by Mary Campisi
Nick knew then, didn’t have to hear the words swirling around him in hushed whispers to confirm it. His father was dead. Nicholas Androvich Sr., second-generation son of a Czechoslovakian immigrant and his wife, was dead. Nick Jr. thought of his father lying somewhere amidst the five hundred acres of land he’d bought years ago, shrouded in maple, pine, poplar, ash, and the elusive cherry. He’d forged a logging company through brawn, sheer will, and a desire to provide a better life for his family, and then, when the dream was just within his reach, he’d toppled over and drawn his last breath among the trees he knew so well. People said Nick Sr. was like his trees—tall, sturdy, formidable, a man who bowed to no one, no one but his own body that gave out at forty-nine. Everyone wondered about his death. Was it the two shots of Smirnoff he had every morning before pulling out that weakened his heart and did him in? Or maybe Stella’s mashed potatoes and gravy or her stuffed dumplings? Some said it was his temper, all bottled up like aged whiskey, ready to explode any second. And still others wondered about his family history, his father and his father’s father. Genetics. Nick, at fifteen, hadn’t known what to think, so he’d thought about all of it, all of the time. Could it have been detected, maybe prevented? Could his father still be alive today? The questions wouldn’t go away. If a doctor had examined his father and identified a problem, a blockage maybe, then maybe the outcome would have been different. Maybe…
Restalline had two general practitioners back then, Dr. Montolowski and Dr. Heinen. Stanley Montolowski treated everyone with a dose of castor oil and a tablespoon of Brioschi. If that didn’t do the trick, he sent them to Dr. Heinen. Charles Heinen was originally from Pittsburgh, a “city boy” the town called him. He’d moved here with his wife and two small children to get away from the city and enjoy country life. People laughed at his bow ties and shiny wing-tip shoes, so different from Dr. Montolowski’s red-and-blue striped tie and scuffed oxfords. Many thought his ways were too different, too bizarre. Who ever heard of sitting in a dark room and counting your breaths? That wasn’t relaxing, that was downright crazy! And the tests the man ordered, blood test for this and that, getting poked like a pincushion. Nick Androvich Sr. refused to see Dr. Heinen, even after Dr. Montolowski’s castor oil and Brioschi treatment failed. It’s a pulled muscle is all from lifting logs all day. That pansy doctor wouldn’t know the first thing about hard work or real pain. He’s a city boy, not like us, not Restalline born and bred.
Two weeks later, Nick’s father suffered a massive heart attack and died. If he’d let Dr. Heinen examine him, would the outcome have been different? Would he have lived? Nick vowed to find a way to educate the town, help them overcome their prejudices, their ignorance about health care. He’d become a doctor of family medicine because his father had fought illness with blind denial and died because of it.
Nick was not going to let Harry Lendergin be a victim, not if he had to barricade Hot Ed’s to do it. “Right now your gallbladder’s inflamed and the attacks are your body’s way of telling you it can’t handle the food you’re giving it.”
“I don’t want the surgery yet, Doc.” Harry’s dark eyes filled with panic. “Not until after Marie’s wedding.”
“No doctor would do the surgery now, not with the inflammation. We’ve got to get that under control with antibiotics, and then we’ll talk about having you see a surgeon. I’ll give you a few names.”
Harry waved a hand in the air. “Just one name, the one you think would be best for me.”
“Fine. Can I tell you what I think would be best for you right now?”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
“You need something for pain and you need rest.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’m grateful, truly grateful.”
“I’m not finished yet, Harry. No more sausage subs, no more chicken paprikash, chicken and dumplings, hamburgers, or peanuts.”
“Okay, Doc.” He nodded his crew-cut head.
“Just wait a minute. No ice cream, peanut butter, donuts, Twinkies, or pizza. Nothing loaded with fat.”
“Anything you say, Doc. I promise.”
“I mean it, Harry. If it happens again, you won’t make it a month to Marie’s wedding. You’ll be in the hospital, period.”
