Nunzio rushes off to his classroom, where the teacher is ready to kill him. Leo’s family looks for seats, poking people with crutches. “Excuse us. Sorry. Excuse us. Oops, sorry.” They get stuck in the back of the room, behind tall people with hats.
Grandma says, “For grandparents, they should reserve seats.”
The festival begins with the youngest students, cute little five-year-old cherubs fidgeting with their clothes and waving at their families. Everyone loves them. They don’t even have to sing. All they have to do is stand there wriggling, and people will applaud.
The first and second graders follow, and then the third graders, Nunzio’s class, file onto the stage. They are trying to be grown-up, attempting to stand straight on the risers, and their eyes are on their teacher (most of the time), who looks very serious. They sing one short song, and then in the next one, Nunzio has his solo, and his voice is astounding, soaring through the auditorium, so clear and pure, like an angel singing. The audience is hushed as they listen to the amazing Nunzio, and both Mom and Grandma Navy are dabbing at their eyes with tissues. Papa taps the man in front of him. “That’s my son Nunzio!” he says. His smile is huge.
Leo sees in his mind an image of his father and mother, spinning off pieces of themselves: Contento, Nunzio, Pietro, and Leo. And Leo wonders if dreams can change, and if he and his brothers and sister are the new dreams of Papa, and is that enough, and is that better than the other dreams he had?
When Nunzio’s song ends, everyone applauds like crazy. The family leaps up, shouting, “Bravo, bravo, Nunzio!” and Nunzio’s class is grinning and bowing, and then there is some sort of commotion on the row above Nunzio. Two boys from the top row tumble into the children in the row below, and then those children tumble into the next row, and legs and arms are everywhere, and someone is crying, and then many children are crying.
There is total pandemonium in the auditorium, despite the principal’s attempts to encourage everyone to remain calm. Parents are rushing to the stage, children are jumping off the stage, the little ones in the audience are crying and wailing.
Fortunately, only two children have to be carted out on stretchers. Unfortunately, one of them is Nunzio. Blood trickles from his forehead, and he is unconscious. Grandma Navy takes one look at Nunzio and staggers. She regains her balance and leans down to caress Nunzio’s foot. For a moment, Leo fears that she, too, will be carted out on a stretcher.
They are all floundering. Mom and Papa rush off in the ambulance with Nunzio while Contento, Pietro (and their crutches), and Leo pile in the car with Grandma and Grandpa Navy, following them to the hospital. On the way through the dark night to the hospital, Leo is praying for Nunzio-bunzio and making all kinds of bargains with God, if He will only make Nunzio okay. It seems to Leo that this is an awful lot of bad luck for one family in one week, and that you could never put this kind of thing in a play, because people wouldn’t believe it.
Leo, famous physicist, faces a bank of reporters. The camera lights are blinding. Hundreds of black microphones loom in front of his face.
A breathless reporter says, “You’ve discovered how to stop and even reverse time? Is that really true?”
“Yes,” Leo says. “For instance, we can now rewind it. Let’s say someone is injured. We can rewind time to just before each injury and replay it so that no one gets hurt.”
“Think of the implications!” a reporter says.
“You could undo car crashes!”
“Accidents of all sorts!”
“War!”
“Yes,” Leo agrees. He nods humbly.
“Phenomenal!”
Leo’s publicist appears at his side, whispers into his ear, and hands him a cell phone.
“Yes?” Leo says. “Another Nobel Prize? Why, thank you. Thank you very much. I am deeply honored.”
THE ALBUM
A much-too-early snowstorm arrives. Leo stands on the porch, scanning the snow-covered steps and yard, blinking in the white brightness of the day. Deep silence all around, except for the distant scrape, scrape of a snow shovel down the block. Leo leaps, whoosh, snow flying up around him, streaks across the yard and up the maple tree, not so easy in a winter coat and boots and gloves. He looks back at his house, at its snow-covered roof, the lights within, his footprints on the porch.
Down the tree, jump, thud, over the rhododendron bush, scattering snow from its top, squeezing between house and hedge, speeding down one side of the yard, around the birdbath, taking his usual route, thinking all the time about Nunzio. He has a concussion and swelling of his brain, but he is conscious and, except for the occasional vomiting and a “mathive” headache, he seems a little better today. He even sang for the nurses when Leo was visiting him.
