Summary
Chapter 23
Wednesday afternoon Josie is at Nonna Katia’s house looking at her grandmother’s photo albums again. As Josie stares at the picture of Marcus Sandford, Nonna Katia tells her that the Australian man was in love with her. Josie asks if she loved him back, but Katia denies it, saying she was married. She does admit however that she did see Marcus again after baby Roberto’s death. For four months during the holiday season she was alone, because her sister’s family had moved to Sydney, and Nonna Francesco was away for work. During this time Marcus came and visited, but it was difficult because the Italian community was always watching. According to Nonna Katia, the community gossiped about one woman so much that she killed herself. Still, Marcus came and saw Nonna Katia. When the time came for her to move to Sydney, she could see in his eyes it’d break his heart if she left, but she knew if she stayed she’d break her own heart. So she left. Josie wonders if Marcus ever married anyone, but Nonna Katia shrugs and tells her more stories. As Josie sits and listens, she realizes how much she has changed over the past year. A year ago, these stories would bore her, and she would have ignored her grandmother because of their rocky relationship. Now, she’s establishing a good relationship with her grandmother, which she appreciates. She hopes to pass along the information and stories her grandmother and mother have shared with her to her own children. That way, one day her own granddaughter can try to understand her like she’s trying to understand Nonna Katia.
Chapter 24
When Josie gets off the bus the following afternoon, Jacob is waiting for her in his soccer uniform. Josie looks down at her prim school uniform, and wonders to herself if they will ever find a niche together. Jacob kisses her, and asks about her dad. Josie replies that her father thinks Jacob has sex on his mind, and he agrees, which makes her excited but embarrassed. Josie tries to change the topic by talking about her parents. She shares her fears about her father going back to Adelaide and her mother getting married, and Jacob does his best to assuage them. When they reach Josie’s house she realizes her grandmother is visiting, and doesn’t want to introduce her to Jacob because she hasn’t been told about him. This upsets Jacob, who thinks Josie is embarrassed of him. Though Josie blames it on cultural differences, Jacob doesn’t. He thinks Josie should break away from the rules that hold her back, but she thinks that’s easier said than done. When he asks one more time to meet her grandmother and Josie refuses again, Jacob walks away.
The next afternoon, Josie goes to Jacob’s neighborhood in Redfern. At first the Aboriginal Australians that live there intimidate her because of her ignorance, but then she sees a group of girls that could be her and her friends, and relaxes. When she reaches Jacob’s house he’s still angry. He refuses to let her inside, and says he’s not ready to introduce her to his father because he’s not sure how his father will feel about her being Italian. This sets Josie off, and it looks like they’re about to break up when Jacob’s father comes to the door. When he finds out who Josie is, he pulls her inside, saying she’s all Jacob talks about. Mr. Coote makes them tea, and asks Josie questions about herself. When he finds out she wants to study law, he jokingly asks her why she’s with Jacob, but Jacob takes it seriously and storms off to his room. Josie sits for a bit longer with Mr. Coote, but eventually goes to Jacob’s room.
At first Jacob ignores her, but finally warms up when Josie tells him that he’s good enough for her. She gets up on his bed and kisses him, and Jacob points out this is the first time she’s made the first move. They make out and Jacob begins to undress. Josie gets caught up, until she looks up and realizes she could be losing her virginity in Jacob’s bedroom while his father was in the next room. She tells Jacob to stop, which he does, but he doesn’t understand why she’s so desperate to hold onto her virginity. They argue back and forth until Josie confesses she’s not ready because they don’t even love each other. They lie in silence until Jacob says haltingly that he in fact does love her. Josie hugs him and tells him she kind of loves him too. This appeases Jacob, who says he won’t push for sex anymore, and they’ll take things at Josie’s pace. He drops her at home, and tells her to call him first, because he likes it when she takes the initiative in their relationship. Josie agrees and watches him leave, feeling as if all her problems were blown out the window.
