IX.
Gina
She has a new consumer. That’s what you’re supposed to call them now. Before it was clients, and before that they were patients. What will it be next?
The woman, who lives out in Piety Corner near Helen Schade, speaks no English.
She has just been brought from Italy by her daughter, who is a doctor and must leave her alone all day. When Rosa arrives she is weeping and scrubbing the kitchen table, which is already clean.
Rosa, not knowing what else to do, goes and puts her arms around her. The woman, whose name is Gina, begins to tell Rosa in Italian about her only son who died recently in Turin, leaving her all alone, with just this daughter who works all day. And there is not even a*****e she can walk to or a neighbor who is home.
Rosa is supposed to be cleaning the house,