Harry’s face turned white beneath his tan. “I gotta make Marie’s wedding. I’ll eat Tilly’s broth and boiled chicken.” He shook his head, muttered, “That’s probably what’ll do me in, but I’ll eat it.”
Nick smiled, shook Harry’s hand. “Call me if you have any other problems. Sometimes the gallbladder acts up even when all you’re eating is broth and boiled chicken.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Harry nodded. “Thanks for everything.”
Ten minutes later, Harry Lendergin left the doctor’s office with a prescription in one hand and his empty mailbag in the other.
“Well, whose kitchen has Harry been raiding this time?” Elise Pentani looked up from the stack of charts in front of her.
“Hot Ed’s,” Nick said, handing her Harry’s chart. “Three sausage subs.”
“Good Lord, no wonder he came in doubled over.”
“I told him if he wants to walk Marie down the aisle next month, he’d better stay away from all that junk he’s been sneaking.” Nick unbuttoned his lab coat and pulled it off. He glanced at his watch and said, “I’ve got to stop by and check on Mrs. Graeber. I told her I’d be there by six.”
“Speaking of fat, I bet she’ll have a cherry pie waiting for you.”
Nick grinned. “I’m counting on it.”
“Most doctors want cash.” She laughed. “But you, you want cherry pies, chocolate chip cookies, banana nut bread. You have some nerve lecturing Harry.”
“The difference is that I can eat a piece and stop. Harry doesn’t call it quits until the whole thing’s done.” He patted his stomach. “But one of these days it’s all going to show up, right here.”
She shook her head. “I doubt it. Some people are just blessed.”
“Yeah, that’s me all right. Blessed. A regular GQ kind of guy.” He ran both hands through his hair, tried to smooth down the flip in the back. He needed a trim. “That’s why I’m wearing a red polo from Penney’s and a pair of Levi’s, relaxed fit, mind you. And docksiders with a stain on the left shoe thanks to Mrs. Graeber’s Chihuahua with the irritable bladder.”
“And the really sick thing is you still look like you just walked off the cover of a magazine.”
“Right. Zoo World, maybe.”
“Hardly, Nick.”
He laughed. “You need to get a husband so you can tell him all this flattery stuff. He’d eat it right up. Great for the marriage.”
Elise scrunched up her nose. “Uh, thanks, but I’m a little light in the male department right now.” She held up both hands. “Not that I’m looking.”
“You should be. You’re what? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”
“Thirty.”
“All the more reason. You’ve been on three dates in the two years you’ve been working for me. That’s crazy.”
“Five. I’ve been on five. Six if you count the cholesterol screening with Dr. Crawford. We went out for coffee afterward.”
“Okay, six. You’re beautiful and you’ve got a great personality.”
She let out a little laugh. “So what kind of man could match a compliment like that?”
He ignored her. “And you’re one hell of a nurse, great with the patients, easy to talk to. Any man in his right mind would jump at the chance to be with you.”
“They’re all lined up outside, aren’t they?” She tapped her fingernails on the Formica desk and looked at him.
“Maybe I’m working you too much, maybe you need more time to get out and socialize.” She was at his office all the time, early in the morning until late at night.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
Now she sounded just like him. Thanks, but no thanks. He had a reason to be that way. Elise didn’t. She’d never been married, never even had a serio
us relationship, not that he knew of, and he’d known her since she was five. So, what was she afraid of? Caring about someone enough to get hurt? Baring her soul and being rejected? Loving someone and losing him? She’d make a great wife, a great mother. Any man would be lucky to have a woman like Elise… any man… even his lame-brained, stubborn, brother.
The idea hit him so fast he had to slow it down and replay it all over again. Elise and Michael… Maybe she could straighten him out and knock that chip off his shoulder. Show him how to love, give him hope… “Elise, what are you doing Saturday night?”
She coughed and sputtered, “What did you say?”
“I said what are you doing Saturday night?” The question made her face turn bright pink. Pretty, very pretty. Michael liked dark-haired women, didn’t he?
