The Supreme Macaroni Company

  “Valentine. You didn’t hit the chalk mark.” Gabriel interrupts my thoughts, reaching across the cutting table and taking the sheet of leather from me. “Here, I’ll do it. You don’t have your mind on the game.”

  “Sorry.”

  My mother is wrapping an order under the windows. Her gold bangle bracelets jingle merrily as she tapes the box shut. Jaclyn and Tess are hunched over a laptop studying an ad our competitor has placed in the New York Times.

  Outside the window, Charlie, Tom, and Dad are loading a truck with an order for Picardy Shoe Parlor in Mequon, Wisconsin.

  Bret and Alfred sit at the desk and figure out a loan restructure. The factory in Youngstown is coming up on its first anniversary. Payroll is met, loans are being paid back, and we’ve added a third vendor to the order pool. The Supreme Macaroni Company is working, and I can’t help but think that my husband willed it so.

  I have everything I’ll ever need in this room right now.

  My family is all around me—my father and mother, my daughter, my sisters and their husbands, my brother and his wife, cousins in five states, Gram and Dominic in Italy—I have everything and everybody within reach with the press of a button on my phone, everyone except Gianluca. He built this life for me, as if he’d sat down at the table with a fresh sheet of butcher paper and sketched a life in a world that I could live in without him.

  Gianluca took my vision for the shop and went about building the dream. He made the deal with Cousin Don, found the space, and opened the factory in Youngstown. He gave me Alfie, and made sure that my family was close by to help me raise her.

  The only way I can thank him is to raise Alfie to be a woman he would be proud to know and surround her with people who remember him, who can tell her the stories that came before her, before Gianluca and I met, before all of this was imagined.

  I will probably always cry myself to sleep, but knowing this, someday the tears won’t be sad, or filled with regret. Maybe they will be joyful, as the aspects of Gianluca Vechiarelli fill my own final days with the memory of what we had. Without him, life wouldn’t have been so rich, nor our hearts so full. Memories, it turns out, take up as much space in the human heart as feelings.

  All we have, all of this—a sturdy life filled with hard work, deadlines to honor, and my family, united under one roof with a common purpose—was Gianluca’s idea. It was as if he chose the musicians, handed out the instruments, and let them play. The Italian way of life thrives on Perry Street. My dream is no longer to be the best and turn the biggest profit, but to enjoy my daughter and the family that loves her as much as I do, and as much as her father did.

  Any happiness we enjoy—any feelings of security and this newfound treasure, our solidarity as a family, all of this and so much more—is because of him. My Gianluca.

  What I remember is not what we ate for dinner, or what we were wearing, but what was said—the conversations, the words, the intent and the meaning. These make life full, and the memory of them will carry me through the rest of my life.

  “Alfie is calling for you on the roof,” Tess says from the doorway.

  Pamela stops me to look at an ad campaign she designed for the web. She placed our winter line on a sea of emerald velvet. I swear since she came to work here, she’s made this business as it’s perceived in the world so much more elegant.

  Clickety-Click has become the Muckety-Muck.

  “I think it’s dazzling,” I tell her.

  “Could use another tinker,” she says. “I’m on it.”

  I take the stairs two at a time until I’m up to the roof. I push the door open. My nieces and nephews are showing Alfie and Bret’s girls how to plant tomatoes.

  All Alfie wants to do is water the dirt, so she stands over a pot without a plant in it and sprinkles water on the black earth.

  Bret guides his daughter Piper to put a stake in the pot. He shows her how to tie the strings to the plant so it will grow straight in the sun. He is patient as she grapples with the stem, the stick, and the string. When she completes the task, he compliments her. He drags the pot to the side of the roof, where he lines it up in the sun with the others.

  Alfie tugs Bret on the sleeve. She takes him by the hand and puts a stick in the pot. She digs in the black earth with her hands. He drops the plant into the well in the dirt. He pats the dirt to demonstrate. She follows suit. She puts her entire body into the patting down of the dirt until it is smooth.

