“Luisa, please, listen to me.”
“We’ll take care of things, Mamma, don’t worry. We’ll help you from now on. Things will be better, you’ll see.”
“If something happens to me,” she said again.
“Mamma—”
“Listen to me. If something happens, you have to take care of the family. You understand?”
“Stop worrying about that. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“You understand what I’m asking you, Luisa?” She strained to push herself up off the bed a few inches. “Please,” she said, “tell me you understand.”
“Of course I understand, but nothing is going to happen to you.”
My mom sank back down on the bed, looking a little relieved. But there was still a darkness in her expression. “I asked God one wish,” she said.
“Why are you talking like this?”
“I ask that when it’s my time to go…”
“Mamma, please.”
“…not to let my kids see me die.”
“For God’s sake, stop!” I said.
But she didn’t. “Have people from the neighborhood find me, take care of things, so my children don’t have to see.”
“Stop saying that!”
My father must have heard me raise my voice because I heard footsteps in the hallway, and the door flew open and he rushed in.
“What’s going on in here? Lina, are you all right?”
I spun around toward him, angry. “It’s your fault!”
“What?”
“You make her work so hard.”
“What are you talking about?” he said.
My mother grasped my hand and said, “Luisa, be quiet.”
I wasn’t listening. I pulled my hand free and took a step toward my father. “If anything happens to her, I’m going to kill you!”
“Luisa!” my mother said, pushing herself up a few inches. “Stop it.”
My father stared at me, too shocked to answer.
A week later, I was at work, answering the phone as I always did, when my older brother called and said the ambulance had taken my mother to the hospital again and I should come.
“Hurry,” Paolo said.
When I got there, I found Paolo sitting alone in the hallway, his head bent over, resting in his hands.
I hurried toward him, saying, “Paolo!”
He looked up, and I saw that he was crying. He didn’t have to say a word. I knew from the look on his face that Mamma was dead.
“Noooo!” I screamed. The rest is a blur, but I know that several nurses and doctors held me down. I don’t know what they gave me, but whatever it was, it was the only thing that could calm me.
My father came from work and drove us all home from the hospital, leaving my mother’s body there. He said it would be taken care of. I didn’t see him cry when he stood beside her before leaving her for the last time, but I was sure that he was being strong for the rest of us. He had to be as shattered as we were.
When we got home, the house smelled of the ragù my mother had made earlier in the day after she had returned from dropping me off at work. I walked to her bedroom door and just stared at the bed for I don’t know how long, realizing that she wasn’t going to return, ever. The words she had spoken from there just a week ago reverberated in my memory. She’d be worried about who was going to take care of the family. She’d begged me to do it. Her dying wish…
“Luisa,” my father called out from down the hall.
I walked toward his voice and found him and my brothers and sister sitting in the kitchen. He looked up at me, waiting.
“What, papa?” I said.
“We have to eat something.”
I struggled to breathe. “I’m not hungry right now,” I said.
He looked surprised. At first I thought he was concerned about me, but then he said, “The rest of us have to eat something.”
He stared again, waiting for me to bring lunch.
Still too stunned to react, I trudged across the kitchen to the refrigerator, not knowing what I was going to do about lunch or anything else. I opened the refrigerator and saw the large dish my mother always put the raw meatballs in. She’d prepared everything, seasoned them and stuffed them with mozzarella, but she hadn’t fried them, expecting to be here right now to do the cooking.
The devastation came over me so suddenly I wasn’t prepared. My legs gave out beneath me and I collapsed to the floor. I started to cry. Through my wailing, I heard my father’s voice.
“Luisa. Luisa!”
I turned my head, still weeping, and looked at him for comfort, sure he would come over and hold me, tell me that everything was going to be all right.
“Let’s go, Luisa,” he said. “The kids are hungry.” He gestured with his chin toward the dish of meatballs in the refrigerator. “We have to eat,” he said.
I looked at my brothers and my sister staring down at me, my father waiting. He turned and peered into the refrigerator. I knew what I had to do. I wiped the tears from my face and pushed myself to my feet. Taking the dish of meatballs over to the stove, I filled a skillet with olive oil and began to fry them.
“Take care of the family,” my mother had told me. I could not let her down.
CHAPTER 2
I had seen how much work my mother did for the family, but I didn’t fully realize the extent of it all until everything fell on me to do.
