Vignette 6, Synopsis

Synopsis of final vignette.



Title: A Letter From Nonna

Author: Bikerider





Climax Synopsis



Severino receives a letter from his wife, Angela. She is writing from an asylum where she is being held. Her house was burned and her neighbors, and the authorities, believe she set the fire in an attempt to kill her children as they slept inside, rather than watch them suffer. She insists the fire was an accident. The letter states she can be released from the hospital only if he comes and signs, taking responsibility for her.

Severino has been struggling with the problem of not being able to send money home for the support of his family. He is dogged by the image of his wife and children going hungry in a country that is slowly becoming a battleground for WW II. He feels that God is punishing him by punishing his wife and children. He is tormented when he looks inside himself and see's his actions since coming to America.

Severino considers his long term affair with Arianna. He thinks about how he has dismissed God and spurned religion and religious belief. He begins to realize that he has not done all he could to convince his wife to come to America and bring their children. Has his affair with Arianna stunted his efforts to bring his wife to America where they would not now be suffering, he wonders.

He breaks off his relationship with Arianna but quickly realizes that the damage has already been done. He visits the church looking for forgiveness, but the priest he speaks to does not assuage his guilt. His thoughts return again to the war. He remembers how he could not save the young men under his care. He remembers Marco and the way he died, praying for life. He remembers the young boy who was killed on his way to the top of the mountain, and he again blames himself for the young man's death. He sees that his actions have brought on his misery.

As he sits in his grocery store on a cold, winter night, he is plagued by the sounds of the children he heard crying for their father's when he boarded the train for war year's ago.

Only this time it is his children crying, and they are crying out to him.