Unforgotten

by Kristen Heitzmann

  He smiles dimly. “Someday you’ll know.” His eyes tear as he stares at the stone bearing Carina’s name. “Some loves attach to your very soul.”

  ————

  The aroma from the kitchen was actually satisfying, and when Lance stole a peek, he saw why; his sister Lucy had come to Momma’s aid. Her eight-year-old twins, Lisa and Lara, were twisting dough into sticks while her toddler, Nina, stuffed pinches into her mouth. His cousins Rita, Marianna, and Gigi chopped fennel and mushrooms, and Momma looked like a movie star in her black sleeveless sweater and a string of pearls. Lance ducked out before they saw him. No sense starting the panic too soon.

  Monica’s husband, Bobby, stood by the window letting his cigarette smoke out in the draft while he argued with Lucy’s husband, Lou. Neither had seen Rese yet, but it was only a matter of time. A half dozen kids sat around a Monopoly board because Momma didn’t allow video games, and he could hear his cousins Frank and Franky in the courtyard playing handball.

  He brushed Rese’s arm with his fingers to direct her into the room, and Zia Anna zoomed in with her matchmaking sonar, and soon all four aunts had descended. He named them to Rese, “My aunts Anna, Dina, Mimi, and Celestina. This is Rese Barrett.” He didn’t try the business partner line. It would never fly.

  Rese’s cheeks rosied with their lipstick kisses, and he strategically placed himself between her and their exuberance, placing his own kisses on their powdered faces. Rese must be ready to deck him.

  “Is this the one?” Anna asked with festival eyes. “To make you finally stand still?”

  “He’s hopeless, Anna. I know.” Celestina touched her temple to remind them that her spinster status gave her the second sight in these matters.

  Dina shrugged. “Why should he marry when the cow doesn’t come with the milk no more?”

  “Dina!” Mimi slapped her hands to her cheeks. “She didn’t mean that about you, cara.”

  “Meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani.” Dina smiled knowingly.

  Lance ushered Rese away from their laughter. She was tamped as tight as a stick of dynamite. He’d seen her explode once, bore the bruises on his sides for days. Not from blows, just the grip of her fingers as she’d sobbed.

  “I didn’t know your family spoke a foreign language.”

  “Only when they’re trying to be clever.” Lance considered the possibility of conversation without embarrassment and decided they’d have to leave, and they’d never get away now.

  “So what did she say?”

  “An old Italian proverb. Better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow.” He could guess what she was thinking. “It’s all in fun. Meant to humiliate me, mainly. And see what kind of rise they can get out of you.” A challenge, considering Rese’s temperament.

  The door opened, and his pop came in with Gina and the kids. Momma must have told him to pick them up after work. Lance kissed Gina and punched his three nephews. “How you all doin’?” But he knew. The weariness in Gina’s eyes told him. Raising three boys alone wasn’t easy even with the victims’ assistance they’d received. The money kept them in their Manhattan apartment, but her sons had no father.

  “Gina, Pop, this is Rese Barrett.”

  Gina held out her hand, too uptown to kiss her, and Pop looked her over with a nod, too jaded to believe this wasn’t yet another hardluck story his son had fallen for.

  “Nice to meet you,” Rese said, and he heard the strain in her voice. This couldn’t be easy. Not when she naturally shunned crowds and intimacy.

  Bobby and Lou left off arguing and came over. “Ay, Lance. Who’s this hot number?”

  Wouldn’t pregnant and nauseated Monica love to hear him say that? “Rese, this is Monica’s husband, Bobby.” He was sure she would never remember them all. “And Lucy’s husband Lou, the two ‘Lu’s.” That, she wouldn’t forget.

  Rese held out her hand, but Bobby wasn’t missing his chance. Both cheeks, close enough to the mouth Lance wanted to punch him. Lou’s kisses landed closer to the earlobes. Rese might need therapy after this night.