  Bret quickly ties the string up the stalk while Alfie holds it in place. Bret shows her how to rinse her hands in the clean water in the bucket. My daughter takes the watering can and pours it over the plant. She looks up at Bret, who smiles his approval. He lets her help him haul the plant over to the side of the roof.

  A chill runs through me as I watch them. I remember when I was a girl and my grandfather and I planted tomatoes on this roof. I see how determined she is, how serious, how invested she is in doing a good job, how pleased she is that Bret approves of her hard work.

  “Mama—” She turns to me and runs into my arms. “Tomato!”

  “I see.”

  “He helped!” She points to Bret.

  “Aunt Val, can we plant some flowers up here?” Chiara asks.

  “You know, I was thinking sunflowers.”

  “Cool. Those grow really tall.”

  “Who wants cupcakes?” Tess says from the door.

  A small stampede of her kids, Alfred’s, Bret’s, and my daughter make it to the door, whooping and hollering as they follow Tess down to the kitchen.

  I stand and watch as Bret turns off the hose and winds it around the storage wheel. He adjusts the pots to tilt out a bit so they get the most sun. He places the chairs back around the table.

  I watch him straighten the roof. I don’t know why, but I can’t help him. I just stand and watch, a bystander, frozen in the moment like one of those butterflies that lives for eternity in a resin paperweight.

  Bret crosses the roof and joins me. “Are you okay?”

  “I really miss him. A flyer came in the mail. I saw his name, and here I go.” And out of nowhere, I begin to cry just like a new widow.

  Bret takes me in his arms. I collapse in the strength of his grip and weep.

  I cry for everything Alfie won’t have, everything I will miss, and the terrible helplessness that comes from the interminable mourning that comes from sudden loss. Gianluca’s death is final, and therefore it controls everything. I am rendered weak and useless by the finality of it all. The only thing I know, the only thing I believe, is that only Gianluca could make all of this better. There’s my reprieve and I can never have it.

  My heart is so broken, there is no hope of ever mending it without him.

  My father thinks that when he willed me out of bed, I began the slow walk to acceptance of Gianluca’s death. But really, I just got up for Alfie. She was my excuse to live. What kind of mother am I? I can’t show her how to navigate sadness because I haven’t figured out my own.

  She is a girl who will never know her father, and I feel I have to be everything to her to make up for that loss.

  If I was going to turn to anyone when the worst thing happened, it would have been my husband. But he was gone. In life, there is always a shot at a do-over. Only death doesn’t allow one.

  “You know, Val”—Bret digs in his pocket and hands me his handkerchief—“there’s nothing sad about loving someone so much that nothing makes sense without him. It’s the definition of joy.”

  “I don’t feel joy anymore.”

  “You will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because everything is a grace.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything,” Bret says with such certainty that for a moment it’s as real as anything I’ve ever known. “Come on. Let’s check on the kids.”

  ?
??What do they want for dinner?”

  “What do you think? Macaroni.”

  Bret pushes the screen door open and goes down the stairs.

  I dry my tears on Bret’s handkerchief and take a deep breath. The scent of the earth, the spicy green of the new tomato plants, and the feeling of the warm sun on my face bring me back to my childhood, when I knew grace, but didn’t have a name for it.

  I remember the day my grandfather filled the barren plants with velvet tomatoes so I wouldn’t lose hope. If Gianluca were here, he’d have me tell the story again. I don’t want to forget it, so I race down the steps to tell Alfie.

  Alfie and I took a pass on the feast of the Seven Fishes at Jaclyn’s. Evidently, so did Aunt Feen, who decided that she’d rather not miss the Country Christmas Special starring Martina McBride and the Band Perry on TBS. It had come to that with Aunt Feen. She refused to get TiVo, so she had to be home so as not to miss her favorite programs. It might as well be 1955.

  I hosted Christmas Day on Perry Street with Gabriel’s help. He works in the shop, helps with Alfie, and as often as he can, makes me laugh.

