“I’m going to head upstairs. We have a big day tomorrow.” Helen looked at her sisters. “Just leave the dishes. I can do them in the morning.”
“Go ahead. Don’t worry about it. Portia, go get some rest. You must be exhausted. We’ll finish up here.”
Portia and Helen went upstairs, leaving Nicky and Calla alone in the kitchen. Nicky went to the sink, filled it with hot water and suds, and began washing the glasses. Calla stood beside him with the dishtowel. As he rinsed, she dried, placing the sparkling glasses on the shelf over the window.
“Frank drove Hambone home,” she said. “He has a five o’clock call at work in the morning.”
“He’s not coming back tonight?”
“He’ll be at the funeral. You worried I’ll be alone?”
“That will never be a problem for you. I was afraid the floor would give, you had so many people here tonight.”
“They loved Dad.”
“That must be a good feeling, to have had a father that was so beloved by so many. He lived a life that brought joy to people. He entertained them. That’s something.”
“Is it?”
“Sure it is. What’s bigger than making someone feel something? How can you quantify the moment when a person laughs? Or when they cry? When they feel? You can’t. It’s the human experience. And your father was in the business of illuminating it for people. He showed them that what they were going through was important, and that their lives had meaning. That’s a noble undertaking.”
Nicky’s words went straight to Calla’s heart. She sat down at the kitchen table and wept into the dishtowel.
“I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. Can I tell you a funny story?”
She nodded.
“I was arrested.”
“What?” Calla put down the dishtowel.
“I almost never saw the sky again.”
“What happened?”
“We got caught. Mrs. Mooney and me. Evidently without a director, I’m a lousy actor. And your crummy Penn State band uniform didn’t help me, either.”
Calla laughed. “I forgot to tell you.”
“You didn’t have to. I heard all about it. There’s a lot of Nittany Lion fans in Roseto, Pennsylvania.”
“I’m sorry.” Calla laughed.
“There you go. Your dad would get a big kick out of my punishment. Let’s call it a penance.”
“What is it?”
“I’m going to Italy to build a road to the Ambassador’s hometown. Playing him in real life cost me everything. My money and my time.”
“Do you know how to build a road?”
“I’ll learn. I couldn’t act until I tried it. So, we’ll see.” Nicky took the dishtowel from Calla. “Come on, let’s get some air.”
Nicky put his arm around Calla as they took a walk on Ellsworth. They turned onto Broad. “I know everybody on this street. I wrote a song about it.”
“I didn’t know you could sing.”
“Not the best.”
Nicky launched into his aria on the Street of Names. He sang:
Farino, Canino,
Schiavone, Marconi,
Terlazzo, Janazzo,
Leone, Francone,
Ciliberti, Monteverdi,
Ruggiero!
and belting high notes, he sang:
Sempre Borelli!
“Shut up!” A woman of fifty, her wet hair rolled in strips of cloth, hung her Raggedy Ann head out of her second-story window. “You dying moose! Die already!”
“Sorry, lady!”
“You should be!” The woman slammed her window shut.
“No career in the opera for me.”
“You needed her to tell you?” Calla teased. “I’m glad Dad gave up the musical theater.”
“Don’t pile on, sister. I’m being nice to you with all you’re going through.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m your best friend.”
“You are, aren’t you?” Calla nudged him playfully. “My dad never wanted us to get too chummy with the actors.”
“Why not?”
“He always worried one of his daughters would wind up with one. Portia married a banker, and Helen’s husband is a teacher.”
“And you’ll best them both with a builder. A contractor who will be king of all this. You will do better than both of your sisters.”
“That’s not my goal.”
“It wasn’t for Lear’s daughters either.”
“I forgot about Lear.”
“You shouldn’t. Any dilemma a human being might face was dramatized by William Shakespeare. You don’t need a priest or a doctor, just read the folios. You’ll find all the answers there. I heard your father say that in rehearsal.”
Calla stopped and turned away from Nicky, suddenly in tears again. He put his arms around her. “You’ll be doing a lot of that. I didn’t learn that from Shakespeare.”
“I had him at home, you know, to turn to—I could ask my dad anything.”
“Therefore, you can handle anything. Your dad saw to it. Nobody can take that away from you—not in your life and not in your work. You’re the strongest girl I know, and I would know, because I live in a house crawling with them. You don’t need anybody to tell you what to do and how to do it. Not even your big lug of a boyfriend with the rag top knows more than you do.”
“I’m not going to tell him you said that.”
“Good, because he has about thirty pounds on me.”
“Of muscle.”
“I’m not hurt by that little dig, because I know you’re grieving.”
“I’ve been dreading this day.”
“Because you took care of your dad. Do you know how much he appreciated that? More than you’ll ever know. You’re going to be sad. Plenty sad. You just have to go through it.”
Nicky and Calla walked for a long time. They walked through the neighborhood and along Broad Street. If it had been up to Calla, they would have walked all night as she didn’t want to return to the house and face the sadness that filled every room. She dreaded the funeral mass and the burial. There would be no comfort in the Latin, the Kyries, the prayers and the hymns. “I’m an orphan now too.”