  Bobby jerked his thumb at Lance. “You better be quick with this bad boy.”

  Lance could smell the grappa that made him audacious. “Knock it off, Robert.”

  “You saying it ain’t true? How long you gone with anyone?” He wagged a finger at Rese. “He sips from lots of bottles. He don’t drink any to the bottom.”

  Lou slapped Bobby’s arm with a light backhand. “Stop before he kills you.”

  Bobby shot a scornful glance, but Lou had it right. Lance liked Bobby most of the time, but this wasn’t one. Right now, he could break the man’s nose with one good shot. He took Rese by the arm. “How about some air?”

  They slipped through the window to the black metal fire escape with an unobstructed view of the sidewalk and street. It was only the beginning of the evening, but Rese drew a long breath and released it slowly.

  He let go. “You okay?”

  She nodded. This had not been a good idea, bringing her home. It showed their differences too starkly. Rese was an island; he was everyone’s port in a storm. He pressed the space between his eyebrows and sighed.

  She said, “What’s the matter?”

  He leaned his back to the bricks beside the window and brought up his knee. “I don’t want you to hear it.”

  “Hear what?”

  “My life. In detail.”

  “What Bobby was saying?”

  He glanced sidelong. “That’s the trouble with people knowing you from birth.”

  “That’s when you started dating?”

  He laughed. “Just about. But not the way he made it sound.”

  She gave him the stare that he had thought stony when they first met, though now he saw all kinds of nuance in it; doubt, concern, annoyance. He wanted her to understand. The problem was, she probably did.

  “Growing up, Rico was small and mouthy, a natural target. Being his friend meant being his guardian. Girls liked that; I liked girls.” That was understating it. He was fascinated by their soft skin, their fingernails, the sway of their Catholic school skirts.

  “I got a reputation for helping people out. Anyone with a hardluck story. Tears?” He blew through his lips. “Fagedda-bout-it, I’m a goner.”

  He got a slow blink, but no comment. He spread his hands. “Italians love tragedy. We know we’re in love when it hurts. So I was in love every week.” And now she’d think it was that way with her. But he’d sworn off secrets, and everyone else was going to tell it anyway. Teasing sure, but it was also to take her measure, see how committed she was. Any woman who couldn’t handle his past didn’t deserve his future. Protective family stuff—except for Bobby, who just liked making trouble.

  “You kept count on your wall?” Careful indifference in tone and expression.

  “Girls I kissed? Yeah.” He looked away. “Ever heard of Dion and the Belmonts? Sang doo-wop in the fifties?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, on this block they’re saints. They came from here, and they made it big. Now, me and Rico … a lot of people thought we were the next big thing. We thought so too. Started playing Greenwich, booked the hot spots. Got lots of attention.” He met her eyes. “All kinds of attention.”

  She held herself straight. “I thought that was against your religion.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Around here religion is like breathing. You do it, but it doesn’t always get in your way. You know when you’re sinning against God. You know, but you don’t always stop, so then you confess it and you’re absolved—forgiven—and you’re supposed to stop doing that sin because it offends God; it hurts Jesus, who’s suffered enough. That’s the principle. But then temptation comes, and you fool yourself into thinking there’s a way around it all. It might not be right, but you can make up for it later.”

  He crossed over to the railing. “Then something happens, something so big it’ll take the rest of your life to mak
e it right.”

  “It’s not your fault Tony died.”

  “I know that.” His knuckles tightened on the metal. “But it was like God’s judgment fell on the wrong son.”

  “Michelle said Jesus took care of all that.”

  He half turned. “When did she say that?”

  “At Evvy’s funeral. Or rather, the party afterward. I guess party isn’t the right word.”

  “Sure it is.” He smiled, thinking of Evvy, the cantankerous neighbor who’d cornered him every chance she got. “Did you believe it?”

  Rese nodded. No wonder she’d given him a second chance. They hadn’t talked much over the past two weeks at the inn. She’d worked in the workshop. He’d done his job and tried not to annoy her. But the strain had been palpable, as it was still.

