Season of Salt and Honey

by Hannah Tunnicliffe

  I think of Vinnie’s lip, puffy and sore looking, his guilty sideways look. It’s true he didn’t start the fight, but he always seems to be in the thick of things, always manages to find trouble. Then, whatever he’s done, he gets away with it. The family treats him like he’s a sweet and bumbling toddler.

  “Why do you always defend him?”

  Bella pauses. “We’re a team, I guess.”

  “A team? He’s becoming a thug. First the party, then today.”

  She shrugs. “We’re the bad ones, you know? Besides, he’s not actually bad. Not really.”

  “You sound like Aunty Rosa.”

  “Mammina!” she says, mimicking Vinnie, then laughs. “I’m not quite that blind. He’s pretty naughty, I’ll give you that, but he was trying to protect you today, in his own stupid way. If you needed him, Frankie, he’d be there for you.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “No, he would be. He was there for me.”

  I turn to look at her properly. “He helped you get the job in Portland.”

  “He knew someone, a friend of a friend. . . . It’s a long story. But yeah, he helped me. I’m not sure what I would have done otherwise.”

  I remember, again, the night she left. How she sat on the end of my bed, how I wanted her to leave. How, when she had left, it had felt like a weight off of me. A burden lifted.

  Bella rolls onto her side. Her face is close to mine; I can see the faint, sepia freckles across the tops of her cheeks. “You know why I left, don’t you?”

  I nod. I saw it, in the bathroom. The packet torn open, the foil ragged, the severe little expiry date punched in the side. I didn’t have the courage to look at it straight on, just sort of slid my eyes towards it, past the cup from the kitchen, right over to the far side of the sink. Two blue lines.

  I was cowardly. Being mad at Bella covered it up, made it simpler. But fear was underneath. I didn’t know how to help. Didn’t want to help.

  “What . . .” I start, then stop.

  “Happened?” she finishes. “Well, you can guess. There’s no baby, right? Or kid . . . He or she would be a kid by now. I found somewhere to get it done. Vinnie helped me with that too—I needed money. He told Aunty Rosa a story about a school outing. I don’t know how he explained never going on the outing, but it was at the time Aunty Rosa was on that diet, remember?”

  I frown. “The grapefruit one?”

  “Yeah. Made her hungry all the time and . . . forgetful.

  “Vinnie never asked for the money back,” Bella adds.

  Blood is thicker than water. Family helps family. Vinnie’s no exception. Bella could be right about him.

  “Did it hurt?” My voice is small and I feel myself almost wincing though the pain had not been my own.

  She nods. Her eyes are round and glassy.

  “Who . . .?”

  She looks away, back up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. “There was a party. It was . . . I was . . .” She takes a deep breath. “I’m not sure who, Frankie. It wasn’t a good time for me.”

  I watch her eyes fill with tears. My chest aches.

  “I was so . . . ashamed. I couldn’t come back. I had to go.”

  Guilt courses through me. I should have helped and I didn’t. Bella had been so young. So lost. She had needed a mama and ours was gone.

  “And that thing . . . I mean, what you saw, with Alex . . .” Tears fall down her cheeks. “It was nothing, Frankie. Nothing happened. Alex just seemed so cool. My big sister’s boyfriend. Blond and cool, so different from the rest of us. I guess I just wanted what you had for a moment. You seemed to have it all figured out. Like you knew the formula, you know? You and Alex . . . it seemed so normal. So safe and good.”

  I reach out and pull her towards me. I am crying too. I shake my head.

  “I don’t have it all figured out,” I say, tears choking my voice. “I never have. There is no formula. I was wrong.”

  Bella reaches her arms around me, her face wet against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Frankie.”

  Her embrace is tight as the tears pour out of me and onto her. Into her hair, my cheek pressed against her head. Soru. Blood and bone the same as mine. The only one who knew how it felt, exactly how I felt, when Mama was gone. The one I have let down and pushed away. The one I have needed all along.

