Part 27 (1/2)

I am anxious to get home. I have missed the Blue Ridge Mountains. Jack laughs about this.

”Mountains are mountains wherever you go,” he says.

”No. Our mountains are home,” I tell him. I can't explain it to him, but Big Stone Gap has gone from the place I was running from to the place I most want to be. I have seen where I come from, but now I know where I belong. Home is with Jack MacChesney in that stone house on the hill.

The plane ride home is b.u.mpy. I am sick most of the way, as is Jack. But I think he gets sick when he sees me get sick. What is the old expression about true lovers: When one gets cut, the other bleeds? When we land at Tri-Cities Airport, I am not sad. I am looking forward to returning to Cracker's Neck and waiting for the seasons to change and bring us our first autumn together.

Well, it wasn't airsickness back in August. Almost a year to the day after our American wedding, April 28, 1980, Fiametta Bluebell MacChesney was born to two very happy parents. This is all so new to me, and I have no words to describe it.

I do know, and I will explain to my daughter, that she is a very lucky girl. She need look no further than her own family to inspire her to cut her own path in life. We're calling the baby Etta, the name my mother's true love called her. I hope that she has my mother's heart; it is evident to all, in the two days she's been on earth, that she has already inherited her stubbornness. Most of the time, when I hold her, I think of Mama. I feel her around me now, guiding me. Finally, my mother's choices make sense to me. Now I understand how she found the courage to leave her family and start a new life with me. A baby gives you the strength to do just about anything.

Etta has Nan MacChesney's eyes. They say all babies have blue eyes, but I see the green there already, and they have a knowingness and a humor that can only have come from her no-nonsense grandmother. How sad I am Etta will never know her grandmothers! Why am I making a list of all the things our daughter won't have? The only thing I know for sure is that I will worry about this little one until the day I die. Jack agrees with that; he says I've been practicing worry for thirty-seven years, so I'm mighty good at it.

And what about Jack MacChesney, my husband and the father of our daughter? Will he teach her to play the guitar and whistle?

The moon is just a sliver the first night home with our baby. I'm tired, so Jack relieves me and I doze off to sleep for twenty minutes or so. When I wake up, the house is quiet. I can't find Jack and Etta inside, so I go to the backyard and circle around to the front of the house. There they are. Father and daughter. Sitting on the porch, looking at the moon. I stand there for a very long time. I don't know why. She starts to fuss and I know she is hungry. But I can't move. I want to watch the two of them forever-a daughter learning to trust, and a father doing the thing he does best: protecting her.

By Adriana Trigiani.

Big Stone Gap.

Big Cherry Holler.

Milk Gla.s.s Moon.

”IN A Sa.s.sY SOUTHERN VOICE, [TRIGIANI] CREATES HONEST, ENDEARINGLY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.”

-Mademoiselle.

”A Southern novel that has the ring of truth . . . Its characters are bizarre, its story hilarious, and it hooked me on page one.”

-JOHN BERENDT.

”It is one of my all-time favorite novels . . . Unforgettable.”

-WHOOPI GOLDBERG.

”Here's a feel-good novel with a strong story line, a totally likable and sympathetic heroine, and enough intrigue to keep readers intent. Adriana Trigiani . . . has a great ability to pull you into the world where she grew up, back in the Big Stone Gap of the 1970s. . . . Ms. Trigiani has an eye for the details that make a small town sing.”