With my mother gone, someone had to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for my father and my brothers and sister, seven days a week. Someone had to clean the apartment, wash the clothes, hang them on the line, iron my father’s dress shirts and then iron all of the bed sheets. Someone had to go to the different markets to buy food, deal with my youngest brother Rodolfo’s school, drop Angela off at her work. The list never ended. It was a full time job.
I had to leave the construction company.
On top of all the work, someone had to be the support for Angela and Rodolfo, who were younger than I was, so they were struggling even more with the loss of their mother.
Only a few nights after we buried my mother, I walked past Rodolfo’s room and heard weeping. It was late, I was tired, and I didn’t have the strength to deal with that right then. But I knew that if I felt this bad, imagine how he was feeling. What would my mom have done? What did she expect me to do? I knew the answer.
I tapped on Rodolfo’s door. When he didn’t answer, I inched it open. Light from the hall behind me cut into the darkness of his room. I saw him in bed, tears soaking his face and the pillowcase.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, though I knew the answer. We all missed my mom and couldn’t imagine going on without her.
“I want to sleep with Mamma,” he said.
“It’s going to be all right,” I told him. “It takes time, but everything’s going to be okay.”
I didn’t believe the words myself. How could he?
He shook his head and kept crying. “I miss her.”
I came in and closed the door, sealing out the light. The dim glow from the streetlights gave the room a sad grayness.
“We all miss her, Rodolfo,” I whispered.
He didn’t answer, just wept.
I walked to the bed, and bent down and stroked his hair. “Mamma’s watching us from heaven,” I said. “She’ll make sure we’re all right.”
“I want her to be here, not in heaven.”
So did I. But what could I say? He continued to weep. Even though I had no more words to tell him
that would make him feel better, I couldn’t leave him like this, so I lay in bed on top of the covers and held him until his weeping faded away and he drifted off to sleep. When I knew he wouldn’t wake up, I left and went to my own bed. There, alone, it felt as gray and dismal as Rodolfo’s had been, but I had no one to hold me and comfort me and remind me that everything would be all right.
Earlier, I had tried to call Nino but couldn’t reach him. Maybe tomorrow we could be together and he could give me the strength I tried to give Rodolfo and the rest of my family. As I lay in bed, I kept telling myself that with time, things would get better.
But things didn’t get better. In fact, they got worse.
My father quickly got used to my doing many of the things that my mom had done around the house and he began expecting more. If he came home from work when I was at the fruit market or the butcher shop or picking up his suits at the dry cleaners, he would question me about where I was, looking annoyed, as though my not being home was something against him. It was almost as though he never wanted me to leave the house.
Maybe this is why I never went out, to do something for me. I didn’t want to hurt him. That, along with being sad that mom was gone, and tired with all the work I had to do around the house.
Nino was no support. He took a job in Brescia, in the north of Italy, only coming down to Giugliano every few months for a day or two. I rarely saw him when he was here, and when he did come over to the house, we never did anything together. We sat in the kitchen or living room, talked a little, never really alone, never able to get close. It was like I was still by myself. Sometimes he brought his laundry for me to do, and I guess I was so used to doing everything for everyone that I did it. Then he’d go back to Brescia.
He hardly ever called. He always had an excuse, too busy, the phone weren’t working, he wasn’t feeling well. I couldn’t help but wonder what the real reason was. Mamma had said that he was a good man and he loved me, but I could never make peace with his lack of faithfulness, even if that was what all Italian men did. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be with an Italian man. Sometimes it seemed that maybe I wasn’t meant to be with anyone at all. Nino made it easy to think that way.
I forgot him most of the time because the problems at home occupied much of my thought. Rodolfo began staying out late from time to time. When he did, I always waited up in my bed until I heard the key in the door and Rodolfo coming in. Only then could I fall asleep. If I questioned him too much or pushed too hard for him not to stay out so late, he would say, “You’re not my mother,” and walk away angry.
Angela, too, began staying out late. I would see her leave the apartment in short, tight dresses and high heels.
“Where did you get those clothes?” I asked. “And where are you going?”
“Come on, Luisa, where do you think I’m going?” she said. “It’s Saturday night. There’s a new club near Lido.”
“Does papa know?”
“I’m eighteen. Eighteen year olds go out on Saturday. Twenty-one year olds do too,” she said. “Why don’t you come? We’ll dance. Meet boys. It’ll be fun.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Be careful,” I told her. “Boys put drugs in girls’ drinks so they can take advantage of them.”
“I’m just going to dance, Luisa. Stop worrying.”
But I did worry. I worried the way I knew Mamma would have worried if she were here.
. . . . .
