[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series

by Angela Scipioni

  “Is your Mommy home?” asked Roy.

  “Mo-o-o-m-m-y!” shouted Lily. “Roy the milkman is here!” Lily stood, a wide grin on her face, beaming at Roy.

  After standing and grinning back at her for about fifteen seconds, Roy looked past her into the house and said with a wink, “Maybe you should go find her.”

  “OK!” Lily slammed the door in Roy’s face and ran to find her mother.

  “Mommy, Mommy,” she called, reeling from room to room, finally finding her mother in the bedroom which was situated on the first floor, at the front of the house, facing the street. She was sorting through the coins in a small change purse of worn brown leather. She swiped at her right eye with the back of her right hand. She sniffed.

  “Mommy – what’s wrong?” asked Lily.

  “Why nothing, baby,” replied her mother, looking up at Lily and forcing a smile.

  “Roy is at the door and he wants to see you.”

  “I know, I know,” her mother replied. With a sigh, she poured the contents of the change purse into the palm of her hand, and then shook it, as if some small hole in the cosmos might open up and more coins would pour out. Convinced that the purse was empty, she tossed it onto the bed. She stood up and used her free hand to straighten out her dress. Walking over to the mirror, she vigorously pinched each cheek, which instantly turned them from milky white to rosy red, making it look like she had applied some of Grandma Whitacre’s rouge. She adjusted the auburn curls that lay across her brow, and said to Lily, “Now, you stay here, and keep an eye on Ricci. I’ll be right back.”

  Lily peeked into the bassinet that sat next to her parent’s bed. With his pink cheeks and auburn curls, Lily figured Ricci looked exactly as her mother must have when she was a baby. She tried to imagine Grandma Whitacre changing her mother’s diapers and feeding her a bottle, but Grandma was so fancy and sparkly that it was hard to picture her performing such mundane tasks – after all, Grandma Whitacre was practically a movie star.

  "I'm sorry you came out a boy, Ricci," Lily whispered to the baby. "If you were a girl like me and Iris, you would have a beautiful flower name - on account of Grandpa used to be a gardener but now he can't do it anymore cuz he's a cripple. Maybe your name woulda been Dandelion, or Lilac." Little Ricci drew long, deep sucks on his thumb. "But Ricci is a pretty good name for a boy, I guess."

  The baby had been dubbed “Ricci” by Grandma Capotosti, not because it was short for Richard, but because of his curly hair. Bel bambino, col ricciolino. Beautiful baby, with tiny curls. He was the only one in the whole family who had a shortened name, by strict orders from their father. “If I’d wanted you to call her ‘Margie,’" he'd say, "I would have named her ‘Margie.’ It’s Marguerite - like the daisy.” Allowing everyone to call the baby “Ricci” was a concession he made out of obedience to Irene Capostosti. She wasn’t a woman with whom you argued and won.

  Watching Ricci quickly proved to be a boring chore, so Lily tiptoed out into the hallway where she could glimpse her mother and Roy, and hear their muffled voices.

  “If I give you a partial payment, could you leave me just one crate today?” asked Lily’s mother.

  “Mrs. Capotosti, I have to answer for each crate that leaves my truck, and I have to balance my books at the end of each day. I’d love to help you, but ...”

  “Roy -” said her mother, shifting her weight to her right foot, and placing a clenched fist at her hip. Lily noticed a slight rise in the pitch and volume of her mother’s voice. It was her angry voice, and it was as close to shouting as she ever came.

  “I have twelve children. In just a few hours, they will be pouring in from all directions, and will take their places around the dinner table and they will ask me for milk. What will I tell them? Do you want me to tell them they can’t have any, or do you want to take this payment – and I know it’s not nearly enough – and figure out a way to give me another day or two to catch up?”

  After a few seconds of silence, Lily tiptoed into the kitchen and peeked around the corner so she could see her mother’s back, and Roy standing in the doorway. Roy shot Lily a glance, and then his gaze trailed down the length of Lily’s body, resting on her foot, complete with big toe poking through her white sock. He looked back up at Lily. She giggled, and then quickly retreated back around the corner.

