by Mary Campisi
“Thanks.” Nick grabbed a fork from the silverware drawer, lifted the tin foil on the casserole dish. “Where’s Justin?” he asked, digging out a chunk of stuffed pepper.
“He’s out back. Come to think of it, he’s been there quite a while. Maybe he wandered over to Frank’s workshop.”
Nick took another bite of pepper, set his fork down. “I’ll go find him.” He went out the back door, down the steps and looked around, raising a hand against the sun. The memories came rushing back, crowding his senses, like they always did when he looked out over the land, acres and acres of it, some treed, some fields, but Androvich land, all of it. His chest still swelled with an indescribable feeling when he gazed out over it. There were a lot of memories here, most good, some bad. He and Michael used to climb the maple tree to his right, shimmy fifteen feet in the air, arms hardly able to circle the thick branches, skinny legs dangling in the air. It was just the two of them then, Gracie was still a baby. And Nick Androvich Sr. was so proud of his sons, Nicholas and Michael, heirs to five hundred acres of land and Androvich Lumber. This will all be yours one day, boys. Yours and Gracie’s. They’d been standing in the middle of a field, knee-high in clover, the sun fading to pale orange as it drifted behind a blanket of trees. It’s part of you… this land… can’t you feel it pumping in your blood?
Nick and Michael had stood side-by-side, watching the sun inch below the trees, the bond between them tightening. Nothing would ever come between them, nothing. Not until Caroline…
“Dad?”
Nick blinked, blinked again. “Justin? Where’d you come from? I came out to look for you.”
“I was here. Behind that tree.” He looked up, squinted. “Are you okay? You looked kind of weird like you were gonna throw up or something?”
Nick cleared his throat, put an arm around his son. “I’m fine. What are you doing out here all alone?”
Justin’s shoulders slumped forward a little. “Nothing.” His voice drooped. “Just sittin’.” His gaze shifted to his sneakers.
“Grandma says you’ve been out here a while.”
“I guess.”
“Justin?” His son looked up and Nick saw tears in his blue eyes. Caroline’s eyes. “What’s the matter?”
“They said”—tears started streaming down his face—“they said Mom killed herself. That she burned to a crisp, like a marshmallow”—he hiccoughed—“all black and that her skin sizzled like bacon.” He buried his face against Nick’s shirt, grief moving through him with the rise and fall of his tiny shoulders.
“Who said that, Justin?” Nick gripped his son’s shoulders and forced him to look up. “Who son?” He gentled his tone, tried to keep the rage inside. Eight years old was too young for such hard truths. But then, so was thirty-eight.
“Jerry Toranchi.”
Figures. The undertaker’s kid. “Well, you ignore him, do you hear me? Just ignore him.”
Justin swiped a hand over both eyes, sniffed and nodded. “Uh-huh.” His voice wobbled.
“Good.” Nick put his arm around his son, pulled him to his side. “That’s my boy.”
“Dad?”
“Hmm?”
Justin looked away, past the field, out toward the trees, to the place where sky and land met, blended, joined. “Did she?”
Nick tensed, forced the word out. “What?”
“Did she”—his voice fell to a whisper—“kill herself?”
I can’t do this anymore, Nicky. I can’t do it. I’m falling apart. Caroline’s words filled his head, threatened to make it explode. Nick squeezed his eyes shut, pressed two fingers against his lids. “No, she didn’t kill herself.”
The boy let out a long breath, as though he was holding it, waiting. “I knew that.” He sounded relieved, almost happy. “Tell me the story about Mom again.” Justin looked up and gave him a timid half-smile, just enough to show the space where his left front tooth belonged.
Nick drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go sit under the tree.” They took the few short steps to the maple, plunked down, let the bark scratch at them through their shirts. Justin wanted the story, his story again, the one that Nick had been telling him since he was three and realized that Gracie wasn’t his mother and neither was Grandma Stella. It was a beautiful story actually, a fairy tale, embellished with details and happenings that would have pleased even The Brother’s Grimm.
“Once upon a time—”
“Not ‘Once upon a time,’” Justin cut in. “That’s for little kids, remember?”