  Rese frowned. “I’m not sure what it means.”

  “What matters is in here.” He pressed his knuckle to his chest. “If doing wrong hurts, then your heart is right with God.”

  Her face told him nothing. “That Italian thing?”

  “The human thing.”

  ————

  Hoisted into her son’s arms, Antonia let him carry her down. A party to welcome Lance’s girlfriend, though he hadn’t called her that. The woman was not warm and fiery like Lance. His opposite maybe, and she knew how the poles of a magnet could bind.

  Roman huffed down the stairs, but she could do no more than hold on, her body betraying her, the strength in one leg all but gone. Like Nonno’s. It gave her comfort to share an affliction with someone she had loved so deeply. She remembered him sitting on the stone bench at Nonna Carina’s grave. Having told her about Papa’s birth and the first baby they had lost, he had taken up his journal and sunk into the silence that brought words to the page that would never find hislips.

  Even with all the work he had published, he was still very private with his journal. She had been honored that he allowed her to sit beside him and write in her own diary the thoughts that rushed with the images he had given her.

  Who would that first baby have been? How had Nonna survived the grief? And the awful birth of Papa! To take a baby with a knife. Yet Nonno called it a miracle.

  Antonia sighed, thinking of all the things she’d written on that subject and others. What had become of that diary, the pages that held her innocence? It didn’t matter. That was gone and done. This was her life.

  Roman propped the door open and carried her through it now into the throng. Her famiglia. The fruit of her love. She breathed deeply. “Put m … e in the m … iddle.”

  “Sure, Momma. I know.” Roman perched her on the couch. He had worked all day and come home to a hive. Dori was probably frantic, inasmuch as she could be, with her lackadaisical ways. Not practical like Roman. A dancer. Nonna smiled with the one side of her mouth that still did its job. Was ever a daughter-in-law good enough for the son? Strange, then, that she should feel favorably disposed to this odd woman Lance had chosen.

  Oh, he didn’t say it. But she knew. She searched the room, saw them outside on the fire escape. Escaping for sure. Who could face this swarm at once? The children came over, pressing to her knees with little hands and faces. Her great-grandchildren. She listened and petted and tried not to talk because she confused them with her slow words.

  When Sofie came in, Antonia noted the tight line of her mouth, the strain between her eyebrows. But it was time to gather at the tables stretched across the living room, and she was delighted to find Rese seated beside her. No doubt Lance had arranged it so the girl would have peace on one side at least. His protective nature would have seen to that.

  He tried to take the seat to her left, but Monica wedged in, bossy as always. “I haven’t gotten to know her yet. Go around the other side.”

  The communication between Rese and her grandson’s eyes told Nonna what she’d already guessed. This one was more to Lance than the others.

  Monica stuffed her napkin in her lap. “So tell me about this inn you and Lance have.”

  And Antonia grew still, listening to her home described in such detail she found herself once again in its comforting arms… .

  The porch is dark as a light rain falls, and only the lamplight through the living room window spills out. Marco has called regularly over the past weeks, yet made no advance. I am unsure what to make of that. Is he more serious than the suitors who press their luck, or less interested than he seems?

  He leans against the plastered pillar, playing softly on the mandolin. It is only the second time he’s brought it, and he doesn’t sing along this time, merely studies me with a serious mien.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  He shakes himself as though only now realizing how he’s been, and it’s as though he puts on a mask, a smile as flimsy as cellophane. “You’re beautiful in the lamplight.”

  “That’s not what you were thinking.”

  “Bella Antonia, if a man shared everything he was thinking, he’d have his face slapped too often.”

  I raise my chin. “That’s not what you were thinking either. I don’t think you had me on your mind at all.”

  His gaze deepens. “Perceptive, aren’t you?”

  “Angel sight, my nonna called it.”

  “It’s second sight in my neighborhood.”

