1

I can almost feel my belly grow under my train attendant uniform, its fabric bulging hour by hour. Exhausted, I undo a few buttons and wipe the beads of sweat off my upper lip, as I look for an empty seat. The soles of my feet burn like I have hot coals in my stilettos. Despite winter is reaching its end, these second-class train cars keep feeling like ovens, and all the sweaty and sticky passengers only make it worse.

I keep moving through the aisle, scanning all the seats, left and right. Just like I would if I were on duty, except now I’m not asking for tickets but for an empty seat to rest my aching body on. I slide my hand into my purse to see if I can find a handkerchief to wipe away all this sweat.

Suddenly, one of my heels snaps, and I trip on who knows what, falling facedown on the aisle's grimy carpeting. My stockings have torn too. Everyone turns their head to see what’s the matter with me. My ears and cheeks redden, just what I needed in this tropical jungle. I forget about the handkerchief altogether, and I get back up.

All the seats here are taken anyway, so I take off my stilettos and head barefoot into the next compartment, hoping to find a seat in which to curl up for the rest of the journey.

Nobody knows I’m pregnant. I haven’t told anyone. My colleagues, my boss... they definitely didn’t perceive a change in the way I look. They still see the usual woman with long, bushy curls and a small hat to tame them. The usual pair of scratched black stilettos, and the usual tight-fitting brick-red uniform. The tag pinned on my breast pocket reads Trenitalia, the company I work for, and Teresa La Rosa, my name.

At last, I find an empty seat and let my whole body drop onto it. My spine meets the velvety backrest, and my vertebrae crack when I stretch my back. I let all tensions in my body ease, as I look out the train window.

It's still pouring with rain. It hasn't stopped for hours and the clouds give no sign of wanting to disperse.

Seeing the rain in Sicily is rare, especially on the southern coast. My father always says he can count on the fingers of one hand the times he has seen the rain in his hometown. And I’ve always replied I'd take him to places where it rains all day long. Places where neither my fingers nor his would be enough to count all the rainfalls.

But I no longer say this to him. It would be cruel, given his condition. He can’t even leave his bed, let alone leave his country to go see the rainfalls. I don’t find it funny anymore.

At times, I delude myself into being able to sense the baby kicking inside me. But then I realize it’s just the train, bumping gently on its tracks, as it runs at full speed. It’d be foolish, of course, to think that this tiny form of life is already large enough to even have feet. My tummy is barely visible. And yet, I feel it expand in a slow-motion kind of way. It’s like when you look at a houseplant. You’re aware it’s growing, even though it’s going to take you weeks to notice any difference.

The train gives a long whistle, interrupting my fleeting thoughts. The wheels screech as they rotate slower and slower until the train halts at the terminus. I put my stilettos back on, grab my purse, and get up from my seat. All the other passengers are impatient to get off too. I elbow my way through them, trudging outside onto the platform.

The sun has set by now, giving way to a moonless night sky cloaked in dark, thick clouds. Miraculously, the rain has stopped falling. I inhale the stinging, wet, wintry air of my hometown, Agrigento.

I haven’t been home in weeks. My colleagues and I spend most of our waking hours on that stinky train. We hardly get any days off. We’re forced to be kind and helpful even when passengers treat us like pigeons invading the train. Plus, with my crazy working hours, I never know when I’ll finally get to sleep on a real bed. Those on the train aren’t beds, they’re cots, and there are never enough for the entire crew. One or two of us is always forced to sleep on the uncomfortable seats in the second-class compartment. Still dressed in our tight uniforms, with all the other passengers’ eyes on us, we barely get any sleep. If you add the missing air conditioning in the summer and the heating turned up at full blast in the winter...

Although, I struggle to find peace when I’m headed home too. At the end of every shift, I panic. Even at this very moment, the thought of having to leave again tomorrow morning paralyzes me. The idea of leaving my father home alone for another four or five days, maybe a whole week or two... just breaks my heart.

In the station square, I manage to halt a taxi cab. I get in and give the driver my address. He nods and we leave the train station behind. I see him yawn as he steers the vehicle along the coastal road speckled with orange lights.

I keep feeling movements inside my belly, and I can’t help thinking about my father now. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant either. I kept it a secret from him. I feel like, if he were to find this out, his hurt would be greater than his disappointment. His disease would get worse, and I would never forgive myself.

Finally, I see it. My father’s house, perched on top of a rocky cliff, facing the immense and now agitated Mediterranean Sea.

The taxi cab pulls over, and a few drops hit the windshield. It’s about to start pouring again. I pay the driver and run for shelter to my doorstep, holding my coat above my head. I fumble with my purse for a moment, looking for the keys. I find them and open the door.

As I enter, the woody smell and a familiar warmth welcome me. All the lights are off, the entire house flooded in darkness. I drop my uniform jacket on a chair, my purse on the kitchen table, I kick off my stilettos, and creep into the bedroom.

Hanging on the wall above the bed, a crucified Christ watches over my father. His nightstand is packed with more holy cards than I remember. I once got mad at my father for that, a few weeks after we had found out about his illness.

“All those saints won’t be able to save you, pa’” I’d said. “They're upsetting me, I'll take them away now.”

“Don’t you dare touch my San Bartolomeo, you blasphemer,” he'd said, his voice feeble like dripping water in a cave. I’d glimpsed a few tears well up in his eyes, so I left his depictions there ever since. They instill hope in him, even though hope can be both frail and firm when you hold on to it. It shatters if you tighten your grip too much, but it can also keep your head above water if you’re drowning.

I walk closer to my father and caress his shoulder, careful not to interrupt his peaceful sleep. Then, I slip into a nightgown I keep under the pillow and lie down beside him. Like a tidal wave, slumber overwhelms me in an instant.