  It feels as though my heart is drowning.

  “Oh, soru . . .” Bella whispers sadly.

  “I got it wrong,” I sob. “I got it all wrong.”

  There are no words to make it better and Bella doesn’t offer any. Instead she holds me tight while we both cry and the sky tips out rain onto the cabin roof.

  * * *

  We lie together till we both stop crying, and then for a while after that because it is the most normal thing in the world. Bella dries her eyes on her top. We study the spider crawling her web and the black, leggy dots that are her offspring. In all my cleaning I haven’t had the heart to clear that web, the mother and her tiny babies. There are at least a dozen of them.

  Eventually I get up and gather leftovers, making sandwiches for our dinner while Bella finds paper plates and napkins. We sit inside to eat and talk. I tell her about reading The Swiss Family Robinson and she remembers we watched the movie together as kids. We talk about Merriem’s cat, Darwin, about Bella’s neighbor’s cat in Portland, who is called Poe and who likes to sleep in Bella’s potted plants. She tells me about her neighborhood, her favorite coffee shop, the patient who encourages her to sketch and paint, the one who tried to touch her breast, her boss, a guy she dated for a couple of months.

  I tell her about my work, about Mrs. Fratelli, about baby Joe’s christening when Giulia wore a minidress so short Aunty Connie ordered her home and she came back wearing a tube top. I tell her about a night in a hotel I won a couple of years ago, and the famous actress who was at the table across from us at breakfast the next day, eating pancakes.

  When our dinner is finished, Bella pulls something from her bag and shakes it out. A faded navy blue shirt, the sleeve almost amputated. Then comes Mama’s old tapestry purse, purple roses cross-stitched on the sides.

  “What are you doing?”

  She holds up the shirt. “Daniel’s.”

  She retrieves a needle and blue thread from the tapestry bag, threads it through, and makes a knot.

  “I didn’t know you could sew.”

  “I spend a lot of time around old people.” She lays her hands on either side of the tear, as if sizing it up.

  “Do you like him?” I ask carefully.

  She frowns, then shrugs.

  “He likes you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He looks at you as though the sun rises out of your eyes.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “He does. Do you think you might like him?”

  She clears her throat and hesitates. “Maybe.”

  “You’re allowed to. Like him.”

  She meets my gaze. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”

  I remember Jack saying the exact same thing. Jack of the forest. Jack who wants coffee or tea or pretty much anything.

  “Not very good at it? You’re a shameless flirt.”

  She blinks. “Oh, well sure. That’s a completely different thing.”

  “You mean this could be a completely different thing?” I ask pointedly.

  “Maybe, I said.” Then she tuts, as if it’s impossible. “Sun rises out of my eyes . . .”

  But it’s true and I think she knows it. Bella can get guys eating out of her hand; that’s not uncommon, but it’s different with Daniel. She’s different. Shyer, for starters, like she cares what he thinks.

  Thinking of Daniel brings Alex’s face into my mind. Across from me at brunch. Lit up with the glow of the television. Lying against a pillow.

  “I think we’d stopped seeing each other,” I whisper.

  Bella glances up from her stitches. Her needle ho
vers over the place where it will next dive and pierce.

  “Sometimes it was like he was a stranger.”

  She lays the shirt down in her lap.

  “I’d been looking at that face for . . . I don’t know . . . years?”

  “A decade?” she offers.

  “Yeah. I think I’d been looking through him for so long. You know what I mean?”

  She nods.

  “I’d gotten so used to seeing him. So used to seeing what I expected to see. I’d stopped . . . really seeing him.” I take a breath. “He seemed cool at family things because he didn’t like them, Bella. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t get it.”

  “It’s a big family. We can be pretty overwhelming.”

  I nod, but that’s not the whole of it. Not really. Alex didn’t understand what it means to be Italian and American. That both are important. That it’s important to me, and that my family will always be there, bright and loud and getting in the way.