Chapter 25
Today is Christina’s birthday and Josie and Nonna Katia throw a party at Katia’s house. Robert points out that Christina’s birthday is October 1st, and that’s exactly nine months after New Year’s Day, so maybe she was conceived on the first day of the new year, or sometime in the preceding weeks. As everyone jokes and laughs about the possibilities of Nonno Francesco and Nonna Katia conceiving Christina during the holiday season, Josie freezes. She looks at her grandmother, the only other person not laughing, and realizes something that could have changed all their lives. Josie waits for everyone, including her mother, to leave before confronting Nonna Katia. As her grandmother comes up and tries to kiss her, Josie turns around calls her a liar. She’s pieced together the stories her grandmother has told her, and realizes that it’s impossible for Nonno Francesco to have fathered Christina, because he was away for four months during the time Christina was conceived. That leaves one man, and one man only: Marcus Sandford.
Katia denies everything, but Josie refuses to believe her. She rails into her grandmother for hiding the truth from Christina, and allowing Nonno Francesco to mistreat her mother for her entire life. She calls her grandmother a hypocrite for abandoning a pregnant Christina when she had done something so much worse, and vows to never visit again unless it’s with Christina. She even threatens to tell Christina the truth, but Nonna Katia begs her not to. Josie leaves, hating Nonna Katia and Marcus Sandford because their actions resulted in her mother living in a house of hate and indifference for 17 years. Josie wonders how life would have been different if Nonna had married Marcus. Would Christina have lived a different life and not slept with Michael Andretti out of loneliness? For once, Josie longs to be an insignificant Italian in a normal family with no secrets and lives. The progress she’s made all year towards finding her place in life feels undone. Her life, along with the lives of her mother and grandmother, feels like a lie.
Chapter 26
It takes a week for Josie to realize that she’s no longer angry at her grandmother for what she did 36 years ago. She realizes that after worrying for all of high school about what other people thought and said about her, she no longer cares as long as the important people in her life accepted her. Still, she’s mad at Nonna Katia for being a hypocrite, when Christina was the one who truly suffered. Josie thinks all of this as she and her friends are heading to Sera’s house to study for the HSC. Sera is babbling about Josie’s father and how he’s viewed in the Italian community, but Josie finally puts her in her place. She waves goodbye to the other girls, and heads to her grandmother’s house to talk. When her grandmother opens the door, Josie hugs her, and her grandmother hugs her back. They sit in the living room, and when Josie asks why, Nonna Katia confesses it’s because Marcus made her feel beautiful and loved in a way that Nonno Francesco never did. Like Josie, Nonna Katia had dreams, dreams that Nonno Francesco couldn’t fulfill. At first she tried to push Marcus away, but after a while she couldn’t resist his love and care for her.
They had two months together, during which Marcus would beg her to leave Francesco, but the Italian girl in her couldn’t bear to further disgrace the memory of her parents. She left for Sydney, knowing she was pregnant, and tried to tell Francesco the baby was his. He slapped her, knowing she was lying, because he knew he was infertile since he had mumps as a child. This revelation was devastating to Katia, who dreamed of having children. Nonno Francesco agreed to raise Christina as his own, but took his anger out on Christina and Nonna Katia for the rest of his life. Josie doesn’t understand why Nonna Katia stayed with him, and laments at the bitterness and resentment he caused between Nonna Katia and Christina. Nonna Katia regrets it too, and says that things will never be right, but Josie disagrees and says they can still work things out. That night, Josie stays with her grandmother because she wants to stay with this woman who she misjudged. Her grandmother did dream, break rules, and take chances. That night, Josie prays for understanding, and cries because she’s been loved by two strong women.
Chapter 27
The Sunday before exams Josie goes to watch Robert’s last rugby match. She brings her economics book with her, but the noise of the match makes it impossible to study. Suddenly, up walks John Barton, looking the happiest Josie has seen him in a while. John mentions Poison Ivy, and tells Josie that they are very similar. He hopes the two girls can be friends and be there for each other. This confuses Josie, but she goes along with John’s euphoric and gay attitude. After the match, John walks Josie home, and confesses that he had a crush on her in Year 10. Josie laughs and hugs him, telling him she had a crush on him too. She shares that Jacob is jealous of him, but that she hopes they can all be friends, because they’ll need each other in university, if they survive the HSC. At the word survive John wonders what she means, but she clarifies that she just wants high school to be over. John tells her that no matter what she has to make own decisions about her future and follow through. That’s what he’s finally decided to do. Josie is impressed with John’s determination, and says he’s reached his emancipation. His optimism and positivity is contagious, and Josie finds her spirits are lifted by the time they get to her house. John hugs her goodbye and tells her to look after herself. Later that night she calls Jacob and tells him about her talk with John, and Jacob doesn’t freak out. Though the exam is tomorrow, Josie goes to bed happy and content, secure in the fact that she has good people like Jacob, John, her parents, Nonna, and her friends supporting her.