2

The dazzling light of the morning sun takes over my eyelids until I can’t bear keeping them closed anymore. I open them, and my father is no longer sleeping on his side of the bed. I usually help him get dressed and go with him to the kitchen for breakfast, but this morning he’s nowhere to be seen.

An icy draft creeps through the bedsheets and I shiver. “Pa’?”

No answer.

I get out of bed and throw on the first wool sweater I find in my suitcase. I then slip into a pair of ripped jeans, not at all appropriate to the current weather.

The entrance door is wide open. There, I find my father, motionless in his wheelchair, staring unbelievingly outside. I spring toward him and take him away from the doorstep. But then, I understand his amazement.

The freezing air clears any trace of sleepiness away from my face, and I’m welcomed by a vast and thick stretch of snow. I gaze up at the sky and my jaw drops. Millions and millions of snowflakes are falling gently and kissing the whitened ground. For an instant, I’m stunned. But then, I slam the door shut, and I glower at my father.

“You scared the hell out of me, pa’! You know you can’t be outside in this weather. What if you catch a cold?”

I fill up a kettle with water, place it on a stove, and turn the heat up. The blinds are still down, so I pull them up. I look outside one of the windows, waiting for the water to boil. The blanket of snow covering the ground is so tall and dense...

I hear some buzzing sounds from somewhere in the kitchen. Then, I notice my uniform jacket balled up in a chair, twitching slightly along with my cellphone’s vibration. I take it out from the pocket. It’s Biagio, my boyfriend and boss at work. The father of the tiny life form inside my belly.

His messages read, Good morning, sweetheart. Isn’t it wonderful outside? You’re free from all duties for a whole day. You deserved a day off, so say thanks to the snow! Love you.

A day off? My days off are even rarer than the snowfalls in Sicily. I’ve worked for days, sometimes even weeks without a day of rest. But how will I tell my father? He always says, “Don’t accept a day off when they offer you one, it’s a trap they use to fire you.”

Now, he’s sliding on his wheelchair to the nearest window. “I can count on the fingers of one hand...” he whispers, with his nose almost touching the windowpane. He’s waiting for me to finish his sentence.

I sigh. “...all the times you’ve seen the rain.”

“But this!” He gestures at the white scenery outside. “I can’t believe it. It’s snowing... here...”

I smile a little, and head to the fridge to take some butter and orange

juice.

“Wait,” says my father, less pensive, more serious. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”

Right after I open the cupboard, my hand freezes in midair. What now? I cautiously close my hand around a package of sliced bread and place it on the table, careful to avoid my father’s eyes. He gets closer to me as I rummage in the cutlery drawer. My eyes are fixed down, searching for a knife to spread butter with.

“Well?” he insists.

“My boss gave me a day off,” I mumble.

“A what?”

“He gave me a day of rest.” I manage to look up at him. “I’ve been working for days, plus the snow—“

My father moves in his wheelchair toward the kitchen table and fetches a slice of bread. He crumples it with one hand and flings it at me. I dodge it.

“Days off don’t pay the bills,” he shouts. “Nor do they pay the butter you’re spreading on that damn bread!”

The kettle whistles, making both of us jump. I turn off the heat and that shrill sound fades away.

My father glares at me like a hound setting its sights on a pheasant.

“You put on that uniform now,” he says, pointing his finger at the jacket still crumpled up on the same chair. “And go to work today. You hear me?”

“Pa’, listen...”

“One day off becomes two, then three, and then they stop calling you, they replace you with someone else!” My father pants like an old dog whose barking leaves him breathless. “You lose your job, we lose everything.”

All of a sudden, my father starts gasping for air, and he almost falls off his wheelchair.

“Pa’! Pa’, What’s wrong?”

I kneel before him, unsure of what to do. I check his pulse. His heart-rate

is a little higher than normal.

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” I say, but then I feel stupid for even asking. The snow is so tall outside that it would be impossible for the ambulance track to even leave its parking lot.

Soon enough, my father starts breathing normally again. He takes my hand and holds it tight.

“Teresa,” he wheezes. “I lied to you.”

“What do you mean, pa’?” I say, although I’d like to tell him that I lied to him too.

“The doctors called a couple days ago,” he says. “They’ve seen my tests, and... it’s only a matter of weeks, Teresa, maybe days, before I—”

My stomach tenses at this horrible news. I feel tears welling up in my eyes, and my throat is too closed for me to say anything at all.

“But I have one last wish,” my father whispers. “I don’t want you to take me to see the rainfalls. Take me to see the snowfall outside. I want to die looking at my hometown’s coast covered in snow.”

I nod, wiping the tears from my eyes. I give him his winter coat and push him outside. We can’t move too far from our doorstep, the wheelchair would sink into the snow. My father’s breaths are long and wheezy, as he stares at the snow-capped Sicilian coast.

“This won’t happen again for centuries,” he whispers. “We’re so lucky.”

This snowstorm, the sea, the clouds, everything seems to have conspired against me. I’ve worked so hard to keep my father alive, and now...

“Pa’,” I whisper in his ear. “You’ll be a grandfather. I’m expecting a—”

The words die in my mouth, as my father exhales his last breath, a wisp of condensed air from his wrinkly mouth. I touch my belly. As one life comes to an end outside of me, another slowly and silently takes form inside of me.

This winter will end. Spring will come. Flowers will bloom, and my baby will be born. He’ll open his tiny eyes for the first time, dazzled by the flaming Sicilian sun filtering through the olive trees; blinded by the glimmering expanse of the Mediterranean Sea, and rocked by the lashing of its waves.

I hug my father’s lifeless body, and I weep in silence.

Thank you, snow, for giving me the time to stop.

Thank you, Earth.