  Lily’s mother tousled her curls, flashed a smile and said, “Honestly Roy, where do you think I’m going? There is no other dairy within ten miles of here. You’ll get your money. I give you my word.”

  When Lily heard the door close, she ran back to her mother’s bedroom and watched out the window as Roy backed his truck down the driveway. She pushed the ivory sheers aside and furiously waved to him. Just before he reached the end of the driveway, he stopped, tipped his cap to Lily, and then disappeared down the street.

  Lily took her post beside Ricci, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap. Her mother glided into the room, put the change purse back into the top drawer of her dresser, and scooped a now stirring baby out of his bassinet. She held the baby up at eye level and said, “We shall overcome, little Richard. We shall overcome.” She drew his small body close, and unbuttoned the front of her dress. Instinctively, the baby turned his head toward her breast, opened his mouth, and captured her nipple with hungry lips. Ricci was the only one in the house who never had to worry about running out of milk. Being a baby was the next best thing to being Roy.

  “Oh, Mommy, the little hand is on the five. Is it time for the city bus?”

  Lily’s mother glanced at her watch. “Why yes – I believe it is.”

  “I’m gonna go meet Daddy!” The side door slammed behind Lily as she disappeared down the driveway in her stocking feet.

  Each morning, Lily’s father would make a bologna sandwich, wrap it in wax paper like it was a birthday present, slip it into a small brown paper bag, and walk to the corner to catch the city bus. Some afternoons – when Lily remembered to ask if it was time – she would go down to the corner and wait for the bus to bring him home again, its magical doors opening with a loud whoosh, depositing her father onto the sidewalk. The walk back home was the only time he wasn’t working at the office or fixing something in the garage, or watching the news. And Lily could have him all to herself.

  “Hey, Lily of the Valley!” he called that Friday afternoon, stepping off the bus.

  “Daddy!” she cried, jumping up into his arms.

  “What did you do today?” He kissed her forehead and placed her back on the ground. Reaching into his breast pocket, he pulled out a Parliament, tapped it three times on the back of his left hand, and placed the filtered end into his mouth. He reached into his pocket again, to retrieve a pack of matches, and without slowing down or breaking stride, he plucked a match, struck it against the pack, and held it to the tip of the cigarette, puffing and dragging until it glowed like a light on a Christmas tree.

  Lily craned her neck, trying to catch a whiff of the smoke as it swirled around her father’s head. The only smells she loved more than a newly lit cigarette were gasoline, and fresh ground coffee. They were the smells of her father.

  “Were you a good girl today?”

  “I think so.” Lily replied.

  “You think so?”

  “Well, I didn’t cause Mommy any trouble, and no one pounded me.”

  He chuckled. “All good signs, I’d say.” He tilted his face toward the sky, took a long draw on his cigarette and then exhaled the smoke overhead with a broad, deep sigh. Lily marched alongside her father, straining to keep in step with his long, heavy strides. Lily’s father was slightly bowlegged and had a hitch in his step, so that when he walked, he rocked back and forth a bit, almost as though he were thinking about dancing.

  “Guess what I did today?” he asked.

  “What Daddy?” Lily knew what was coming, but playing the game was part of the fun.

  “I went to the White Tower at lunchtime and ordered a cup of soup to have wit
h my bologna sandwich.”

  “You did?” Lily giggled.

  “I did,” said her father. “And they gave me a pack of saltine crackers to go with my soup, but I was so full, I couldn’t even eat them.” He reached his hand into the pocket of his suit coat, and pulled out a worn paper bag and two saltine crackers in a plastic wrapper. “So, I brought them home for you.”

  Lily snatched the crackers from her father’s calloused palm, ripped the package open and took an enthusiastic bite. There were plenty of saltines at home, but none of them tasted this good; none of those other crackers were intended especially for Lily.

  “Daddy, today when I was coming home from school, I ran into that colored boy and he called me ‘little cracker.’”

  “He did?” Lily’s father flicked an ash from his cigarette. “Was he harsh about it?”