Analysis
As stated in the previous section, this half of the novel features some of the things Josie knows to be true questioned and thrown out, leaving her deeply shaken. The true paternity of her mother’s father is one such thing. For the entirety of Christina’s life, everyone besides Nonna Katia and Nonno Francesco believed that Nonno Francesco was Christina’s birth father. However, by putting together the stories Nonna Katia told her about their first years in Australia and her relationship with Marcus Sandford, Josie realizes that the kind Australian man, and not the cold and severe Nonno Francesco, is Christina’s true father. This news sends Josie into a tailspin, and causes her to question her life, along with the lives of her mother and Nonna Katia. After making so much progress on her journey towards self-discovery, Josie feels more lost than ever. Her entire life she was raised as an Alibrandi when she should have been an Andretti, and now it turns out that her family actually comes from the Sandfords. Tragically, neither Marcus Sandford or Christina know the truth of their familial bond, and at Nonna Katia’s bequest, Christina will never know why Nonno Francesco, her supposed father, hated her so much. This is a great example of dramatic irony.
At first Josie finds her grandmother’s actions unforgivable, and swears to never talk to her again. She views her grandmother’s secret affair and subsequent pregnancy with Marcus Sandford as highly hypocritical, as Nonna Katia always criticized Josie and her mother for actions not nearly as terrible. It is a testimony to how far Josie as come as a young woman that she forgives her grandmother, and listens to her side of the story. What unfolds is a tale of love across cultural differences, social boundaries, and moral barriers. In acting on her love for Marcus, Katia set aside her Italian heritage for a little while, and wasn’t a good Italian wife who stays loyal to her husband no matter what. She brushed off the pressure of her community that questioned her friendship with Marcus, an Australian man, and did what she wanted to do. This is shocking to Josie, who always viewed her grandmother as the quintessential and traditional Italian woman. Now, she sees that her grandmother was young at one point, and dreamed of a love and a life better than what she had. Unfortunately for Katia, her respect for her parents' memory and her heritage stopped her from completely embracing Marcus and her love for him. Still, that love lives on in Christina.
And so, Josie sees she has more in common with the Alibrandi women who came before her than she ever thought. Like her grandmother, she’s in love with an Australian man who her community doesn’t entirely approve of. And like mother, she’s the product of an unconventional union between two people. Hearing stories of how Nonno Francesco treated Christina, Josie recognizes that he was emotionally and psychologically an absent father. Now, after finding out that Christina’s real father didn’t know she existed, it’s clear that like her daughter Christina was also the product of an absent father. Christina’s words to Michael in chapter 6 about being 34 years old but still needing her father resonate even more powerfully now.
Aside from the revelations concerning her family and her newfound closeness to her grandmother, Josie also has significant interactions with Jacob and John in this section of chapters. Despite being closer than ever, Josie and Jacob still have their differences and disagreements, some about their cultures but others about who they are as people. For example, Jacob doesn’t understand the cultural nuances behind Josie’s refusal to introduce him to her grandmother out of the blue, and continues to question whether they will ever find a “niche” together (Marchetta 289). Josie must also fend off Jacob’s sexual advances, until her boyfriend realizes that pressuring her into sex isn’t the answer and agrees to wait. Jacob finally listening to her and agreeing to her wishes makes Josie fall in love with him even more. She leaves his house in Redfern secure in their relationship.
Finally, after struggling with his family’s pressure about his future and his achievements, John Barton seems to finally have broken free. When Josie sees him at the rugby match, John is happy, light-hearted, and full of advice for Josie about following through with your own decisions. When Josie asks, John confirms he is not following in his father’s footsteps, but rather living his life his way. As he says, the future is his to do whatever he wants with it (Marchetta 326). John’s mood is inspiring to Josie, who was feeling anxious and stressed about her looming HSC exams. Now, armed with an emancipated John by her side, along with her friends, family, and boyfriend, Josie feels ready to face whatever obstacles come her way.