“Oh, right. When you’re eight, it can’t start that way anymore.” Nick cleared his throat. “Here goes. This is the story of Caroline Ann Kraziak and Nicholas Anthony Androvich. Caroline was a beautiful girl, sixteen when she met Nick, with long blond hair, the color of corn silk and eyes so blue they reminded him of a cloudless July sky.“
“My eyes,” Justin piped in, sitting up. “They’re like my eyes.”
Nick nodded. “She was in eleventh grade when she met him, after a Friday night football game against the Elston Wildcats. Nick threw four touchdown passes that night, clinched the division title. Afterward, a bunch of kids went to Hot Ed’s—that was the hangout back then and that’s where he met Caroline.”
You’re Nicky Androvich. She’d smiled, a perfect smile that lit up her heart-shaped face.
I am. He’d stared at her, taken in by her soft voice and blue eyes.
She’d held out her hand, so small, dainty, and he’d taken it in his own, mindless of his jammed finger and swollen knuckles. I’m Caroline Kraziak. I’m just a junior so you probably don’t know me. Her skin was so soft, like baby powder.
You’re Norman Kraziak’s daughter, he’d said. Our father’s do business together. He’d stumbled over his next words, stuck between awe and disbelief. I… I don’t know how I never noticed you before.
She’d laughed then, a tinkling sound that made him laugh too. How can you see anything past that flock of girls that surround you all the time?
I want to, he’d blurted out. See you, I mean.
Caroline had taken a step closer, her eyes shining and whispered, I want to see you, too, Nicky Androvich.
“So Nick and Caroline started dating and then he went to college.”
“And she wrote to him every day because she missed him so much,” Justin said.
“That’s right.” Oh, Nicky, I can’t stand being away from you. It’s like a piece of me is missing. I love you… I love you… “Caroline went to Midtown Community College to study business and she also worked part-time as a secretary at her father’s sawmill.”
“And she was real smart, too, wasn’t she, Dad?” Justin leaned over, peered at Nick. “Smart as you.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Smart as me.” Who cares about silly old accounting? Who cares about school? She’d snuggled up next to him, buried her hand under his shirt. I just want to be your wife, Nicky, have your babies, make you happy…
“And you got married right after you finished your first year of medical school and she moved to the city with you. Philadelphia. But you bought a house here, our house, for when you were done with school, ’cause you were coming back here to live.”
Nick nodded, pinched the bridge of his nose. “That was the plan.” He squeezed his eyes shut, but the memories were still there, waiting. I can’t take it anymore, Nicky. I can’t. I’m afraid...all the time… of everything… can’t even go outside. … She’d covered her bulging stomach with both hands. I want to go back home, Nicky, home to Restalline.
Six months, honey, just six more months and then we’ll go home. He’d pulled her into his arms, kissed her soft hair. Okay? Just a little longer. But it hadn’t been okay, nothing had been okay.
“And then I was born early.”
“And then you were born early.” Caroline, don’t you want to walk down and see the baby? He’s in the incubator, but he’s doing fine. You can put your finger through the opening and touch him? Caroline? Caroline?
Justin smiled, inched closer to his father. “And she loved me more than anything in the world.”
“More than anything.” He’s your son, and you’ve only been down to see him once in three days. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you walk twenty steps to the nursery to look at him? She’d been huddled on her left side, facing the wall, the white cotton blanket pulled to her chin, eyes closed. Caroline? Caroline? Her eyes fluttered open, then drifted closed. There was a bottle of pills in her bedside stand, top drawer, hidden behind a tube of hand cream. The pills had helped lull her to sleep the year before the baby, when Nick was working a lot of nights. She’d quit when she found out she was pregnant, but she hadn’t forgotten about them. He wondered how many other expectant mothers packed sleeping pills in their hospital bags.
“And”—Justin sucked in a deep breath—“when the fire started, the smoke”—he faltered—“the smoke…”
Nick laid a hand on his son’s knee. “The smoke had already made her breathing stop.” So much smoke…
“And they put the fire out before it reached the bedroom.”
We’re sorry, Mr. Androvich, the body was burned beyond recognition. “She looked like she was asleep.”
“Just as beautiful as the day you met her.”
