The Witch of Little Italy

by Suzanne Palmieri

  “What?” I whispered through a closed throat.

  “When we get there it’ll all be done and we can relax, won’t that be nice?”

  I nodded and fell asleep again. I was sick for days. In and out of a dreamlike state.

  Mama must have been worried, because I think the Amore women were summoned. I recall a thick paste layered on my chest that didn’t smell like Mama’s cures. Mama’s cures always had an earthy smell. This one was sour and hot.

  Mama sat on the end of the bed and held sparkling jewelry up to the light, trying to tempt me to sit up and grab for it, as if I were still a baby. She sat me up and brushed my hair. One hundred strokes. All of this melted together in my mind. Mama trying to feed me oranges. Making me suck on ice. Laying close to me and feeling the bottoms of my feet, making sure the fever didn’t grow out of control.

  The fever broke in the late afternoon, light filtered through the windows, thick like honey. I started coughing and Mama rushed in saying, “Cough it out, that’s right, the germ wants to come out now, Itsy, you can do it, cough it out.…” And I did. The glob that came out in my mother’s handkerchief was a dark gray and looked unearthly. As soon as it was out, I felt immediate relief.

  “My! What a week this has been. You frightened me, my Itsy!”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I said.

  “Sorry for what? Getting sick. Psh. Don’t be silly. Come, let me bathe you.”

  I remember the apartment feeling unfamiliar. My eyes and legs were wobbly.

  “Tell me what you saw in your fever dreams, Itsy,” said Mama as I sat in the bath.

  “I don’t know. You mostly.”

  “Me? Well, that’s a special gift.”

  “Why?”

  “What we see in our feverdream is what our heart desires most.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do love you, Mama,” I said, trying to stay a big girl, trying not to let her know that she was absolutely right, that she was my heart’s desire.

  Mama wrapped me in a fluffy white towel and picked me up like a baby.

  “And I love you, my Itsy. I love you so, so much.”

  When we got to the cottage Mama started up the front steps but I held back. I let her hand slip out of mine as my siblings flooded the porch and swarmed around her. George locked his arms around her middle and hugged her, moving as she moved. Bunny looked annoyed and was going on and on about how much work she did and how nobody was helping her and how there was so much more to do. Mimi and Fee were telling her about the hundreds of June strawberries that they’d just picked from the garden. They were holding up their red stained hands.

  I knew my moment with Mama was lost. Everyone else was taking over. But then—then she turned and caught my eye, smiled and winked. A warmth, better than the summer sun, seeped into my bloodstream. She wasn’t forgetting me.

  “Itsy!” yelled Bunny. “Stop daydreaming and take George to the beach. He’s terribly in the way and I need Mama to help me. How can she help me with him wrapped around her like a sea star?”

  “No, Bunny,” said Mama, “why don’t you take George down to the beach and relax. Sit on the sand, watch the waves. Itsy can help me, can’t you, Itsy?”

  “But, but … what about dinner, Mama? I figured I’d finish cleaning up with Fee and Mimi and you could make dinner…”

  Mama took a stern note, “Bunny, I said take George down to the beach. I know you have your hair piled up on your head now, and you think you have the whole world figured out, so go complain to the ocean. Fee and Mimi can make the beds and Itsy will make dinner while I take a look around.”

  “But, Mama,” I said, finding my voice lost on a wave of love, “what can I make?”

  “How about strawberries? We can have strawberries and toast for dinner. I think it sounds lovely. Can you wash and cut the strawberries? Can you put the toast in the oven and then butter it? Fee can go to the market for butter.”

  “Yes! I can do that!” I said.

  “Mama! Strawberries for dinner? What in the world would Papa say?” exclaimed Mimi.

  “Papa? I don’t see Papa,” said Mama, looking around in a silly fashion and teasing us. We all laughed. Even Bunny, who took George to the beach.

  Those were the sweetest strawberries I ever ate.