Elise patted her hair, fanned her hand in front of her face. “It’s awful hot in here, don’t you think?”
Had she guessed what he was planning? Is that why she seemed suddenly off-kilter? “We’re having a birthday party at the house for Uncle Frank. He’ll be sixty-four. Mom’s making stuffed cabbage and lasagna. Why don’t you come?”
She looked away, looked back, looked away again.
“Unless you have other plans—”
“What time?”
“Eight.”
“I’ll be there.” Her voice dipped. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good.” Good. “So am I.” Have I got a surprise for you… He glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. Mrs. Graeber’s pie’s waiting.” Nick grabbed his bag, waved a hand in the air, and ran out the back door.
***
Nick flipped on his blinker and turned the silver Navigator onto the long gravel drive leading to his parents’ home. Twenty-three years since his father’s death and he still thought of the old farmhouse as his mother and father’s. Stella and Nick’s. Maybe because his mother had kept almost everything the same as when the old man was alive—the big maple table with four side chairs and one captain’s chair, the faded, green-plaid fiberglass curtains pulled back over three windows, those god-awful wrought iron roosters, all shapes and sizes covering the walls, a wrought iron rooster clock, too. The old linoleum floor, a brownish-tan square mix, scuffed and cracked along the edges, and his father’s most prized possessions—the cherry cupboards he and Uncle Frank made, hand picked from Androvich Lumber. The only real changes to the kitchen were the appliances. The avocado refrigerator died two years ago and the Androvich children convinced their mother that the new white refrigerator she’d ordered made the old stove look like an eyesore and would she please get rid of it? It took some work, and a lot of persuasion, but Stella finally relented and had a white flat-top model from GE installed. There still wasn’t a garbage disposal or a dishwasher. Garbage is garbage. I’m not going to sort it all out. And, If I have to scrape and rinse all the food off, I might as well wash it and be done.
She did accept Uncle Frank’s gift two Christmases ago, much to everyone’s surprise. It was a microwave oven, and though she swore she’d never use it for more than reheating her coffee, as the months passed, she learned how to defrost hamburger, bake a potato, fry bacon, and even pop popcorn for her grandchildren. Stella Androvich, old-fashioned, make-it-from-scratch woman, was inching her way into the twenty-first century!
But the rest of the house stopped breathing new life twenty-three years ago, when Nick Androvich Sr. died. Sometimes Nick thought his mother tried harder to preserve his father’s memory than she did to forge on and live her life. Would he have wanted it that way? Would the old man really have wanted her to keep the red plastic currycomb he used to brush over his crew-cut head on top of his dresser? Couldn’t she at least put it in a drawer, tucked away, maybe take it out every now and then if she felt the need? But to see it every morning, every night, every time she went into her bedroom, would he have wanted that? Nick doubted it, but it did no good to say anything. Stella Androvich had a mind of her own, period. She wore the title of widow like a shield, barring no one entry but her children and then as time passed, her grandchildren, clutching the role of mother and grandmother, but never again woman, or even self. That part of her faded with the much-washed aprons she wore, one week at a time, until the colors ran into one another and it was hard to remember what they had once looked like. That was his mother, blending into her children’s lives, one washing at a time, a selfless person turned into a self-less woman.
Maybe it was the Androvich curse to end up alone. Uncle Frank had never even married or been close to it, though there must have been someone, somewhere, in his almost sixty-four years of life. Maybe, the Androvich’s just didn’t have it in them to love or open their hearts more than once. One time, that was it. Look at him, and Michael… perfect examples. Gracie was the only exception… so far. Maybe his kid sister would defy the curse, maybe she’d live happily ever after five doors down with her husband and children.
And maybe with a little help and a lot of luck, times would change for the rest of them. That’s why he’d invited Elise to Uncle Frank’s party. She would be good for Michael, tone down his temper, keep him even-paced, make him think about something other than his next six-pack. Maybe he’d even remember he had two kids.
“Nick? Is that you?”