Leo scrambles up the pear tree and pauses on the top of the garage, squatting in the snow. Nunzio has scared everyone. Papa and Mom stayed with him at the hospital the first night, and Contento, Pietro, and Leo went home with Grandma and Grandpa Navy. They were quiet and somber, sitting together on Grandma and Grandpa Navy’s sofa, not even poking one another. Leo wanted to ask “Could he die?” but he was afraid, as if to say it would make it possible, but if he didn’t say it, it would not be possible.
It reminded Leo of how he felt when Papa was in the hospital, how afraid he was, and he realizes now, that he is still afraid for Papa. What if he has another heart attack? What if I can’t save him?
Leo scrambles over the side of the garage, drops, poof, and races back to the porch. Again he leaps, and starts another round.
After they sit in silence at Grandma and Grandpa’s for some time, Contento starts bawling, which makes Pietro bawl, which makes Leo bawl.
Grandma is flustered. “What? What? Don’t cry!”
Grandpa says, “Maybe we should eat something—”
Pietro wipes his nose on his sleeve and says, “Nunzio is going to die!”
Both Grandma and Grandpa say, “No, no—”
Contento whimpers, “Don’t let him die.”
Grandpa Navy hurries into the kitchen and returns with a bowl of peppermint candies. “Here, here, have candy.”
“Don’t cry,” Grandma says. “Nunzio will be fine.”
“Have candy,” Grandpa urges.
Leo drags himself off the couch, wanders to the bookshelf, runs his fingers along the spines. On the bottom shelf is a row of albums. He pulls one out, flips through the photos, puts it back, withdraws another, and returns to the sofa, where Contento and Pietro are still sniffling. Grandpa is eating candy. Leo hears a small intake of breath from Grandma as he opens the album. She eases herself onto the sofa between Leo and Contento, and her hand hovers in the air, as if she might stop Leo, but she doesn’t.
Leo turns several pages, stopping at a photograph of Grandma and Grandpa seated on a blanket outside, with their children gathered around them. It is the same photograph that is in Papa’s Autobiography, Age of Thirteen. As Grandpa Navy unwraps another candy, he looks agitated, nervous. He walks over to the window and stares out.
Leo says, “Grandma, tell me who everyone is in this picture.”
Grandma Navy clears her throat and slowly identifies everyone in the picture, all her children, one by one. The last one she points to is the little girl on her lap. “And this,” she says, “this is Rosaria.”
Leo says, “Rosaria!”
Contento and Pietro look puzzled. “Rosaria?”
Grandma Navy turns a few more pages, as if something has come over her, some urgency. “And this is Rosaria,” she says, pointing to a slightly older Rosaria, and a few pages later, she says, “And this is Rosaria,” and on she goes through the album, showing them all the pictures of Rosaria. In the last one Grandma turns to, Rosaria seems about sixteen or seventeen years old, a little older than Contento. She is sitting on the porch, in a navy blue dress, and she is looking off to one side, at something just outside the picture frame, and she is smiling.
It is quiet in the living room. Leo turns the page
s back to the first one. “And that,” he says, pointing to the dog in the background, “was that your dog?”
Grandma Navy leans toward the picture, presses her lips together, and nods. “It was Rosaria’s dog,” she says.
ROSARIA
Grandma turns the pages of the album again, and this time she tells them about Rosaria. Leo can see from the photographs that Rosaria is a happy child, and Grandma confirms this. “Such a laugh Rosaria had, a deep and hearty ha ha ha, and whenever she laughed, everyone around her would have to laugh.” And Rosaria had a way of looking at you, Grandma Navy says, that made you feel as if she understood what you were thinking, as if she knew everything there was to know about you.
“And how she loved to dance!” Grandma says, turning to Grandpa. “Remember?”
“Mmm.”
“Her little feet, tapping all the time.” Grandma Navy touches Rosaria’s feet in the photograph. She turns the page. Rosaria is standing on their porch, her mouth wide open. “And sing! Oh, she loved to sing, too!” Again she turns to Grandpa. “Remember?”