Nicky put his arm around Calla. “You are, aren’t you? Well, I’m sorry about that. It ain’t great. But stick with me. I’m good with grief. Had a life full of it.”
9
A blue jay landed on Hortense Mooney’s kitchen windowsill and stared at her. She looked up from the bushel of bright red tomatoes she was coring to boil and looked the bird straight in the eye.
“Lordy, Lordy,” she mumbled to herself. “That’s a bad sign. Somebody’s going to be with Jesus.” She looked up. “Safe travels.”
Hortense put down her paring knife, closed her eyes, and said a quick prayer. She sat down at her kitchen table, opened her loose-leaf binder, and wrote out Minna’s gravy recipe neatly. Again.
Minna Gravy–Test #17
For 5 cups of gravy:
6 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced paper thin
2 small sweet onions, chopped very fine
2 medium carrots, diced
2 hearts of celery, diced (from 2 stalks)
5 pounds of fresh tomatoes (boiled, skinned, and strained like Minna)
5 stems of leafy basil shredded fine by hand, remove the stems
1/2 stick of sweet salted butter
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt to taste
Secret ingredient guess #17: 1/4 cup sugar
Hortense closed the binder and went to the stove. She dropped a tomato into the large pot of boiling water, following it with another, and another. She had boiled so many tomatoes since her return from Roseto, she had developed a technique whereby the boiling water engulfed the tomato without so much as a splash.
Louis Mooney entered the kitchen, placed his hat on the hook on the back of the door and a brown bag with a loaf of fresh bread on the table. “You’re making
that tomato sauce again?”
“Yes, Louis.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
“I don’t need your judgment right now,” Hortense said patiently, fishing the tomatoes out of the boiling water and placing them in a bowl to peel them. She set the bowl aside before adding more tomatoes to the pot.
“Is this all we’re going to eat until we’re dead?”
“Until I get it right,” she said pleasantly.
“Good to know.”
Louis left the kitchen. Hortense dropped a large tomato into the boiling water, but this one splashed. Boiling water ricocheted everywhere, like clear bullets. She jumped back and took a deep breath, pulling her rib cage up and her belly in, before exhaling. She went to the sink, chose another tomato, and dropped it into the pot. This time, the addition made barely a ripple.
* * *
Saint Maria de Pazzi Cemetery was a lovely one, as those places go. The working families who buried their loved ones there were artisans, stonemasons, carpenters, bricklayers, and welders; therefore the headstones, statues, and mausoleums were as ornate and well crafted as any shrine in any cathedral anywhere in the world. The humble were exalted here.
Sam Borelli’s fresh grave was covered in black earth, along with the scattered remnants of the flower arrangements from his funeral mass. White carnations, their long stems bent, fronds of yellow gladioli, pink chrysanthemums, and cypress leaves crisscrossed one over the other, a patchwork quilt of grief as Calla stood over her father’s grave and wept. She hated every flower in the church, knowing her father would have too. In her hands, she held a bouquet of long-stemmed calla lilies, which had not been represented in any of the arrangements from Falcone Florists. She had stopped and bought these at the flower market herself.
Calla knelt next to her mother’s headstone, kissed her fingertips, and touched the stone before rising. She placed the bouquet on her mother’s grave.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Rosa DeNero said from behind her.
“Not at all.”
“I couldn’t make it to the funeral, but I wanted to pay my respects.”
“We appreciate it, Rosa.”
“You brought flowers. With all the flowers from the church, you brought more,” Rosa commented.
“They weren’t the right flowers.”
“Falcone does the same thing for every funeral.”
Calla shrugged. “My sister went to school with the daughter who runs it now.”
“It’s all the buddy-buddy system. That’s the problem with South Philly. Business goes to who you know. No new blood. So everybody does everything the same.” Rosa sighed. “Your dad must have liked calla lilies. He named you after them.”
“My mom named me. That wasn’t the plan. My father had named my sisters after characters in Shakespeare. I was the last child, so I was going to be Olivia.”
“From Twelfth Night!”
“Right. But my mother said no. She said we may work for the theater, live for it, and sacrifice everything for it, but Shakespeare will not get the final word on everything we do. So I got named for her favorite flower. It was my mother’s only act of rebellion. That I know of.”
“She’d probably approve of the theater getting sold.”
“What?”
“You’re selling the theater.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I must have heard wrong,” Rosa said nervously.
“I’d love to know what you’ve heard.”
“The usual gossip. The box office has been weak. Now that your dad is gone, why keep the place going—that sort of thing. Everybody’s talking about the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“Frank Arrigo had an engineer come to look at the building.”
Calla knew Rosa wasn’t the sharpest employee at the theater, but surely she knew that Calla and Frank were a couple. “I know about that. Frank brought a city engineer in to make a bid to repair the building. It was my idea. I asked Frank to help.”
“He’s helping all right. He’s booked the wrecking ball.”
“What do you mean?”
“Frank Arrigo wants to tear it down and put up an apartment complex. The engineer said that the building would be too expensive to fix. Frank said it didn’t matter anyway. He was taking down the building.”
“He said that?”