  “Where is your neighborhood?”

  He sets the mandolin on the railing. “Manhattan. Mulberry Bend.” At my blank look he adds, “In New York—all the way across the country.”

  “I know where Manhattan is. I wonder why you’re all the way out here.”

  “I told you. Business.”

  “And that’s what you were thinking about?”

  “In a way.” He comes toward me and sits in the swing.

  I don’t move to the edge, but leave my knee where it touches his thigh. “Is it over soon, this business you have with Papa?”

  “It could be.” He is so hard to read, one moment ardent and carefree, the next almost painfully serious.

  “And then you’ll leave?”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “What do you want?” I lean closer, and I can see the natures vie inside him. Contrary to his normal assurance, he seems at a loss to choose.

  I lean close, letting my Arpe`ge perfume help his indecision. “I think you should kiss me.”

  He swallows. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I promised your father.”

  Promised Papa? “Papa doesn’t decide for me.” Not for the last couple years, anyway.

  “He asked me not to.”

  “Because you’re leaving?”

  He glances away.

  I lean closer still. “He didn’t ask me not to.”

  “Antonia …”

  I touch his cheek for the first time, feel the stubble of his beard, rough and thick. Marco will not be the first person I’ve kissed. And yet I hesitate as though … as though nothing. I draw his face close and breathe a hint of pomade, of mint leaf he chewed from the cheesecake I served him. Our scents mingle as I touch his lips with mine.

  His arm comes around. “Cara …” And then he kisses me.

  “Nonna?”

  She jolted. Lance’s expression said he must have been waiting awhile for her to respond. “Wh … at?”

  “In the morning we’re going to talk.”

  What use was there in words? Words that could be lost and mixed and jumbled into nonsense. What was inside was what remained. But Lance would not listen. “Bene. W … e talk.”

  ————

  “What, Momma?” Lance squeezed into the closet-sized pantry with his mother, whose flare for melodrama had not diminished.

  “I need to know; where is she sleeping?”

  “My room.” He couldn’t resist the pause. “With Star. I’m on the couch.”

  “There should not be men and women in the same apartment.”

  “Well, Star’s in there with Chaz and Rico.”

  “They�
�re not mine. You are my son.”

  “Ma, I’m almost thirty.”

  “You get her pregnant, you can’t marry in the church.”

  “That’s not true, and anyway I’m not sleeping with Rese.” He did not want to have this conversation nose to nose with his mother in the pantry. Especially when she looked so skeptical. He jammed his fingers into his hair. “St. Michael the Archangel strike me dead if I lie. I haven’t touched her.”

  “Why not?”

  “What?”

  “Because she is too cold?”

  He expelled a breath. “She’s not cold, Momma.”

  “You are a man of the heart.” She pressed her palm to his chest. “You need a woman in your sheets who can keep you there.”

  Was he confused or had she just switched sides? “I’m sure if she ever agrees to have me—”

  “She refused you?”

  The outrage of an Italian mother over an insult, real or imagined, toward her son should never be underestimated. There might be no fury like a woman scorned, but there was no terror like a madre insulted.

  “I haven’t asked in a way she could take seriously.” He was still trying to dig out of his hole.

  “What’s to take seriously? You ask; she says yes. What else is there?”

  A little matter of trust, and the fact that she had never said she felt the same way. She might really want nothing more than his partnership at the inn. They were all making a big assumption based on nothing more than her showing up with him. And she was almost certainly regretting that.

  “Can we get out of here?” He opened the pantry door and nudged his mother out.

  She sniffed. “It’s your gallivanting all over the world.”

  “Digging ditches, building houses for people who live in cardboard boxes.”

  “And all this mysterious business with Nonna.”

  That much was true. He and Nonna had not told Momma or anyone else about the quest that had sent him first to Suar Conchessa in Liguria, then to Rese in Sonoma, about burying Nonna’s grandfather or any of the other things he’d found.