“Mmm.”
“And here, see this one? She’s acting out a little play with your papa. That’s his hat she’s wearing.”
Leo leans toward the photograph. “Papa? Doing plays?”
Grandma says, “Oh yes, your papa loved to do plays. He turned everything into a play.”
“Papa?”
Why didn’t Papa write about this in his autobiography? Leo tries to remember Papa’s list of goals. He doesn’t think being an actor was one of them. If not, why not?
Grandma returns to the first photograph. Her finger strays across the photo, to the little dog. “And Rosaria loved that little dog, how she loved—” Her voice catches, and she stops. Grandpa turns from his place at the window and comes to her. He takes the album gently, as if it might dissolve in his hands, and he stares at the picture.
Contento says, “What happened—”
Pietro interrupts. “—to Rosaria?”
And Leo blurts, “Something bad?”
Grandpa Navy closes the album, returns it to the shelf. With his back to them, he says, “She left. We don’t see her anymore.”
Grandma Navy ushers them to the kitchen, urging them to sit down and eat soup, as if that will fortify them. They sit around the table, slurping soup, and this time it is Grandpa who continues the story.
“Rosaria and your papa were very close, like this,” he says, placing the palms of his hands together. “One day, her little dog dies, her precious little dog.”
Grandma sniffles when he mentions the dog.
“And Rosaria is inconsolable. She will talk to no one, only your papa. And he tries his best, you know, he tries to comfort her. He even makes a little play about a young woman and her dog, something to cheer her up, remember that?” He looks at Grandma, who nods. “There is also the boyfriend,” Grandpa says, glancing at Grandma again.
“Ack, the boyfriend!” she says.
“And while Rosaria is still being inconsolable about her dog, we get into an argument.”
“Over the boyfriend,” Grandma adds. “The stupid boyfriend.”
“And I don’t know why or how exactly, but Rosaria one day she packs up and leaves. We didn’t even know until the next day.”
“With the boyfriend?” Contento asks. “Did she go off with the boyfriend?”
“Yes,” Grandpa says.
“The stupid boyfriend,” Grandma says, again.
They sit there and look at their hands.
“And then?” Leo says. “What happened?”
Grandpa taps his spoon against the table in a steady drumbeat as he answers. “We get a letter, says they’re married—”
“Married!” Contento says.
“Don’t you get any ideas,” Grandma says to her. “Don’t you ever run off without telling your parents.”
Contento stares down at her bowl.
“But that’s not so bad, right?” Leo says. “I mean, so she’s married—”
“Not so bad?” Grandma says. “Well, maybe it doesn’t sound so bad to you, and maybe we would have got used to the idea, but the boyfriend was not a good person, and we wouldn’t accept him, and Rosaria refused to come home.”
“Ever?” Contento asks.
“Well, once she came,” Grandpa says.
“It was not good,” Grandma says. “It was a couple years later. The boyfriend—the husband—was long gone, but Rosaria was different. She argued with us over every little thing. She said we didn’t know her! Imagine that! Telling your parents they don’t know you! Who knows you better than your parents, I ask you, who?”
“But maybe,” Leo says, “maybe she felt, with all the kids in the family, that she was, I don’t know, like, invisible or something—”
“Invisible!” Grandma says, slapping her hand against the table, making them all jump. “Invisible? None of my children was ever invisible, I can tell you that!”
And then she starts to cry, and both Contento and Pietro look at Leo, accusingly, and he apologizes to Grandma, but she leaves the table, saying, “Oh, oh, oh.”
Grandpa sits there, staring at his spoon, as if it’s a crystal ball that shows the past, not the future. He says, “It’s difficult. We don’t see her, hear from her. We miss her.” He looks at Leo, right into his eyes, and he does not say anything, but it seems to Leo as if maybe, yes, Grandpa still hopes and wishes and dreams that Rosaria will come home someday. And maybe Papa does, too.
Leo is struggling through deep snow in dense woods. The bitterly cold wind howls around him, blowing snow into his face, obscuring the path. It is dark, with only the occasional stream of moonlight glancing off the snow. Leo is not sure how much longer he can go on. He stumbles, falls. But he must go on; he must.