  “He didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to go to Europe. And he could never stand up for me, with his mom.” I feel like I’m betraying him by confessing all of this. “Now I find out he might have loved someone else. That he kissed someone else . . .”

  Bella was right about my life. Alex and I had been together for so long it was habit. Loving each other was habit. Now he’s gone, everything is gone. The wedding, the morning coffee, the habits, and the ties. I’m free-falling. Through the vast, blue sky.

  “Hey,” Bella says softly.

  “I’m not sure if he even really loved me.”

  “Hey,” she says again, and leans towards me.

  “I mean in an adult way. When we were teenagers, sure. But after? Sometimes it felt like we were just going through the motions.”

  “He loved you.” Her voice is firm.

  “He loved the Seahawks. And hockey. He loved the ocean. . . . Those were his favorite things.”

  “Frankie, I am sure he loved you.”

  “And her? Summer?”

  She looks pained. “I don’t know.”

  “He loved this place. He loved it here.”

  “Yes. And he gave it to you.” She stares at me, love and loyalty in her eyes. “He gave you his favorite things, Frankie. This place. The water just there.”

  I tesori. The treasures.

  “Do you see?”

  “Yes,” I reply, my voice thin as thread.

  The coroner’s report—Barbara Gardner had insisted on an autopsy—revealed a blow to the head, which they said was consistent with striking rock, probably on the ocean floor. It was hard to say if Alex drowned first or hit his head first, though the contact was likely to have caused only concussion, not to be the cause of death. I prefer to think he struck his head first. That the water curled around him like a lover and drew him down, and perhaps he was even laughing at the time. Laughing because he should know better than to get caught in a rip, imagining telling the others about it later. I prefer to think that he went down easily, almost willingly, the face of his watch glinting, his body in its wet suit as slick and dark as an orca’s skin. That he struck his head before he could realize he was going to die, that he wasn’t going to be telling anyone about it later. Before he felt the betrayal of the sea, the one he had loved best of all.

  Bella turns her eyes back to the cloth. I watch the needle take its downward dive into the fabric. Straight through and back up again. Like a bird catching fish in a calm sea. Down and up. Down and up. She is making sutures in Daniel’s shirt. Tiny, perfect sutures, making it all right again.

  Rosolio alle Erbe

  HERB CORDIAL (LIQUEUR)

  A sweet after-dinner liqueur that was originally made using rose petals but is now made with a variety of ingredients and flavors, including lemons, berries, and oranges. Rosolio improves as it ages, so drink after storing for approximately two to nine months.

  Makes about 3 quarts

  25 fresh lemon verbena leaves

  20 fresh bay leaves

  4 fresh mint leaves

  3 whole cloves

  A 1-inch piece cinnamon stick

  1 large strip of lemon zest

  1 liter vodka

  51/2 cups sugar

  5 cups water

  PREPARATION

  Put the herbs, spices, and lemon zest in a jar. Add vodka and cover tightly. Let stand in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks.

  In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.

  Strain the vodka through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth into a bowl (discard the solids). Add the vodka to the cooled syrup in a clean glass bottle or large jar with lid. Cover tightly, place in a cool and dark place and let stand for 8 days.

  Strain the cordial through a coffee filter to remove any green deposit that may have risen to the surface, and pour into bottles. Cork tightly.

  Store in a cool, dark place and serve after 2 to 9 months of storing.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  • • • •

  Merriem brings us breakfast: cinnamon rolls stuffed full of nuts and brown sugar and smelling of still-warm butter. She’s got Huia with her; she’ll drop her off at school while Jack’s doing some landscaping work on another property. We sit in the wan morning light, all four of us on the two Adirondack chairs, in seats and on arms, as the ground is still damp from yesterday’s rain.

  “Yesterday was a bit of a ride,” Merriem says, smiling. “Are Sunday lunches always like that?”