  “Nope. He just said, ‘Hey, little cracker.’” Lily’s father laughed at her impression of Bobby Rose, with her bottom lip thrust out and her brow furrowed, looking more like Shirley Temple scolding a kitten.

  “Hmmm,” he said, dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing it with the toe of his battered black leather shoe. “The next time he says that, just tell him, ‘Nothing goes better with crackers than a nice glass of chocolate milk.’”

  Lily finished the second cracker and shoved the empty wrapper into her front pants pocket. Her father’s advice made no sense to her, but she made a note of it, in the unlikely event that a colored boy should ever call her a cracker again.

  By the time Lily’s father rang the dinner bell, the house was filled again with the twelve lively children, over-stimulated and hyperactive from having spent the last two hours running around the neighborhood on bicycles, tricycles, jump ropes, and pogo sticks - children who hadn’t eaten anything since the solitary bologna or peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunch. Sweating, red-faced, and famished, they collected around the dinner table with the determination and order of pigs at the trough. Lily’s mother moved about the chaos with an aura of acceptance, or resignation. The sun descends, the children descend, the kitchen becomes a circus of hands battling for peas and rice and bottles of milk. Forks and plastic drinking cups and melamine dishes with faded floral patterns are whisked from the cupboards to the table, and then shuttled back to the sink, where they constitute yet another pile.

  Lily sat in the corner in her special chair, observing more than participating. She was almost too big for the chair now, but there was no room for her at the Big Kids’ table, and anyway, she would just get underfoot. So she sat and watched. Watched the flurry, watched the whirl of people and activity, and there would be her mother, moving quietly and unruffled, doling out bread, sopping up spills, breaking up spats about whose elbow was in whose face. The rest of the world was traveling at warp speed, and she was at the center of it all, like the conductor of an orchestra of untrained musicians, trying to at least keep everyone playing in time.

  The following day was Saturday, also known as Confession Day. Lily and Iris sat in the pew at St. Augustine’s church, waiting for Jasmine and Violet and Marguerite to get their souls cleaned. From what Lily could tell, her soul was a small white pillow that fit inside of her, somewhere between her stomach and her heart. If she committed a sin, like killing someone or having an impure thought, her soul would get little black splotches on it, and only Father Connor could get them out. He calls up the Holy Ghost, and then the Holy Ghost comes and beats the splotches out with grace. Lily figured that there were an awful lot of people having impure thoughts, because whenever she went with the Big Kids to confession, there was always a long waiting line, and since she never did see anyone get killed, the sinners must have all come by for some other reason.

  Alexander, John, and Louis went to confession, too. Henry usually walked to church with the others, pretending to be on his way to confess, but then slipped into the record store, making Louis promise to come by and get him before they all headed home again. Even for the older boys who did go, it just didn’t seem that they really understood about the suffering of Our Lord and Savior and the importance of getting your soul cleaned. They just didn’t understand it at all.

  Jasmine was usually the fastest at confessing. Violet didn’t put her heart into it, by her own admission. “I just tell him the same thing each time: I disobeyed my parents three times, I had one impure thought, and I called Marguerite a bad name. He doesn’t even notice that I say the same thing every week – and he gives me a different penance every time. One week, he’ll tell me, ‘Say five Hail Marys and an Our Father,’ and the next week he’ll tell me to say the whole damned rosary!” Violet popped a piece of Bazooka bubble gum into her mouth. “I mean c’mon, Father – which one is it?”

  “You know, Violet,” said Marguerite, “lying in confession is just another sin. So not only aren’t you getting absolution for your real sins, but the ones you’re making up are just more lies. You’re getting deeper into a hole each time you come here. You’d be better off if you didn’t even confess.”

  “Believe me,” said Violet, using her front teeth to pull the pink gum over the tip of her tongue, “I wouldn’t come here at all if I thought I could get away with it.”

  “I just hope you change your tune before you die, or you’ll be spending a very long time in Purgatory. I’d rather spend five minutes in confession every week and then go straight to heaven when I die.”

