Read Online The Secret of the Glass by Donna Russo Morin - Free Book Online Page A

you?” Nonna insisted with a prodding, direct gaze.
    Sophia shrugged helplessly, nodding with innocent embarrassment. “ Sì , I did.”
    Nonna released a small sniff of air through her nose. “Silly girl. You must abandon such thoughts. For the sake of the family, you must do, as I did, what ever you must.”
     
     
    Sophia knew he was there but she couldn’t look up at him, couldn’t glance at the face of the one who, above all, she cherished more than any other. Beneath her skilled hands, the fritta came to life, the base material from which all other glass emerged. Her mind was too full, in too much turmoil, to concentrate on any masterpiece tonight.
    From the calchera , she had just removed the melted mixture of plant ash and sand silica. Now she would mix it with the cullet and a small dollop of manganese to create the traghetada. She lost herself in the repetitive motions. Once complete, she transferred the concoction into a padèlla, then placed these pans into a second furnace, close to a bocca where she could see them. She stared in at them as if there were answers beyond the soot-stained glass and the glowing ochre flames.
    “You understand that if we try to refuse this, they could make our lives, and those of all our family, very difficult.” Zeno spoke with a dreaded finality, breaking the thin, delicate silence that had held them gently in its grasp.
    Sophia nodded, saying nothing, unable to, biting her bottom lip to keep it from quivering.
    “Can you ever forgive me?” Zeno’s voice cracked and with it Sophia’s resolve.
    Sophia’s heart rived at his tear-filled eyes, his quivering frown, the sadness of this man who loved her so.
    “I let you make the glass because…because I wanted you to stay, always, even though I knew you could not. Like a son, I thought to keep you forever by my side.”
    Sophia threw her trembling arms around her father; they clung to each other with the desperation of the drowning.
    “I will never leave you, Papà,” she whispered in his ear. “Not really.”
    Zeno nodded silently against her shoulder, acknowledging their kindred souls that would forever bind them, and separated from his daughter with great reluctance.
    Zeno shuffled more slowly than ever around the workstation as his daughter continued her work, neither wholly concentrating on the process, each allowing the familiar motions to soothe them as their minds chewed on their troubles.
    “Pasquale da Fuligna…who would have thought, certainly not I. With all his secrets, all he has to hide, why would—”
    “What?” Sophia snapped at him, spinning so fast drops of sweat flew off her forehead. “What did you say, Papà?”
    Zeno’s gaze fell upon Sophia. For an expectant moment, he peered at his daughter, and then it came upon him, the confusion, a glaze of puzzlement and emptiness that stole over his features, pilfering cohesive thought and emotion from his eyes.
    “What?” he asked her, bushy brows furrowing together.
    Sophia took a deep, calming breath. “What did you say before, Papà, about Pasquale da Fuligna, about some secrets he may have?”
    Zeno tilted his head to the side, staring at Sophia now with unabashed confusion. “Me? I said nothing about da Fuligna.”
    “You did, Papà, you…” Her words trailed off.
    It was useless. Her father’s thoughts had escaped like a freed bird upon the open sky. She would get no more information from him, not tonight, but the information he had let slip gnawed at her. Da Fuligna had secrets, ones he fought hard to keep concealed. She heard the words repeating over and over in her head, like the swirling beacon of a lighthouse on a distant shore. In the tenebrific intervals festered thoughts of her father and his increasingly bizarre behavior. Here Sophia found nothing but more fear. She could deny it no longer; there was something wrong with him, with her father’s mind.
    “That piece is ready, Phie.” Zeno’s voice sounded like his own again,