Christmas was filled with memories of my mother. Just getting through it and helping my family cope took all the strength I had. The rest of the winter wore me down. By the time spring arrived, I was so deep in my depression that I couldn’t imagine ever getting out of it.
With summer came the phone call from Nino. He said he was moving back Guigliano. Maybe things would get better having him nearby, I thought. Maybe we could rebuild the relationship. The long winter without him, at the time I had needed him most, had left me bitter, but I tried to keep in mind what my mother had said, that he was a good man and he loved me.
“What are you going to do for work?” I asked. He’d gone to Brescia because of the job there.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Do you have a job? I can ask my father if he knows of anything.”
“I’m okay, Luisa.” He tried to change the subject, talking about the friend who was going to let him share the apartment, but I didn’t just drop it. I had my suspicions.
“What does that mean, Nino? Do you have a job or don’t you?”
“Yes. I told you. So forget…”
“Where?” I asked.
He mumbled his answer.
I wanted to strangle him. I had a pretty idea what he was saying. “Where are you going to work, Nino?”
He hesitated, then finally sighed and said, “Lido Varca d’oro.”
“No,” I said. That was where he had cheated with his boss’s daughter. “I’m not going to go through this again,” I said.
“Come on, Luisa.”
“If you go back to work there, I’m done with you.”
“What are you talking about? Why are you saying that?”
“Why?” I said. I couldn’t believe he was asking me why.
“I need to work, Luisa.”
“Work with your father at his construction business.”
“He doesn’t have any openings, and I don’t do that kind of work. It’ll be all right at the Lido, I promise you.”
“It’s disrespectful to me.”
“No it isn’t. You have it all wrong.”
“If you go to work there again, we’re done. Period.” I hung up.
. . . . .
A week later, on a Sunday afternoon, while I was ironing my father’s shirts, the front buzzer rang. I could hear the monotonous murmur of the Formula 1 race my father was watching on television.
“Can you answer that, Papa?” I said.
He didn’t respond.
The buzzer rang again.
“Papa?”
“Get that, Luisa, will you?” he called out.
There was no use arguing. I left the ironing and walked through the living room toward the door. “You could get that, Papa. I’m working.”
He gestured toward the TV without looking at me.
When I opened the door, I found Nino standing outside, clutching a bouquet of red roses the size of the Colosseum.
“Nino!”
I was so happy to see him, and so happy that he remembered how much I loved roses and that he took the time to get them for me.
“You see,” he said, “I came back. I couldn’t bear to be away from you any longer.”
I wanted to jump into his arms, but I had to ask him first. I had to make sure.
“You changed your mind?” I said.
“No.” He grinned. “I told you I was coming back and here I am.”
“I mean about working at the Lido Varca D’Oro. Did you change your mind?”
His smile disappeared. “Luisa, you haven’t seen me in months and that’s how you…?”
I held up my hand to stop him.
“Nino, are you going to work there or not?”
He lowered his eyes.
I knew his answer before he even said it.
“Then we’re done,” I said. “And I don’t want your roses.”
“Come on, Luisa. Stop that. Take the roses.”
“I told you.”
“And I have to work. A man has to work. You have to trust me.”
“We’re done,” I said again and closed the door on him.
He knocked on the door.
“Luisa!” he called out.
I didn’t answer.
“Fine. Suit yourself,” he said.
I stood at the door, listening to his footsteps stomping away as he descended the stairs and left the building.
“Was that Nino?” my father said.
I went in and told him what had happened.
“Are you crazy?” he said. “The man needs a job. You can’t tell him take this job, don’t take that job. What are you doing?”
“No, Papa.”
“Go get him.”
“No, I’m not going to stand for this anymore.”
“Stand for what?”
“You know what he did.”
“That was before. Think, Luisa!” he said, poking his forehead. “You’re not young. You don’t think everyone knows you’ve been with him. Who’s going to marry you? You…you…you’re damaged goods.”
“Papa!” I jumped up, clenching my teeth so he wouldn’t see me cry.
“You know what I mean. This is a small town. You know how people think.”
I stormed away to my room and closed the door, hating Nino, hating this “small town,” hating my father’s way of thinking, and hating myself for having let Nino get away with treating me like that for so long. But most of all, I hated that everything my father said was probably the truth.
The next morning I was outside on the balcony, hanging the clothes on the line strung across the road. I looked down and saw Nino peddling up the street on his bike. He was dressed in the white shorts and white shirt that was the uniform of workers at the Lido Varca D’Oro.
Until Forever Page 2