“Just as beautiful.” Nick put his arm around Justin. “She’s watching you, son. From up there.” He pointed skyward. “Just like Grandma says. And she loves you, just as much as I do.” That part, at least, he believed to be true.
“Yeah, I know.” Justin looked up at the sky, raised his hands and waved. “I love you too, Mom.” Then he turned to his father and said, “Thanks Dad, that was a great story.”
Nick nodded. “It was a great story.” A wonderful, fantastic, great story. Unfortunately, it was just that… a story.
Chapter 3
The sign read, Restalline, 3 miles.
Finally.
Alex maneuvered the Saab along the winding road, dodging potholes and an occasional squirrel as she closed the gap between a dot on the map and the town itself. Soon, she’d be there and then the real challenge would begin.
Would the residents be like the ones in the other towns she’d been to over the last seven years? Simple, honest people with pickup trucks and recipes for homemade applesauce, who took a person at their word, especially one who said she’d come to research their town, gather information for a documentary on small-town life. The way they’d puff out their chests and offer tidbits about their home, their land, their history, sometimes made Alex feel like she was snatching their lives in mid-sentence, pushing a pen and paper in front of them before they realized what was happening. But she wasn’t taking anything she didn’t give back… tenfold.
Opportunity, that’s what she was really giving them. A way out, a chance to escape the drudgery of small-town life. Who would really want to can their own tomatoes when you could buy them in the supermarket any way you like? On the vine, in the can, diced, whole, pureed, peeled, crushed. Better yet, why buy them at all? Why not just eat out and let the restaurant take care of the details, and the clean up? And why would a person want to spend hours on a riding mower, cutting acres of grass? That’s what lawn services were for, though city life or rather suburban life, didn’t allow for acres of anything, except housing developments and shopping plazas. With the money WEC Management signed over on every deal, people could ditch the canning apparatus, sell the riding lawn mower, load up, and trek off to Suburbia, U.S.A.
They could move into the twenty-first century, all with the help of Alex and WEC Management. This town should be no different. She’d convince them there was a better life to be had on the outskirts of Restalline. Some of them probably already knew that, knew they didn’t have to settle for three-year-old fashions from the only ladies’ clothing store in town, not when they could move closer to a mall and buy their swimsuits and dishes at the same store. Opportunity, that’s all many of them needed. A glimmer of what could be and they’d sell out.
So, they give up a chunk of land? So, their parents wouldn’t be living three doors away anymore? And if grown siblings separated, only saw each other on holidays and vacations? So? Alex had grown up alone. No brother or sister, not even a mother or father, not really, though Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen had done their best to fill in the gap when her parents died. But there had always been something missing, an intangible need that gripped her middle when she saw a family together, one that told her Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen hadn’t quite gotten it right. And all of the instructions in etiquette, the piano lessons, the European vacations, the private schools, the colleges, hadn’t replaced the longing for her parents, though she kept it hidden away, even from herself.
Alex glanced at her briefcase on the front seat, caught a glint of red sparkling against the sun. Ruby. Red is ruby. She remembered the words, but not the voice, or the face, though she knew it was her father’s. The stone wasn’t really a ruby at all, it wasn’t even a stone, but a piece of colored glass, embedded in a wooden mirror that had been painted green and blue and decorated with an assortment of colored glass—topaz, turquoise, emerald, garnet. Even after all these years, she still remembered the first time she saw it, the first time she held it in her hands, staring at the jewels, watching them wink back at her. The true jewel is in the mirror, the voice had said. Look into it, Alexandra, look into it and see the jewel. She’d stared, squinted, turned the mirror upside down, hunting for a big gem, but she saw nothing in the mirror except her own sunburned face looking back at her. Alex had once asked Uncle Walter to help her find the jewel in the mirror, but he’d only shook his head and told her to stop her fancifulness. Aunt Helen’s reaction had been quite different—she’d dragged Alex by the hand into the big room with the shiny bedspread where she slept all by herself, opened several velvet boxes and pointed a long red fingernail at them. These are jewels, young lady. Real jewels. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds. She’d laughed then, a funny kind of sound and flipped open a blue velvet box. And in here—she’d fingered the sparkling necklace—these are a girl’s best friend.
