a short while that these promises did not last very long. She never stopped loving him. 

They had warned her about Turiddu, and she had not listened. 

She saw him in town on nights Alfio was out, and she could not deny the truth any longer. Lola jeered openly, triumphantly, when they passed each other in the square. Turiddu was nowhere to be seen, not with her; his gaze was unfamiliar, uncaring. She dressed somberly, modestly, but no clothing could protect her from what she had done. Eyes followed her everywhere she went, hot and shameful as the scarlet flush of her cheeks. 

Lucia kissed her forehead. It was often the only outward tenderness she showed to the woman carrying her grandchild besides wiping her face with a cool cloth as sickness gripped her every morning. Her face grew drawn and pale. She had not bled in many weeks. Soon her stomach would begin to swell, her breasts starting to ache already with the terrible cost of her love. 

She prayed, and it was not enough. She cried until no more tears would fall, and still it was not enough. Nothing would be enough to make up for what he had taken from her.  

Church bells rang in the distance, startling a flock of birds over the fields, green with the joy of the coming spring. It was almost Easter. She would go to Mass to pray not for her own soul, but for the soul of the child, his child. She rested a hand on her stomach, certain she could feel a fragile heart beating through her dress. 

They had warned her about Turiddu. If only she had listened. 

The child was born just after dusk, a month after the last harvest. His weary mother took him into her arms and held him to her breast. She sobbed. 

The birth was difficult; the long hours passed slowly. There was no doctor, no midwife, just her and Lucia and the quiet winter night. She lay on the floor, a thin mat beneath her back, her pale, swollen body trembling with effort. Lucia offered her wine, to deaden the pain, and she refused. Never again would she allow a drop to pass through her lips, not even in communion; its taste had been soured by loss and sorrow. Instead she bore the suffering like a penitence, and with each breath said a prayer for the soul of her child.

The child was born, and he screamed. Lucia passed the child to his mother, solemnly pronouncing him to be a healthy boy. Santuzza could not respond, could not do anything except hold him and cry with amazement and relief. 

She named him Amato, beloved, for her son would never for a moment be without love.

She looked with wonder at her child, this small creature she had carried, this last lingering memory of Turiddu besides his tomb. He had the dark hair of his father; in his eyes, she saw a light that had once sparkled in her own. His young face was purpled like wine, his skin wrinkled as if from old age.

Turiddu had never known old age, nor even his own child. But Turiddu had known love in the end, and that was what mattered. This child would know love. 

Lucia took the boy from his exhausted mother and wrapped him. When tears began to fall down her stiff cheeks, neither woman said a word. 

The child was born, and shortly after a priest in black vestments visited the house above the wine shop. He appraised the trio: a mother without her son, a son without a father, and at the center of it all a young woman with wide eyes, her tired face looking up at him. 

Santuzza sharped her gaze and wrapped her arms protectively around her son. She knew what followed. 

The priest asked of the father of the child. He knew, of course. He had taken her confession every week for the past ten months.

She steeled her gaze and held her son tightly in her arms, prepared for only one word. There was nothing to say but the truth, though she wished it otherwise. All she could give him was her love, and the love that she had once felt for another. Her silence could only harm him more, and she prayed not to set upon him the scorn that had shadowed her own life.

Turiddu, she answered truthfully. He had hurt her, and he had loved her. These two things were not so separate, nor so incredible.

The priest wrote the name without a word, without a hint of judgement on his honest face. She released a breath. The child, swaddled, did not stir in his mother's arms. He knew nothing of his past. 

He asked for the name of the child, and she told him. Amato Matteo. Beloved, a gift from God. 

At her side, Lucia covered her shoulder with a gentle hand. Santa raised her eyes to the priest, and asked for the rite of Baptism for her son. 

There were no godparents, nor teary-eyed family and friends filling the pews and bearing flowers and gifts. Two women watched the child, two women bound together by ties stronger than death and vows sealed in wine and blood, tears and hope. Lucia pressed her rosary into Santuzza's palm, and she held it tightly as the priest nodded and opened a small case on the table beside them. 

He sprinkled the child with holy water and anointed his unblemished chest. Only when he was removed from his mother's arms did the boy begin to cry, and only when he was returned, swaddled in a pure white cloth, did he quiet. 

They prayed, and the rite was complete. The child was free of the burden of the past: the sins of a mother, the wrongs of a father, the weights of an unkind world. He was innocent. To Santuzza, it was the closest she had ever come to forgiveness. 

The priest departed. The night grew late. Lucia settled into a chair pulled beside her bed, and was quickly asleep without a further word; her presence was love, even if unspoken. 

Santuzza kissed the soft head of her son. She watched his small form, warm against her skin. Each breath was a blessing.

She thought not of her own dishonor, or the whispers in the village, or of the man still missing from her heart. Instead, she held her child, and watched the distant horizon color red and gold as the sun rose. 

The child was born, and he was loved.