  I’m so glad I got sick that summer. I’m glad I got to spend that time with Mama. It turns out, that was the only time I’d ever get to be alone with her. Just me and Mama. Even though she didn’t die until 1945, the world always conspired against us. The busy, busy world.

  In the time that followed that fateful day, I often revisited my sick days with Mama. The otherworldliness of them. When I woke in the morning, I tried to force myself to linger in the place between asleep and awake. To open all the channels of time and will myself back into her all-knowing arms.

  And now? Now it’s clear to me. I’ll be with her soon. Oh yes. Soon enough I’ll feel her arms around me once again.

  22

  The Sisters Amore (Past)

  When all was said and done, the arrangements made and the bodies in the ground, the three remaining Amore sisters sat at Mama’s kitchen table to think things through.

  Mimi’s belly was getting bigger by the second even as her arms and legs got thin. Fee couldn’t stop eating and still couldn’t hear anything. Itsy wasn’t talking but took to writing things down on a notebook, and when that got too cumbersome she got little spiral notebooks from the dollar store and pinned them to her sweaters along with a pen.

  “What are we going to do about George?” yelled Fee.

  “You really have to stop yelling, honey. We can hear you. If it sounds like a whisper to you it’s normal for the rest of the world. Try it,” said Mimi.

  “Okay!” yelled Fee. Mimi shook her head, put her hands together as if in prayer and looked up at the ceiling. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

  Itsy was writing. Let George be. Let him live like he’s a grown-up. He’ll come around.

  “Okay, so we let George be. Do we rent out Bunny’s apartment?” Fee asked.

  Itsy wrote feverishly on her notebook. Rent it out to Nancy Rivetta. She needs a place. Okay, Mimi?

  “Sure, we can do that.” Mimi was wringing her hands.

  It was Fee who finally stated the obvious. “Mimi, what are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you blind?” asked Fee.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mimi got up and started to pace, her hands placed at her lower back, supporting her heavy belly.

  Where is Alfred, Mimi? wrote Itsy.

  “Alfred?”

  “Your husband, where is he? He hasn’t been home since the funerals,” said Fee.

  “Alfred’s gone. I sent him away. And I’m changing my name back, too. I’m an Amore again.”

  “But Mimi, why?” asked Fee.

  “Why? Why?” Her pacing became frantic as she banged on the walls and pulled at her hair. Her sisters felt the electricity in the air. “Because it’s all gone to shit! Didn’t you notice? How can I go forward with any sort of life? It’s all about us now. You two and me and George. This building. What’s left? He had to leave. I made him leave so I wouldn’t lose him, too.”

  “Okay, even if we thought that made sense … what about the baby?” asked Fee.

  “What about her? Put your hands on my belly. You tell me what you see.”

  Fee and Itsy placed their hands against Mimi’s belly. They looked at one another and nodded. It was sad … the loss, the pain. One more person who would leave them.

  “See?” said Mimi sitting back, satisfied.

  Itsy sat back and wrote furiously. But Mimi, it can be changed. You can change that kind of future. It all stems from you.

  “Oh yeah? And Mama could change what she knew was going to happen? I just don’t believe it. It is what it is. I’ll have this baby, and I’ll care for it, but I won’t lose m
yself. No. As soon as it’s ready … we’ll send it on its way.”

  “But that’s so sad,” cried Fee.

  “It is what it is,” said Mimi.

  What about George? wrote Itsy.

  “What about him? He’s gone, too. All alone up there. Something in him died, and it’s more than just … you know. There’s more. I can feel it,” said Mimi.

  Itsy started to shake.

  “What is it Itsy?” asked Fee.

  Itsy started to cry silent tears.

  “Do you know something, Itsy? Do you know what happened to George? Did he say something to you? Did he do something you need to tell us about? Itsy, please! You are blocking me, I can’t see…” begged Mimi, crying, too.

  Itsy shook her head. She mouthed the word “No!” up at the ceiling. And then they were all crying, all three sisters, holding onto one another in the heart of the building. And then the skies cracked open and the rain poured down, commiserating.