Alex had kept the mirror hidden in a bottom drawer after that, tucked behind her turtleneck sweaters. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want her aunt or uncle to see it again, tell her it was nothing but a silly mirror with glass beads glued around the edges. It was more than that, much more. It was the only link Alex had to her mother and father, Peter and Nadia. She knew their names, knew their occupations. Her father had been a painter, her mother a ballerina and then a jewelry designer. And she knew that her parents had given her the mirror a few days before… before they went to the ocean for the last time. The ocean is heaven, Alexandra, her father had said, A pure, joyous slice of the divine.
And then they were gone, taking the memories, the years, the life she had known, wiping it out with the force of high tide leveling her sand castles. At first, Alex had cried and asked Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen for pictures of her parents, wedding, high school, baby, anything. There’s nothing here, her uncle had told her. Your father and I weren’t… in touch. Alex had even scavenged in her uncle’s study one afternoon, hoping she might find something.
But her uncle was right. There wasn’t even a hint of her father or mother in the big brick house on Canterberry Road in Arlington, Virginia. Nothing. Just a blue-and-green hand mirror, embedded with glass beads with a chipped handle from the time Alex had pounded it against the bathroom tile in a burst of rage. She’d been so angry with her parents for deserting her. Why did they have to leave her? Didn’t they love her enough? Didn’t they know she didn’t want to be here, with these strangers who called themselves aunt and uncle? She’d pounded the mirror against the white tile, hard, harder, until a chunk of greenish-blue wood hit the toilet. She stopped then, swiping the tears from her cheeks. The handle of the mirror was chipped, a wedge of bare wood exposed. I’m sorry, Mommy and Daddy. I’m sorry. She’d clutched the mirror to her, close, closer, against her heart. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s
orry.
From that day on, the mirror stayed close to her, accompanying her to summer camps in the Catskills and Cape Cod, France, Italy, and fifteen states, then it was off to college in a backpack and later still, trips across the country, even her honeymoon in Tahiti. It became a talisman of sorts, a link to past and present, a calming source that grounded and soothed her.
And now, it was riding in the front seat of her Saab as she drove into Restalline, population 6,393, nestled in the mountains of northwestern, Pennsylvania. Alex spotted a blue-and-white sign that read, Downtown, with an arrow pointing straight ahead. Lodging comes first, exploration second. The AAA book had listed the names of two hotels, Flying Fancy and Juniper’s, both about a half-mile from downtown. Unfortunately, both had “No Vacancy” signs flashing in their windows.
Great. Now what? Might as well head into town and see if I can find somebody who knows somebody who might want to rent out a room. Downtown Restalline was an odd mix of old and new, shingled one-story buildings with green-and-white striped awnings, schoolhouse red brick two-stories trimmed in white, tan cinder block edged in gray, and a handful of ultra-modern designs in sleek black tile. Signs jutted out from several storefronts, McCrory’s Five and Dime, Able’s Goods & Gifts, Buddy’s Burger Bonanza, Baby’s Boutique, Best Fit Shoes.
Alex pulled into a parking spot beside a restaurant with a red blinking marquee that read “Hot Ed’s.” Maybe Hot Ed would be able to tell her where to find a room. She stepped out of her car, rummaged in her purse for a quarter and deposited it in the parking meter. Three cars down, a short, round policeman with thick black sideburns stuck a ticket under the windshield of a Buick. He shook his head, hiked up his pants and then proceeded to the next vehicle, a Honda Accord. Seemed like the lawmen of Restalline took their jobs seriously. Alex stuck another nickel in the meter, just in case, and headed into Hot Ed’s.
It was empty inside, nothing but the searing voice of Elvis singing Love Me Tender. Another greasy spoon. She worked her way to the counter in search of Hot Ed. How many places just like this had she been to—the Formica tables chipped and carved up with initials of high school sweethearts, girls in pink sweaters and boys with Old Spice aftershave slapped on their cheeks, feeding each other french fries and promising to love each other forever? And the jukebox in the corner? There was always one of those, blasting out songs like You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling or Hang on Sloopy. The counter would be high, with waitresses only. Sex discrimination was definitely practiced in these parts, and the owner would be big and burly with an apron splattered with grease and God knew what else. And the grease, ugh, the grease in the air could fry a pound of chicken, maybe two.