An Italian Wife by Ann Hood

to be a scientist. She didn’t believe in superstitions like those that dominated her family and their neighborhood. But in fact, in one week, three things happened that changed Betsy’s life.
    The first was that the Spanish Influenza ripped through town for a second time and killed her father. She found her father disgusting. He was fat. He ate like a pig, grunting and spilling. He ignored all of his children. And he treated her mother like a servant. When her new baby sister died at birth in February, he’d only shrugged, even though her mother cried and moaned for weeks. So when he got sick, she hardly even paid attention. Her littlest sisters, Belle, the one everyone said was “off” or “not right in the head,” and Julie, who was next in age to Betsy, got it the week before. She had not wanted them to die, and had run over a mile to the doctor’s to find out what to do for them. No sooner did they pull through, emerging pale and exhausted, than their father got sick. Before she even had time to think about it, he died. More surprised than sad, and never having seen a dead person up close, Betsy went in to stare at his body. She was surprised at how blue his skin was, how his tongue jutted from his mouth, how contorted his face looked.
    â€œFrom coughing himself to death,” her mother explained. Her mother was dry-eyed too, even though out in the kitchen, all of the other kids were sobbing.
    â€œIt turned to pneumonia,” Betsy said, more interested in the clinical aspects of this than any personal ones.
    She expected everything to go on the same as it always had, except without her father around, until her mother announced that he had left them no money and the older girls would have to drop out of school and go to work in the mill.
    â€œNot me,” Betsy said. “I’m going to go to college.”
    â€œCollege?” her mother said. “Are you crazy? We need to put food on the table.”
    The very next day, Belle and Julie brought home papers for their mother to sign, agreeing to let them drop out of school. Belle had stayed back twice already anyway, and Julie liked boys more than studying.
    â€œWhere are yours?” her mother said.
    Betsy shook her head. “I want to be a scientist. I need to finish high school.” She was fifteen years old, a sophomore. Already she’d been voted social committee chairman, won a spot on the JV cheerleading squad. She was a person going places.
    â€œTomorrow you bring the papers for me to sign.”
    The next day, Betsy watched Belle and Julie get ready for their first days at the mill. They giggled and whispered as they got dressed, helping each other fix their hair and choose what to wear.
    â€œWe’ll tell you all about it,” Julie promised. “It won’t be so bad.”
    â€œBut you want to be famous,” Betsy reminded her.
    Julie shrugged. “Maybe a handsome man will fall in love with me. Maybe even the owner of the entire mill.”
    Belle took two cigarettes from the pack she kept hidden in the top dresser drawer. “I’d rather work than go to school anyway,” she said. “Dying was the best thing Papa ever did for me.”
    Betsy wanted to tell her sister that she would graduate in a year. Then she could get a better job, as a secretary or a stenographer. But Belle was smearing red lipstick on her mouth, trying to look older and sexy.
    â€œYou’ll see,” she told Betsy, “it’s going to be fun working.”
    That afternoon, Betsy had cheerleading practice. Her cartwheels were so strong that the team captain told her she’d definitely be moved up to the varsity team during basketball season. On the way home, Betsy walked as slowly as she possibly could, forming arguments to convince her mother she had to stay in school. But when she walked into the house, instead of the angry atmosphere she was expecting to find, her mother jumped up