  23

  Itsy

  When the child was born Mimi didn’t want to look at her. She was beautiful, extraordinarily so, but we’d seen that coming. I tried to reason with her, to explain that Mama didn’t have any control over the war. That Mimi’s own actions were the catalyst for what would be with her own child. So she could change it. But Mimi was beyond reason. We all were. We didn’t even give the baby a nickname.

  “What will you call her, Mimi?” asked Fee.

  “Carmen, after Alfred’s mother, of course.”

  No, what will you call her? I scribbled.

  She turned her head from us. I could feel her body trying to arch away from the nursing infant. “She doesn’t need a nickname. She’s not one of us.”

  And that was that.

  You see … we’d found we were more powerful when we were together. Mama always told us about the natural numbers of things. How the numbers had power. Five leaves on a rosebush. Three women pruning those roses. The holy trinity. We’d always been different, but now the difference was palpably stronger.

  It happened slowly. First we talked over coffee and realized we’d dreamed the same things. Then we noticed that those dreams came true. Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so had divorced. Little Bobby down the block went missing. (We knew where he was; he was dead in a drainpipe. Mimi slipped a note under the door of the police station and then we asked Mr. Lender, the boy’s murderer over for lunch.)

  We’d always been able to sense things, see things the way Mama did, but never at the heightened level when it was the three of us. Carmen was born at the wrong time.

  Mimi couldn’t love her. She couldn’t love anyone. Love was dead to us. And me and Fee, we ignored her because … well … I don’t know. Because we knew she’d leave us? Because we wanted to circle in close and keep it just us three? We were ignoring George and he was busy ignoring us. After all that happened, George spent more than a few years not leaving his apartment. We left him food three times a day, and the priest came every now and again, but I didn’t care. I was glad he shut himself up. It was wicked of me, but all I wanted were Fee and Mimi. Just us three. When we held each other’s hands we were whole again. It didn’t matter that my voice was gone or that Fee had some sort of trauma-induced hearing loss. It didn’t matter that Mimi was turning a blind eye on her child and any sort of emotion that would remind her of that day. Nothing mattered but the fact that when we touched each other’s hands one thing was certain. We weren’t going anywhere. We’d be old and alone together on 170th Street. Bleak future or not, it was a future. It was a solid thing. We three were a solid thing. And we held tight.

  There was a drunken sort of wonder those first years. We were giddy with the power. On Sunday after church the front bell wouldn’t stop ringing. Everyone wanted a tea or a tincture or a talk.

  Carmen danced in and then out of our lives. Her childhood was a safe one, and like it or not, there was truth in what we all saw that day with our hands on Mimi’s belly. Carmen was a cold soul. Still, she tried to win Mimi’s affections, but children learn early how to survive and Carmen knew soon after she was born that though she was physically safe at home with us, she had no emotional support. And she knew Mimi didn’t see her.

  It makes me sad to think about it now. How we shut her out. She could have been a loving child. I can remember her doing chores and talking to herself, making up friends and scenarios. She had a flair for the drama from the git-go, that girl. How she cried in the night for Mimi. We all heard her, even Fee. And Mimi would go to her. But when she went, she took her time, and when she sat by Carmen’s bed, there wasn’t as much love and comfort as there was impatience.

  Carmen left home when she was only sixteen. She left not knowing anything about us. She won a scholarship to an acting school in Manhattan and rarely came back. Mimi watched her go with a look on her face that said, See, I told you she would go.

  I’ll never forget that day. The wild fight they had. I don’t really think either of them thought it would escalate the way it did, but so much can get lost so quickly.

  It started with a dress. Carmen had her suitcase open on the bed and she kept putting dresses into it and Mimi kept taking them out and explaining why she couldn’t take this one or that one.

  “Fee made that one for you,” she said of one.

  “I don’t have that pattern anymore,” she said of another one.

