**********
Donna walked and moved through the world like she knew exactly where she was going and what she was doing at all times. She walked with a busy stride of self-importance that made her fit right into any big city, such as Philadelphia, perfectly. She was content in this city, and Silvia assumed that, like Cosmo, it was because she really had nothing else to compare it to. She approached her daughter, who was waiting for her on a bench in the New Market section of the city, appearing fresh and vital, dressed in a cranberry colored cotton dress. Her olive skin glowed like a freshly waxed apple, and her hair was pulled back to reveal the high cheekbones that Silvia wished she had inherited. Donna usually wore bland-colored clothing with a lopsided hairstyle. She usually looked downtrodden, tired and worn out. But today she was fresh and vital.
Only in recent years had Donna become worn down as a piece of old newspaper. She saw pictures of her mother as a young woman, shimmering bright and pretty with a full effortless smile and wide open eyes. Today she looked almost as good as she did in the old photos, and Silvia could only assume that her mother’s renewal was due to the fact that Frank wasn’t dragging her down. And although Silvia was glad to see her mother shining with vitality that could only be attributed to her being away from Frank, she was sad that Donna appeared to be moving away from her father and that the prospect of them getting back together seemed bleak. Her sadness confused her. She knew that Donna was much better off without Frank and that he was probably better off without her. Maybe now he would get himself together.
Silvia was dressed in her favorite style of sixties vintage clothing, with an orange mini skirt, a bright yellow top, and knee-high length, white boots. She looked like a 1968 sunflower. It was the first day in a long time that she felt like dressing in a happy outfit and the cheerful attire marked a symbolic end to her recent depression.
Donna suggested they go to dinner at a new restaurant conveniently located around the corner. It was called Charlotte’s Place and was filled with dark brown wood, green leather chairs, and had warm dim lighting coming out of imitation Tiffany lampshades. The waiter came straight to the table with menus and a basket of bread and proceeded to mechanically pour water in their goblet shaped glasses. Silvia was astonished when her mother said that she was ready to order, without a several-minute study of the menu followed by questioning the waiter. In the past, Donna was plagued by various ailments that prevented her from eating just about everything. When Silvia was a child, Donna had chronic fatigue syndrome, which somehow led to her lactose intolerance. In more recent years, she decided that it wasn’t chronic fatigue syndrome that had caused her constant state of exhaustion and lethargy, but something called Mediterranean anemia. It was no longer milk from which she needed to abstain. It was gluten.
“I’ll have the turkey dinner and a glass of Chardonnay,” she said with perfect clarity and decisiveness in her voice.
Fortunately, there was only one option for Silvia on this meaty menu, and so she was able to order pretty quickly as well. “I’ll have the Portobello mushroom sandwich and a Perrier,” she said without looking up from the menu.
As soon as the waiter left the table, Donna said, “So how are things going at home?”
“I got Dad to an AA meeting last week,” said Silvia. Donna pursed her lips and opened her eyes wide as if astonished by her daughter’s update.
“How did you do that? I tried many times and had no luck, so I just gave up on trying.”
“I talked to Uncle Nick about it,” said Silvia buttering a piece of bread.
“Why didn’t I ever think of that?” Donna looked into the air as if the answer to her question would appear on the ceiling.
“It wasn’t easy, though. I had to remind him every night before we went, and then on the night of the meeting, he acted like he forgot, and tried to get out of it. But I was persistent.”
“That’s wonderful, Silvie. How did Dad do?”
“Mostly he acted like he didn’t belong there, like he was just going to please Uncle Nick. But at least he went. And when I asked him if he’d go again, he said he’d consider it. Of course, I’m sure I’ll have to persist again and I’m sure I’ll have to go with him again.”
“What made you think of getting him to a meeting, anyway?” said Donna while eating a piece of bread as if she had not, only a few months ago, proclaimed to the world that she would never again eat wheat. Silvia was reluctant to tell her mother her belief that Frank’s drinking was the thing that fueled the continual feuding that existed within their family, and that she was going after this problem in hopes that they might be able to have a pleasant family gathering for Vince’s graduation. So instead, she told Donna that it was just something that she thought would be worth a try.
She wasn’t sure exactly why she was reluctant to tell her mother her theory of Frank’s drinking as the root cause of all of their family fighting. Donna surely knew the truth of this theory. But, for some reason, she didn’t want to remind her mother. She supposed that her reluctance had something to do with her secret hope that they would get back together, and this could happen if Frank was to transform in the way that Silvia imagined. She didn’t have experience with anyone who had undergone such a radical transformation as the one that she was imagining for her father. She only knew of the fictional character, Ebenezer Scrooge, who had changed in this fashion. And that change took three ghosts, which was much more than some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Maybe she should try to get him to a therapist. But she knew that her father would never agree to anything like that, especially because it would cost money.