At last he sees the tumbledown cabin, snow piled against its door. A light shines in one of the windows.
Leo pounds on the door.
A woman, huddled in a wool blanket, pries open the door a few inches.
Leo studies her for a moment. “Rosaria?” he says.
“Yes?”
“I am your nephew Leo.”
“Oh! How did you find me?”
“I have ways.”
Rosaria lets him in, and he explains his mission. Rosaria weeps. She wants to come home but is afraid. Leo reassures her, tells her that everyone misses her and wants to see her.
In the morning, Leo leads Rosaria out through the snow, and she returns with Leo to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Rosaria is so happy to be home, at last! And Grandma and Grandpa Navy and Papa and all the aunties and uncles can hardly believe it. Rosaria is home!
“Hey, fog boy! Earth to fog boy! Do you want more soup or not?”
That night, Leo and Pietro sleep upstairs in the room that used to be their father’s and Uncle Guido’s. Leo has been in this room before, but not often. Dangling on the back of the door are red and blue baseball caps. GIORGIO THE GREAT is scrawled in pen on one of the visors. On the dressers stand gleaming trophies, some for Giorgio, some for Guido. Two framed diplomas hang side by side on one wall. Leo guesses these might have been added after his papa and Guido left home. They don’t look like something boys would hang in their rooms. On the opposite wall are framed photos of the four brothers together, of the whole family, and one of the great-grandparents, who look serious and stern in their black clothes. These, too, Leo thinks, must have been added more recently, just like the crisp blue bedspreads.
Leo climbs into one of the twin beds. Had this been Papa’s bed? He stares up at the ceiling with its domed light fixture. What had Papa been thinking when he lay in his bed all those nights? Leo glances toward the single window, framed in blue curtains, to his right. The shade is up, and he can see the bare branches of a tree, and beyond them, the house across the street with one light on upstairs.
Grandma Navy taps at their door, entering shyly. “You boys okay?” she asks.
Pietro grunts, already half asleep. Leo say
s, “Sure.”
Grandma walks to the window and pulls down the shade.
“Grandma?” Leo says. “I’m sorry if I keep upsetting you. I don’t mean to.”
Grandma turns. “You don’t upset me. Rosaria upsets me,” she says. “But you know something? It was a little good to talk about her tonight, to look at those pictures. It upset me, yes, but it was a little good, too.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Do you think Nunzio will be okay?”
“For certain!” Grandma says. “He will be hunky-dory. Don’t you worry.”
“And Grandma—can I ask you something else?”
“Fire away, question-boy.”
“Do you know where Rosaria is? Do you have her phone number?”
Grandma puffs out her lips, letting a rush of air escape. “We are always trying to track her down. Then she moves!” She lifts her chin. “But she always knows where we are.”
“So, do you think that maybe some day—”
“Ack, my life is full of maybe-somedays! But I tell you a secret—you can keep a secret?”
Leo sits up in bed. “Yes.”
“You’re not to tell anybody, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Your auntie Carmella’s friend Lucy has a brother whose wife says she saw Rosaria—yes, it’s true—she saw her a few months ago, and Rosaria has a child! Is true! And Carmella’s friend Lucy’s brother’s wife told Rosaria that she should let that child meet his grandparents! Is true!” Grandma’s cheeks are flushed.
“So, do you think—”
Grandma examines her nails. “Rosaria does not like to be told what to do, that’s for sure.”
“But at least there’s hope, Grandma, right? At least there’s hope.”
Grandma Navy pats Leo’s cheek. “Yes,” she says, “as long as there are children, there is hope.” She kisses his forehead. “Night-night, Giorgio.”
Leo lets her mistake hover in the air over his bed.
In the morning, Leo can hear Grandma and Grandpa downstairs in the kitchen, and he smells pancakes. He goes down the hall, past Carlo and Paolo’s old room, to the one Contento is sleeping in. On the door is a hand-painted sign, trimmed with red and yellow flowers: Angela and Maddalena. Leo studies the door across from it, assuming that must have been Carmella and Rosaria’s room, but there is no sign on the door. Leo turns the knob. Locked.
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