“This is living, Lucille,” Frank said, as he puffed on a cigar.
“Don’t get used to it, Mr. Fancy. When we get home, you have snow to shovel.”
The phone tucked under the veranda rang, and Chi Chi answered it.
“Look at that,” Charlie marveled. “They have a telephone outside.”
Tony laughed. “Because it doesn’t rain. I could even leave you outside all night, and you’d be fine.”
“Hon, it’s your mother,” Chi Chi said quietly.
Tony took the phone and had a conversation with his mother as his in-laws relaxed by the pool. Chi Chi poured nightcaps for the family as Tony joined them.
“Is everything all right?” Chi Chi asked.
“My mother wishes you all a Merry Christmas,” Tony said.
“Merry Christmas, Detroit!” Charlie toasted the Armandonadas.
* * *
Chi Chi crawled into bed next to her husband. He lay on his back, his eyes wide open.
“What did your mother say?”
“My father is very sick. It’s bad, and I need to go home. Or I won’t see him again.”
“Oh, Sav.”
“I want you to go with me.”
Chi Chi looked down at her stomach. “Look at me. I can’t travel. I could go after the baby is born. You go. It will be fine.”
“It will be too late.”
“Then you have to go alone. You can do it. You can face him.”
Tony rolled over to sleep. Chi Chi lay awake, imagining a satisfying visit for Saverio and Leone. They would mend their broken relationship. Leone would tell his son he was proud of him. Their long feud would end in peace, a graceful ending to a long war.
* * *
When Tony Arma got off the airplane at the Detroit International Airport, he felt ill. He had not returned to his childhood home since he left it, as Saverio Armandonada. He had not seen his father since Christmas Eve 1932, though when he called his mother and Leone picked up the phone, his father had inquired about his son’s health. There had been signs of a change of heart on Leone’s part over the years.
Lee Bowman had arranged for a car service to take him from the airport to his parents’ home and back to the airport again in time to get him on a plane to New York for a television appearance. Gravy was on a slow and steady burn up the charts so the record label insisted he feed the sales with appearances on television and concert performances.
“Mama.” Tony embraced his mother on the porch. Rosaria was exhausted. It could not be easy to care for a stubborn man who had never taken a sick day in his life. Tony looked around. The exterior could have used a fresh coat of paint, the only sign to the outside world that indicated Leone Armandonada was ill. Little else had changed.
As Rosaria invited him inside, Tony stepped through the front door and closed his eyes. The scent of the fragrant gravy on the stove simmering with bundles of Bracciole rolled with basil in a sauce of crushed tomatoes, sweet butter, and garlic brought him back to his childhood.
Leone sat in a chair in the living room, his legs wrapped tightly in a blanket. Tony was struck by how thin his father had become, and how, like his mother, he had aged. This indicated something about his own life, and the passage of time, but for now, he felt nostalgic for all they had lost and what might have been had they been able to heal their feud.
“I will be in the kitchen,” Rosaria said as she went.
“Papa.” Tony extended his hand. “How are you feeling?”
Leone took his son’s hand. His father’s grip, once so solid, was weak. Empathy for his father’s situation surged through Tony, for the loss of Leone’s good health and vigor. Illness had taken away his father’s best attributes, while time had diminished his strength. Where was the man who could lift his grown son with one arm off a platform onto a flatbed truck, as though he were as light as a sack of zeppole? He was dying, the wayward son observed.
Tony sat down next to his father. “Mama says you haven’t been well.”
“I’m sick.” Leone’s voice was hoarse. Gone, too, was the deep voice that could instruct a team in the glassworks at the Rouge plant or destroy his son’s enthusiasm.
Tony looked at his father’s hands. They seemed small now. “What does the doctor say?”
“Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
Leone looked away. “Why did you come?”
“Mama asked me. And I wanted to come.”
Leone cocked an eyebrow and looked at his son, taking him in from his alligator shoes to the top of his head. He squinted at Tony’s full head of hair but said nothing. His mother joined them.
“Papa, I think we should be kind to one another. It’s time.”
“You do not honor your father.”
“Come on, Pop,” Tony said gently.
“Why do you disrespect me and change your name?”
“That’s show business. It’s just a stage name.”
“Frank Sinatra didn’t change his name. He does not hide behind another man’s name.”
“Okay.” Tony shook his head. He looked at his mother.
“And I don’t like what I read. You run around with women. You have nice wife and children, and you run around.”
“Don’t believe . . .” Tony began.
“It’s in the papers. They say you chase women. Starlings.”
“Starlets,” Tony corrected him.
“You’re a married man. You don’t belong in the nightclub.”
“I work in nightclubs, Pop.”
“You stay in your house and take care of your wife and children.”
“I take care of my family.”
“There is more to being a man than paying the bills. You live one life in music halls and another life at home. It will catch up with you. You can’t have everything, Saverio. You can’t have the girlfriend and the wife because one of them will demand fidelity. That’s when you have a problem. You may have a problem now for all I know. I did not raise my son to be an infidel. You lie to your wife with your body. That’s no good.” Leone pointed at his son. “You’re no damned good.”