  I pulled all of Gram’s silver out of the closet, spending a week polishing the heirlooms. Gram and Dominic had taken the guest room, and would be with us through the new year. They would head down to Florida to our cousins for the month of January. I saw Gram slowing down for the first time on this trip. Dominic had never used a redcap in his life, but now they needed one, and he coughed up the tip.

  My sisters set the dining room table, built by my great-grandfather. They loaded the candelabra with red candles and festooned it with fresh holly. They placed the starched napkins on the plates and filled the crystal goblets with water. Alfie was keeping busy under the tree, moving ornaments gently from one lower branch to another. Gabriel bit his hand every time she touched one.

  My father was hand-cranking ice cream on the roof. We could hear a spat in full force through the open window in the kitchen. My sisters, my brother, and I got a kick out of our parents. They still didn’t know exactly how to get along, but it didn’t matter. Neither of them could live without the other.

  Pamela had designed our company Christmas cards this year. We gave her every task that involved words—whether on a gift basket or in an ad on Huff Post. She had blossomed in the glorious garden of self-reliance. Alfred and Pamela seemed to be getting along well, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that he gave her everything she wanted.

  Gram called me from upstairs as Chiara put a roll on each bread plate on the table. I climbed the stairs quickly and joined her in the guest room.

  “Your mother and father are having a brawl on the roof.”

  “Gram, that makes it Christmas.”

  “Dominic and Alfred went to pick up Feen.”

  I sat down on the bed and remembered when Gianluca and I drove Feen home that Christmas Eve. It was a night that lasted a year. She hadn’t changed a bit in the interim. In fact, it seems we’d all changed, everyone but Aunt Feen.

  “How are you holding up?” Gram asked.

  “I’m okay,” I told her honestly. “I had to assemble so much plastic crap for Alfie that to tell the truth, my mind was occupied.”

  “Good. I was worried when you didn’t come to the feast at Jaclyn’s.”

  “Gram, I know my limits. You get one meal out of me per holiday. I don’t have the energy.”

  “I understand. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Is it bad news?”

  “No—Dominic told me something, and I thought it was important.”

  “What is it?”

  “He remembered something that Gianluca said to him.”

  “Was it about Alfie?”

  “No.”

  “Me?”

  “No. The house in Santa Margherita.”

  When I heard the name of the town, it was a stab to my heart. It represented my husband’s greatest sacrifice, and frankly, even with visits to grief counselors and psychics and pouring my heart out to Gabriel, I hadn’t cracked that one yet. It still haunted me.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to upset you all over again,” Gram said.

  “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Gianluca had Dominic cash out an account in Arezzo when you bought the factory. And when Gianluca sold the house, Dominic did the transfer. And Dominic knew how much Gianluca loved that house. And he also knew how much Gianluca loved Italy. So he was worried that his son was cutting ties where he shouldn’t. So he expressed his fears to his son. And Gianluca told him, ‘You know, Papa, I have this house that was mine before I met Valentina. And we live in a house in Greenwich Village that belongs to the family, and neither of these belong to us. Someday, when Valentina is ready, we’ll buy a house together, one that will be ours.’ ”

  “But I didn’t care about a house! I wanted him!”

  “Don’t you see? He didn’t care either. He was happy with you. So stop mourning all these things that you think brought him sadness, because the fact is, you only brought him joy, even when you thought you weren’t.”

  “Did I? I really didn’t understand what it meant to be married. He brought me to the house, and I didn’t feel it was mine. I was still drawing lines in the relationship like angles on pattern paper. But the whole time, we were one.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “But I didn’t know it. He knew it. And I didn’t.”

  I began to cry, and Gram put her arms around me. “Do you think he would’ve ever told me about the house?”

  Gram smiled. “He knew he would have to someday, but he wasn’t worried. He knew you’d understand.”

  Gram and I went down the stairs to join the Christmas Day party. It was like walking into FAO Schwarz with a killer Italian buffet. Aunt Feen was guzzling a Fuzzy Navel while Alfred brought the pork roast to the table and my mother gathered the troops to sit. We took our places as Gabriel hoisted Alfie into her high chair.