  “Not always quite that bad,” I reply wryly.

  “You Caputos are full of surprises. You rushing off the other day . . .”

  I haven’t yet told Merriem about going to see Summer. I look at Huia, her chin covered in icing and sugar, and Bella, still dressed in her clothes from yesterday, and decide not to. I take another bite of my cinnamon roll as Merriem continues, ticking things off with her fingers, “. . . a good ol’-fashioned rumble, new love . . .”

  I glance again at Bella, who doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “. . . parties, the police being called. Things haven’t been so exciting round here for a long time.” She laughs.

  Huia finishes her roll, brushes her fingers against her top, and dashes off to scale a tree. We all watch her.

  Merriem leans towards me. “What’s the plan now, honey?”

  I shrug.

  Merriem then turns to Bella, who says carefully, “I think I’m going to move back to Seattle.”

  I turn to her quickly.

  “If that’s okay.” She’s staring at me.

  “Okay with me?” I ask.

  “I don’t want to be in anyone’s way.”

  “You wouldn’t be in anyone’s way,” Merriem says cheerfully.

  But Bella is still looking at me. “I have good references and there are plenty of seniors’ homes here, good ones. I think I can get work, no problem. And I might do some study, some painting.”

  “Have you been thinking about it for a while?” I ask. The way she’s looking at me, asking my permission, makes me realize just how cruel I have been.

  She nods. “A long while. But I wanted to be sure . . . that it’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay,” I say.

  “Yes!” Merriem hoots.

  “Of course it’s okay,” I repeat.

  Bella reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I was hoping you would say that. I can let Valentina take my lease; she’s already asked if she can. She’s fallen in love with Poe.”

  Bella explains who Poe is to Merriem, and they start talking about cats and how, when their owners move, they often return to their old homes. Bella squeezes my hand one more time and I know that her relocating has nothing at all to do with Valentina or Poe but is about coming home to look after her sister and her papa, to be with her family, as she should be. Only now do I properly recall her the day of the funeral. Getting out of her car to speak to me and I had almos
t recognized her but refused to.

  When I lift my head, both Merriem and Bella are staring at me. Merriem is beaming.

  “Were you talking to me?” I say.

  “I was just telling Merriem that you might be neighbors.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Bella was filling me on things I missed yesterday. She said the cabin is yours?” Merriem’s eyes are dancing.

  “No, well . . . technically, I guess, but . . . They’re going to contest the will.”

  “You don’t know that they will,” Bella says.

  “I’d say it’s pretty likely.”

  Merriem considers. “Surely if it’s left to you . . . in a will . . .?”

  I look away, into the forest, thinking of Alex. It’s confusing to think of him now, part grief, part anger, so many things I want to know but never will.

  Merriem’s voice softens. “Hey, you’ll work it out. I’m just being selfish. It’s been so nice to have you girls here. And your father, your family. I got excited.”

  “We’ll visit, either way. Whatever happens. Right, Frankie?” Bella says.

  I nod.

  “Good,” Merriem says, brightening. “We need some new life in this neighborhood. It’s been Huia and Jack and me for too long. We need you Caputos to keep things zesty.”

  Bella laughs.

  Huia calls out. “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m trying to take Frankie and Bella hostage,” Merriem answers.

  Huia trots over. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m trying to get them to stay.”

  Huia looks between us. She fixes her gaze on me. “Yes, you need to stay. It’s so much funner with you here.”

  Merriem gives one of her big, deep guffaws. “Much, much funner.” She looks at her watch. “And now we’ve got to get you to school, Miss.”

  Huia starts to protest.

  “No, no, we’re already late. Your dad will kill me. He asked one favor. I need to keep my promises.”

  As Merriem starts telling Bella about a friend who has a big, old house on the outskirts of Seattle with lots of rooms that she lets out, I feel a tug on my shirt. I crouch down, and Huia whispers into the cup of my ear, her breath hot.