Tony had heard enough. He could have fought back, but as it had been before he left home, he was not a worthy or equal adversary for Leone. His father had the Ten Commandments on his side. Besides, the son did not possess his father’s judgmental nature, and therefore was incapable of a strong defense. “Okay, Pop. I should go.”
He motioned for his mother to join him in the kitchen. “It was a mistake to come. I upset him.”
“He’ll be happy you came.”
“I can’t take it. He hasn’t changed.”
“Your father is a complicated man. You’re young. You can bend.”
“How about I don’t want to? How about I want a father who loves me the way I am and not the way he wants me to be? You know, Ma, you made your choice, and you live with it. You shouldn’t have to take care of him, but you do. You can always come and live with us. Chi Chi and I would love to have you.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“I won’t keep asking you to find the courage to stand up for yourself.”
Tony Arma kissed his mother. “Are you going to say goodbye to him?”
Tony did not answer her. Instead, he left his family home through the kitchen door, taking the path on the side of the house to the street, like the man who puts the coal in the furnace, or the plumber who checks the pipes, or the neighborhood kid who waits for his tip after shoveling snow. Tony left his father’s house for the last time.
* * *
“I called the hotel in Lake Tahoe to track Tony down to tell him about the new baby,” Lee explained.
“Thanks.” Chi Chi lay back on the pillow at Cedar Hospital in Los Angeles. Out the window of her sunlit room, the sky was filled with tufts of gray clouds, odd for the dry January days in California. It looked like rain.
“You know how you always say babies bring you luck?” Lee said into the phone.
Ch
i Chi held her son close. “Yes, they do.”
“Well, Gravy is now number eleven on the Billboard charts. Congratulations, my friend! As soon as I reach Tony, I’ll get him home to you.”
Chi Chi’s baby gripped her index finger tightly. This baby was so different from the twins, at least in his response to her emotions. While she was pregnant, if she was upset, he would gently kick her, as if to remind his mother that she was not alone. Now that he was out in the world, her son held on to her to let her know that he was aware that she needed him. Tony would be happy with the news, but it also meant he would feel the pressure to provide for the new addition. He would hit the circuit in earnest to make bank while he could.
After she put down the phone, Chi Chi looked down at the baby in her arms. “You have a big job, little one. You have to bring us together. Are you up for it?” Chi Chi looked down at her infant son, a pink bundle in a powder-blue blanket. He was his father in every way: the full lips, black eyelashes, and curly hair. “Maybe your curls will stay. No Samson’s of Fifth Avenue for you.”
Without opening his eyes, the infant reached his hand out of the bunting, opened his fist, and wiggled his five fingers, just as a pianist stretches his hands before playing. “So that’s why you’re here. You’re going to make music. All right, little man, Mama will teach you everything you need to know.”
Chi Chi tucked her newborn baby’s hand under the blanket. Her son was safe, warm, and loved, the three essential gifts a mother bestows upon her child at birth, and vows to provide the rest of his life, no matter the sacrifice.
Chi Chi took it upon herself to bestow a fourth gift on that January day, without consulting her husband. The hospital would not wait, and besides, the new mother wanted to surprise her husband. Chi Chi named their son Leone Mariano Armandonada in the Italian tradition, the firstborn son named for the paternal grandfather of the baby. Chi Chi was certain that Leone completed their family. His middle name would be the only chance she would have to honor her father’s memory.
Chi Chi had also considered naming their son Saverio, but she guessed her husband wouldn’t have liked the idea. They had attempted to discuss names for a baby boy several times, but he was always pulled away by work, obligations—so she wasn’t sure where he stood on the matter. He liked the name Cheryl for a girl, but feminine names did not matter now. Tony had been on the road for so much of this pregnancy, she had no idea what he was thinking.
Success should bring gratitude and humility, but in the Arma household, it instilled a panic to hold on to it. Tony accepted every club date offered to him and every movie role. He sent Chi Chi the scripts in advance but no longer took her advice about the quality of the screenwriting to heart. She worried that he was too eager to be a movie star and less committed to being a good actor.
Chi Chi hoped the new baby would change things. What man doesn’t want a son? Leone Mariano Arma could be the catalyst to reunite them as a family and bring Tony home to her for good.
* * *
Chi Chi rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. It was three o’clock in the morning and time to feed the baby. She threw her legs over the side of the bed, slipped into her house shoes, stood up, and headed down the hall to the nursery.
She stopped in the doorway when she saw Tony holding their baby, kissing him. The infant cooed blissfully in the arms of his father. Chi Chi was elated. The sight of her husband, so long on the road, made her feel complete.
Chi Chi put her arms around her husband and son. Tony placed the baby gently back in the crib before turning and kissing his wife, holding her in his arms for a long time. She relaxed there, allowing him to hold her up.
“You gave me a son, Cheech.”
“Are you crying, Sav?”
“It’s a dream for a man, you know.”
“He’s a good baby. Of course he is. He looks just like you.”
“You think so?”
“From the moment that cranky doctor put him in my arms.”
“How are the girls?”
“Bossy. They love having a new baby in the house.”
“I’ll have to come home and make sure they don’t henpeck my boy.”
