Mom used to say that because of my prayers to Maria Goretti, I got a brother. As proof, she would point out that he was born on July 6th, the saint’s feast day in the Catholic calendar.

When I was three, my parents took me on a pilgrimage through shrines in Italy. If I can trust the memories that stamped themselves into my mind at that time, the shrine to Maria Goretti is there among them, and I am held in an Italian bus driver’s arms, he has a gold bracelet, and I can peer down at the bronze statue of a young girl on the floor, an iron fence around her.

There are six years between my brother and I. Boredom might have prompted my unthinking request for a sibling. Who knows. I don't remember asking. These things fade.

My birth was hard on my mom. The labour was very long before the doctors finally conceded and gave her a Caesarian. After one Caesarian, mom was automatically of the group of women who were offered Caesarians on subsequent pregnancies. At least, I think that's how it worked then, in the eighties. It was clouded in mystery as far as I was concerned. There were appointments at clinics because I remember walking to them with my mom. At these appointments, you could schedule your Caesarian, like you could schedule a manicure.

As a young adult I used to schedule manicures and pedicures before important dates. Then, out with my husband on that evening, my nails would shine, and I had the conceited satisfaction of having organized myself well to be the attractive wife who proved her love right down to her nails.