“I heard it with my own ears. You’re going with him. I figured he said it to you too. Everybody says you’re going to marry him. Good for you. It’s none of my business, but I think you ought to grab him. A tall man is a rarity in South Philly.”
Across the cemetery, behind the cross of the risen Lord, stood the Palazzini mausoleum. It was built of Carrara marble and had an elegant open-scrollwork black iron gate over the stone door, which had been welded by patriarch Domenico Michele, one of the two people buried inside. Next to him, in the crypt, were the remains of his grandson, Richard, whom everyone knew as Ricky, Nancy and Mike’s son, who’d died in battle during World War II. The mausoleum was large enough to fit eight family members, so admission was a matter of who got there first. The remainder of the Palazzini clan would be buried in the lots behind the mausoleum and, when those were filled, in the field beyond the church parking lot. The arrangements had been made before Dom and Mike’s split. They may not speak in this world, but they would reside next to each other in the next one.
Jo Palazzini had cut a large bouquet of flowers from her garden, wrapped them in wet newspaper, and taken a walk over to the cemetery to decorate the mausoleum. Her summer garden was off to a great start. The blue hydrangea had never come in so full and blue, their periwinkle petals like velvet.
As Jo took the stone path up to the grave, she saw Calla Borelli in the distance, which reminded her to send a mass card to the house. She wasn’t close to Calla, but she knew that she was a friend of Nicky’s, and that meant she was important to Jo.
Jo stopped at the water pump to fill the can. Carrying the large bouquet in one arm like a newborn infant, she held the can with her free hand. As she turned the corner, she saw Nancy Palazzini sitting on the marble bench outside the mausoleum. Her instinct was to turn around, go home, and bring the flowers later, but Jo decided to proceed.
“Good morning, Nancy,” Jo said to her sister-in-law.
Nancy turned to face her, dabbing away her tears. “Hello, Jo.”
“The flowers are so pretty this year. I listened to Sal Spatuzza and put coffee grounds in the dirt as soon as the snow thawed, and look at this color.”
“So blue.”
“Like a twilight sky.” Jo arranged the flowers in the vase, a metal cone that hung in the center of the iron fence, and poured the water into the cone, all the way to the brim. She took a couple steps back and then moved in and fluffed the blossoms before turning down the path to go.
“Jo? Thank you. Today it’s six years since Ricky died.”
“Today?”
Nancy nodded. Jo sat down beside her. “I can’t imagine.”
“Don’t.”
The years of estrangement settled around them like a low fog. Time didn’t fall away, nor did it evaporate into the air. The women felt the weight of their estrangement every day, the ballast coming from guilt.
Nancy and Jo had meant something to each other, beyond their forced sisterhood from marriage to the brothers. They had married around the same time and had babies close together. The jokes were at the ready when they walked down the street with their prams. “What are you girls putting in the gravy over there? The Palazzini men only make boys.”
Nancy and Jo were there for one another when the babies had a fever or later when two of the boys were twelve and decided to go joyriding in a spare cab and were picked up by the cops in Queens Village. The women had given much thought to the bond that had broken between them when the brothers separated. Why hadn’t they done something? Perhaps they had so much work to do back then, they couldn’t take on one more project: making peac
e. It didn’t help that their friendship had been destroyed for the most superficial of reasons: they were different and did things differently, and when their husbands argued, they found reasons to feed the fury instead of stopping it.
Jo had come to the conclusion shortly after the breach that the argument wasn’t worth the loss of the family, but she remained silent.
Nancy had not come to the same place until Ricky was killed in the war, and then, only because she wanted everyone that had ever known and loved her son to help her remember every moment they might recall of his life. She would spend the next six years filling in the details like a watercolor, some aspects delicate, a few hazy, others saturated, but all of them together did not create a portrait of Ricky, just a pale version of the original. But she’d take it. Nancy was grateful whenever Ricky was remembered.
“I read your letter all the time,” Nancy said.
“I tried to remember everything about him.”
“You did.”
“I’m no writer.”
“You wrote beautifully.”
“I’m sorry Dom wasn’t there for Mike—”
“Mike wouldn’t have gone to Dominic either.” Nancy kept her gaze on the flowers.
“It’s a shame.”
“For everyone. What is a family, Jo?”
“A group of people that love each other and share a common history,” Jo said plainly.
“I wish it were true.”
“The love is there.”
“But not the history. We’ve lost sixteen years. Nobody on your side shared our grief when Ricky died. Until you wrote to me. That’s why your letter meant so much. You took the time. That’s love.” Nancy nodded.
“That’s what a sister does. At least, that’s what I believe.” Jo stood up and went to the flowers and moved the stems to reconfigure the flowers. “But it wasn’t enough. I didn’t fight hard enough for you. I guess I’m the martyr everybody says I am. I let my husband keep this vendetta going when I should have stopped it. And now my boys will pay for my weak character. I can see the cracks now. When brothers are cruel to one another and cut each other out of each other’s lives, it’s like a recipe that’s handed down. The ingredients don’t change, therefore the dish doesn’t either. My boys will turn on one another at some point because it’s what they know.”