“Would you?”
Chi Chi took Tony’s hand as they walked across the hall to the twins’ room. Sunny and Rosie had bunk beds, but the pair was curled up together in the bottom bunk with every stuffed animal they owned. Tony shook his head. He knelt down and kissed each of his daughters before following Chi Chi downstairs to the kitchen.
While Chi Chi warmed a bottle for the baby, she made her husband a sandwich.
“So, what are we going to name the baby?” he said. “I like something simple. Like Nick. Nick is a good, strong name.”
“I didn’t name him Nick, honey,” Chi Chi said softly. She usually tried to defer to his wishes as the head of the household, in the manner she was raised, but in this instance, she could not go along with naming their son after no one in particular. There was tradition to think about after all.
“What did you name him?” he asked casually.
“I wanted to wait. I tried. Lee tried to reach you. And I wasn’t sure when you were coming home, and they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital until I named him,” she explained.
“Okay, so what name did you pick?”
“Leone Mariano Arma.”
“We’re not naming this kid after my father.”
“But, Sav—”
“No, absolutely not. He doesn’t talk to me. I don’t need a constant reminder of him anywhere in this house, in my life.”
“Constant reminder? You’re never here!”
Tony looked around the kitchen as if there were an audience watching him argue with his wife. “I knew this would happen. You would go to Detroit and visit them and get chummy, and he’d turn you against me.”
“I am not some dope who can be turned. I have my own ideas about things. About people.”
“Well, so do I,” Tony said. “And you’re going to change my son’s name.”
Tony’s self-importance angered Chi Chi. “I am not.”
“You will change it. Or I will.”
“Our son will be named for his grandfathers. That’s it.”
“I want him to have a name that is all his own. That belongs to him and only to him.”
“You know what? I’d almost let you name that kid Nick if I thought for one second you’d be around long enough to call him by it. But you won’t be. And you know what else? I want to do this for your mother and father. They deserve respect.”
“Not after what my father did to me.”
“Forgive him already, Sav.”
“You don’t understand this. You have a block about it. Well, get ready, Cheech, because I have a block about that name. It will not stand.”
“I can’t believe that you, an Italian man, would fight me on this,” Chi Chi said. “This is tradition. This is who we are.”
“It’s who you are. I don’t claim him anymore. And if you respected me in my own home, you would never have gone against my wishes and named my son after him.”
Tony shoved the plate with the sandwich away, got up, and left the kitchen. Chi Chi threw the sandwich in the sink and grabbed the bottle. She climbed the stairs. She went into the master bedroom to confront Tony, but he was not there.
In the nursery, Leone was fast asleep. She placed the bottle on the nightstand before going back down the hallway and opening the door of the guest room. She found Tony in the bed.
“This is where you’re sleeping?”
“Change his name, Chi Chi.”
Chi Chi closed the door. She went back into the nursery, picked up her infant son, woke him gently, and fed him the bottle, as she had done every night when Tony wasn’t there, and would continue to do when he left again. She sat in the rocker as Leone took his bottle. What a racket she ran. The few nights of the month that Tony was home, they tiptoed around so he might rest. She took care of the children. She took care of
the house. She paid the bills. She did everything but sing and write songs, which she gave up so her husband might have his voice, his career, his life. Her hand began to shake as she held the bottle. This was not the life she had planned, nor was it the one she had signed on for when she married Tony Arma. Something had to change. As she placed Leone back in the crib, she had a chilling thought. It was too late. While she had been busy hoping something would change, it already had.
* * *
The next morning Chi Chi woke to the scents of buttery pancakes and bacon filling the house. She stopped in the nursery to check on Leone, who was still asleep. She went downstairs and watched as Tony made breakfast for the twins, who were already dressed in their school uniforms. He flipped a pancake, and the girls squealed with laughter.
“You girls look nice,” Chi Chi said.
“Daddy said not to wake you up,” Sunny said.
“That was kind.”
“You look tired, Mom.” Rosie dumped maple syrup on her pancakes. Chi Chi looked down at her old bathrobe, and imagined how ratty her hair must look. Of course she was tired. Of course she looked awful. She was up at all hours of the night and had no time to rest during the day. She was certain the showgirls in Lake Tahoe didn’t have dark circles under their eyes and bloat from childbirth. “What do you girls want for lunch?”
“Daddy made our lunches already.” Rosie stood and grabbed her lunchbox.
“Let’s go, girls, time for the bus,” Tony said.
“Walk them down the driveway.” Chi Chi kissed the girls.
”I know the drill.” Tony ushered the girls out the door. Chi Chi chewed on a slice of bacon, looked out the window, and watched as the girls boarded the bus. The driver, middle-aged Dicie Sturgill, a woman with a tight perm and smile, flirted with Tony before closing the bus door. Even the school bus driver made a play for Tony Arma.
By the time Tony returned, Chi Chi was already doing the breakfast dishes.
“I can take care of that.”
Chi Chi dropped the sponge into the sink. “Fine.” She was walking out of the kitchen when Tony stopped her.
“I have to get the baby,” she said.
“Name him whatever you want.”
“How kind of you when I named him after your father.”
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