His mother’s voice reached him from the other side of the screen door. She was in the kitchen, baking bread from the smell of it. “Hey, Ma.” He stepped inside. “My favorite cook.” He walked over to her, gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Not from what I can see,” she said, eying the pie in his left hand. “You’ve been to see Agnes Graber again, haven’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
She sniffed. “Simple. Who’s the only woman, other than me, who makes you pie? Cherry to boot?”
Nick grinned and put his arm around his mother. “So, Stella’s got a little competition, eh?”
She let out a huff. “I could bake circles around that woman. I think she only makes you those pies because she thinks you’ll ask her daughter out.”
“Gloria?” Thirty-six year-old, face-in-a-book, sit-in-a-corner, only-wear-black, Gloria? “I… don’t think so.” Could it be true? Had Mrs. Graeber been exaggerating the pain in her right foot, the one that made it just impossible for her to climb the steps to his office?
“I know that woman.” His mother wagged a finger under his nose. “She’s been trying to get that daughter of hers married off for years.” She wiped her hands on her apron, a pinkish-green tulip pattern, grabbed a quilted mitt and opened the oven door. “And you’d be the perfect catch. Ah,” she breathed, closing her eyes, “now this is real baking.” Nick watched her slide the grate out, lift a loaf of bread with one mitted hand, flip it upside down, and tap it three times with the tip of her fingers. A dull thud means it’s not done. The loaf was golden, glistening with butter rubbed all over. Four more loaves and twelve more taps before she closed the door and said, “Another ten minutes.”
Nick headed for the fridge, peeked inside. “What’d you have for dinner?”
“Your favorite. Stuffed peppers with parsley-buttered potatoes.” She smiled and ran a hand through her hair. It was cut just above her shoulders, dark brown streaked with gray, like a copse of pine trees topped with snow. “I fixed you a dish to take home.”
“Thanks, Mom.” At sixty-three, she was still a handsome woman, tall and slender, her movements measured and graceful.
“Don’t think Gloria Graeber has ever stepped foot in a kitchen.”
…with an opinion about everything. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You do that.” Her dark eyes narrowed on him. “And the same goes for that rent-a-heart doctor you’ve been flitting around with lately. She strikes me as a take-out kind of lady.”
Lisa… she was talking about Lisa. How had his mother found out about her?
“And that’s no way to raise a child. Justin would hate it. You remember that.” She tsk-tsked at him. “No way at all,” she said unde
r her breath.
“Lisa cooks.” He paused, added, “Some.”
“Oh.” She waved a wooden spoon at him. “Her name’s Lisa. I see.” She tapped the spoon against the palm of her hand. “And what did this Lisa cook for you, Nick?”
How had they gotten into this conversation? He wished he could stop it, right now, yank the words back, start again. He’d shut up this time.
“Nick?”
He shrugged, jammed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. Some kind of pastries with spinach and crab.” They were pretty tasty, too. “And shrimp cocktail.”
His mother nodded her head, a knowing smile spreading across her face. “I know what you’re talking about. Sure do.” Her head bobbed up and down. “The pastries come twenty-four in a box at the Market Basket.” She tilted her head in his direction, lowered her voice and said, “In the frozen food section.”
Nick wasn’t going to let on that she’d gotten to him. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll buy you a box sometime, see how you like them.” So what if she couldn’t cook? The woman was a doctor, not a culinary expert for Chrissake. And it was just a few dates, a diversion, that’s all. Lisa Kinkaid, staff cardiologist for North West Pennsylvania Cardiologist’s Group was a city girl, addicted to Sak’s, the theater, five-star restaurants and sushi bars, none of which could be found in Restalline.
“Yes, let’s do that, Nicholas. And you’ll have to invite Lisa so I can meet her.”
He smiled. “Sure, Mom. I’ll have her check her schedule.” No sense telling her Lisa wouldn’t be back for another month.
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and turned back to the oven. “I’ll just get these loaves out and you can take one home with you.”