  “Fine!” yelled Carmen, emptying out the suitcase. “I’ll just bring the things I paid for myself.” She grabbed some long Indian skirts she bought from the Persian ladies down on 187th Street, a few t-shirts and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. “It’ll be lighter anyway! Thanks for the favor!”

  I was standing in the doorway and she pushed past me. She turned around to look at Mimi who was carefully hanging up the unpacked dressed when I noticed her eyes move to the rocking chair by the window. Mama’s rocking chair she’d brought with her from Fairview. Mimi saw the look, too.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” she said.

  Carmen took in a deep breath and dropped the suitcase. She swept back into the room and picked up the rocking chair over her head.

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “Just you try to stop me, old woman.”

  I backed out of the doorway because I knew she’d plow through me. She carried that rocking chair all the way out of the building. Once at the stoop she put the chair down and tried to hail a cab. None were coming down 170th Street. With Mimi and the rest of us on her heels she picked up the chair over her head again and ran for the corner. Really, I’ll never forget it. Her long hair in the wind. Her cheeks flushed with anger.

  A Checker Cab stopped for her and I watched as she tried to shove it in the backseat. It wouldn’t go, of course. I watched her talk and yell and cry … her hands moving all around her. The cabbie was won over, of course, and he put it in the trunk but it wouldn’t fit there, either. He got some rope and tied the trunk together somehow.

  And that’s how Carmen Amore left 170th Street. She left with nothing but Mama’s rocking chair hanging out of the back of a Checker Cab and a copy of The Bell Jar she must have dug out and then shoved in the back of the waistline of her long purple skirt.

  Mimi watched with me. Fee and George were long gone, back in the house for lunch. Mimi didn’t cry. I did, a little.

  “She’s gone now, it’s over,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “She’s going to have a really hard life. Maybe it’s good … maybe she should have Mama’s chair. Something solid to cling to when everything goes to hell.”

  And Mimi was right. Carmen’s early life unraveled itself just as it had under our hands when she was inside Mimi’s stomach. But was it fate? Or was it our doing? I don’t know. All I know is that when Babygirl came to us as a little girl herself, I tried to make it right again. We all did. We threw ourselves at the child because we all felt guilty about Carmen. We didn’t talk about it. We just knew it.

  And it worked. For a summer. Everything seemed okay again. When Babygirl was with us
she reminded us of the days before. She didn’t hinder us or our power the way we assumed another little girl a lifetime ago would have. She made us even stronger. And I know how.

  It was George. George who’d become a hoarder, a recluse. She fixed him. She brought our Georgie back. One hundred seventieth Street shimmered with laughter that summer. With Babygirl and Anthony, with my sisters, George … and Babygirl’s very best secret friend, Liz. The channels were open between the Bronx and Far Rockaway, between the Amore clan and the Greens. Mama and Papa were resurrected inside all of us.

  It was brilliant. And then she found my secret, I made a promise, and we all went back to square one.

  24

  Elly

  Elly didn’t go to her graduation from Yale. There were many reasons why. It was hot. She didn’t feel like explaining her belly (that had “popped” since her last visit) to those that might ask, and she didn’t want to risk seeing Cooper. She’d successfully avoided him all semester by going directly to and from the art studio. And Cooper had no reason to go there, especially since he didn’t realize she existed anymore. Mimi explained the spell they’d woven around him, the one that made him forget her, would be broken if he saw her. So she decided to stay on the safe side. She painted and she left. She was never happier she’d gotten all of her course work done early, ceremony or not, she was done. And it felt good to be free.

  She celebrated by painting a little and then gardening with Fee.

  “My class is graduating today,” she said as she found the cluster of five leaves on the rose bush and used the sharp garden shears to cut just above them.

  “Oh yes,” said Fee. “This should be a big day for you! Do you want us to have a party? It would be fun! Mimi could have a houseful of people here in an hour if it pleased you. What do you say?”

  Mimi, who was hard at work on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the back hall couldn’t help but overhear Fee’s loud voice. She sat back on her heels and poked her head outside. “Would you like that? A party?”