  “Purgatory,” spat Violet, “I bet there isn’t even such a place.” She read the comic from her gum wrapper, and chuckled. “See?” she added. “My fortune says, ‘You will soon embark on a pleasant voyage.””

  “You’re also not supposed to chew gum in church,” added Marguerite. Violet responded by blowing as big a bubble as she could manage, and then delivering a sharp slap to her lips. The loud pop echoed off the cavernous walls of the church, drawing looks and “tsk, tsk”s from parishioners who just wanted to finish their prayers in peace and get home for dinner.

  “Both of you, just stop it!” Jasmine spoke with as much force as she could muster without breaking a whisper. “Marguerite, it’s your turn.” Jasmine motioned to the confessional as a crooked white-haired woman emerged and hobbled to the front pew.

  Of the five Capotosti sisters, Marguerite and Violet looked the most alike. They both had Carlo Capotosti’s deep-set dark brown eyes, heavy eyebrows, stately Roman nose, olive complexion, and thick, coarse, black hair. But the similarities ended there. Except that they both loved Jasmine, which was the one thing that motivated them to at least try to get along.

  Marguerite was always in the confessional the longest. “Geez Louise, Marguerite,” Violet said when she finally emerged, “What did you do – rob a bank?” To which Marguerite simply stuck out her tongue and then slipped into position to say her penance.

  On the back of each pew were mounted a metal clip and a rectangular wooden box. The clip was for the men to hang their hats, and the box had little pencils and envelopes in it. The envelopes and pencils were probably so you could send a letter to Jesus, or God. You definitely wouldn’t want to write to the Holy Ghost, though. Besides the fact that he could send you to Purgatory, he didn’t even have a face, and how can you write a letter to someone without a face?

  Lily planned to send a note to Jesus as soon as she was able to make more letters, and could write something else besides her name. She took an envelope and pencil from the box. “Dear Beloved Savior,” she pretended to write. “My Auntie Rosa says that some bad men apprehended you and killed you. And Auntie Rosa also says that they killed you because of the bad things we do. I don’t really understand that, because that definitely is not fair. I hope you did not have to go to Purgatory, and if you did have to go to Purgatory, I hope you are in Heaven by now. Your friend, Lily.”

  Lily wasn’t sure what Purgatory was like, but it didn’t sound like anywhere anyone wanted to go. When she was older, she would be able to say penance for her sins, but what if she died before the Holy Ghost could be
at the sins out of her soul? Maybe if she just did penance all the time the Holy Ghost would go ahead and dissolve her sins and let her get into Heaven anyway. So that’s what she would do.

  Lily knelt down, looked up at the altar, and folded her hands. The far wall of the church was hand-painted in a geometric floral pattern of orange, blue, green, yellow, and red. Lily imagined that if she walked up to it and licked it, it would taste like the taffy that comes wrapped in wax paper that they have at Pop’s store at the corner of Arnett Boulevard and Post Avenue. Lily would stay in church all day, if she could lick those taffy walls. She wouldn’t even have to stop praying, since you only use your mind to pray, and not your tongue. It would start to get dark, and at long last someone would come looking for her – probably Jasmine – and she would say, “Lily – have you been in church all day? My, but you will certainly skip right past Purgatory and go straight to Heaven when you die.”

  Suspended over the altar was a life-sized statue of Christ crucified. Jesus’ eyelids were halfway closed, heavy with agony and exhaustion. Drops of blood trailed from his crown of thorns down to his jawbone. He looked down at Lily with sorrow, as if to say, “Why did you do this to me?” Lily’s eyes stung with her own sense of helplessness and with the guilt of thinking about candy while Jesus was suffering so much, when he didn’t even do anything wrong at all.

  Getting your sins dissolved must hurt, too, because each person had to go through that little door, and when they came out again, they went directly to a pew, knelt down and started praying, some of them crying, even, but definitely none of them looked very happy at all. Except sometimes John and Alexander. Sometimes they came out of the box making faces and giggling.

  “What did you tell him?” John asked Alexander as they slipped into the pew in front of where Lily sat holding the envelope between her folded hands.

  “I told him I whacked off six times this week,” said Alexander.