  Aunt Feen unfolded her napkin and placed it on her lap. “I hate when Christmas falls on a weekday. They do a schlock episode of General Hospital where they sing Christmas carols. I like blood and guts on my soaps, not warm and fuzzies.”

  Mom handed out the devotion cards, and we recited the prayer of Saint Francis. It’s my mother’s way of remembering Gianluca without saying his name.

  “Jaclyn, go get that package I brought.”

  Jaclyn, busy wrangling the kids, shot Aunt Feen a look to kill.

  “It’s a gift for the entire family,” Feen barked.

  Jaclyn brought a large, square package wrapped in brown paper to the table.

  “I had something made for you, Valentine.”

  “Oh, Aunt Feen, you shouldn’t have.”

  “But I already did, so say thank you.”

  I ripped into the package. It was a painting. A painting of my family from Christmas Eve, the night Gianluca asked me to marry him. It was in a gold-leaf frame, very ornate, museum-quality even.

  “I was at the beauty shop, and I was reading about these people in Denmark who make paintings from photographs. So I sent off for it.” Aunt Feen lifted her bifocals and squinted at the painting. “I think it’s pretty good.”

  “Not since John Singer Sargent . . . ,” Gabriel said.

  “I don’t know about him. I just sent the family picture.” Feen shrugged.

  I picked Gianluca out in the middle of the family. My head was resting on his shoulder, and instead of dark brown hair, for whatever reason my hair was red, and it looked like I was wearing a wig. But it didn’t matter. They had captured Gianluca perfectly. He was laughing with that wide-open smile of his.

  “We don’t look like ourselves—are you sure this is our family?” Mom asked.

  “What the hell are you talking about? Don’t you listen? I said I sent the photo.”
br />   “Then why do I look like Tony Bennett?” my father wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you look like him.”

  “That’s not me,” my father insisted.

  “Mom looks like Cher,” Jaclyn said.

  “When she was with Sonny, or now?” Mom wondered, as she squinted at the painting.

  “We look like Destiny’s Child, Tess. Look at us. They painted them over our faces.”

  “I’m telling you, somebody was pulling your leg with this thing, Auntie,” Dad insisted.

  “I like it,” Feen said defensively. “What do you want from a bunch of Swedes?”

  “I thought you said the artist was from Denmark,” Tom piped up.

  “It’s one of those cold salmon-eating countries. The artist interpreted our family, and this is what he saw,” Feen said defensively.

  “I look like Yogi Bear,” Charlie said.

  “What the hell do you want? You look like him in real life.”

  Gram began to laugh at the absurdity of the bad painting. She couldn’t stop. Soon, we were all laughing until we cried. Everyone of course, except Aunt Feen, who stood by the artist’s vision, no matter how flawed it had been.

  I don’t know exactly when I began to sleep on Gianluca’s side of the bed. Like any routine I fell into after my husband died, it seemed to happen naturally. The two years we were married seem like twenty on some days, and two seconds on others. The dreams that come when I sleep happen in and around water, they fold into my memories seamlessly. Sometimes I wake up and feel that I traveled through the night. I remember being pregnant with Alfie and swimming in the lake, just the three of us. I can’t wait for Alfie to grow up so I can tell her the story and take her to the place where her father held me.

  A widow relives her time with her husband over and over again, searching for clues and hoping to find some small proof that the love they shared here on earth was eternal. I haven’t had much luck with that, but what I do have, the things I do remember, those moments, have a funny way of stringing together and sustaining me.

  In my mind, I swim with Gianluca in the Blue Grotto. This was long before I loved him and he loved me. It was when we were new friends and had just met. It’s like I’m there again. I feel the veins of coral on the cold rock walls and the warm blue water. I see the beams of pure white light as they cut through the rocks and dance on the surface of the water. I shiver at the touch of Gianluca’s arms around me as we float in the deep. I even remember being afraid of the depths and then suddenly courageous and brazen as long as he stayed close.