Surely there was hope for Frank. Donna would not have married him if he were nothing more than an ill-tempered, unstable person when they met. Or would she have? Her own father, after all, was like an older version of Frank. He was charismatic, fun, and charming, like Frank, and used these parts of his personality to mask his monster side, also like Frank. Silvia could see how it was easy for her father, like her grandfather, to hide behind himself. To be dashing. To be the kind of man that women could fall for. He was a charmer. He always told Donna that she was beautiful. He showed up at least once a month with a bunch of flowers. He made a point of bringing her out to dinner every Friday night. Sure, the flowers, partially wilted, always appeared to be discounted, and the dinners out were sometimes at Wendy’s or a local pizzeria. But it was the thought that counted.
In the many photographs of the couple when they first got together, Donna’s face glimmered with the shine of being in love. “They made music together,” Grandma Tucci told Silvia once. Silvia imagined them to be one of those electric, in-love couples that other couples looked at with a combination of envy and admiration, and that together, they were free. She thought that if only they could have stayed in love that they would have not broken apart, and then maybe all of the Greco’s would coexist peacefully with each other, and planning a family gathering would be fun instead of difficult.
There were photographs of the couple dating back to the early eighties before any of the kids were born, before they were even married. There was a photo of them when they met in the summer of 1980 with the two of them on South Street in Philadelphia. Frank had his ‘I Shot J.R.’ T-shirt and Donna wore her hair permed and fluorescent pink lipstick. There was one of them at The Who concert in 1982 at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, and one taken during the summer of 1981, when Frank won a stuffed bear at a shooting gallery on the Atlantic City Steel Pier. There was one of Frank’s graduation from law school in 1983 and one of their long awaited wedding in 1984. Donna wore a blue velvet dress and Frank wore something that looked like it came from the Merry Go Round or one of those other mall shops so popular in the eighties.
She tried to remember when Frank changed from the guy in the photographs, looking happy, fun, and in love, to the miserable, angry person he was now. She tried to remember when her mother’s face stopped shining and became dull, or when her eyes lost their brightness and started peering o
ut into the world as if there was nothing to see. She tried to remember when her parents came apart and stopped being free.
Donna broke into Silvia’s thoughts by asking if she had found a new job.
“I did find one, and at the mall of all places,” said Silvia with slight embarrassment about working at the mall, as she had complained about it since she was a child.
“The mall, huh?” said Donna reservedly. “What kind of store?”
“A candy store. One of those bulk candy stores where customers fill up their own bags.”
Donna gave her daughter a sympathetic smile, and Silvia, who hated sympathy, jumped back at her mother and said, “I feel lucky to find anything, Mom.”
“You know it will only be temporary, honey. One day you’ll find a career that will be truly rewarding. You’re so smart and talented, Silvie.” Despite Donna’s attempts at bolstering her daughter’s self-esteem, her compliments did little to restore Silvia’s confidence. In addition, Silvia was caught off-guard, as she wasn’t used to her mother being so supportive. Donna wasn’t the most maternal mother. Cosmo thought it had something to do with her being sandwiched between two sisters with whom she never got along. Donna gravitated towards her four brothers, and in doing so, may have stripped away her more feminine qualities, including the maternal instinct that her children, especially Silvia, had so badly wanted in their mother.
“Oh my,” said Donna in response to the huge plate of food the waiter set before her. “You have to help me, honey. I know you don’t want the turkey, but maybe just some of the sides.” Silvia gladly accepted the offer and took a generous amount of stuffing, mash potatoes, and cranberry sauce.
Like most people, Silvia associated turkey dinners with Thanksgiving and was reminded of the one when she was ten. The weather was unusually warm on that Thanksgiving Day, which put everyone, except for Frank, in a good mood. He had used the holidays as an excuse for drinking even more than usual. When Donna would try to caution him about having another drink, he’d blurt out, “It’s the holidays for Christ sake!” On this particular day, he had prodigiously searched in every corner of the house for some kind of fight, and was gravely disappointed when he had found none. So when Cosmo showed up for dinner, stoned, Frank was relieved to find an excuse to fight. Donna telling him to “take it easy” propelled him into a state of rage that stayed fresh in Silvia’s mind to this day. His quick, Incredible Hulk transformation was followed by a scream at Donna to “Fuck off!”
He screamed to Cosmo, “You no-good-for-nothing loser of a son! You’ll never make anything out of yourself!” His arms were raised in the air, as if he was holding a giant rubber ball above his head as he yelled. But Cosmo just kept on eating. In fact, he was the only one eating. Frank’s frenzied abuse just seemed to bounce off of him, as he shoved a continuous stream of food into his mouth. His lack of reaction caused Frank to get more upset, who then started throwing plates and glasses on the kitchen floor. After that, he started crying like an overgrown child, as if he was furious and remorseful at the same time.
When he went into the bathroom, Donna grabbed the kids, and they all made an escape. Silvia remembered piling into her mother’s car and zooming down the driveway as if they had all just robbed a bank and were now making their getaway. She remembered Donna stopping at a Wawa to buy a pack of cigarettes, as soon as they were far enough away from the house, and how upset she felt seeing her mother reignite the habit she had worked so hard to quit. They drove until they reached a Motel 6 around Moorestown and settled for the night. As they all huddled together in the small, dark motel room, Silvia could feel the sense of relief they all shared. But relief was only one of the many emotions. There was also sadness, confusion, denial, and frustration. Cosmo was coming down from his high into what appeared to be a state of depression. Vince was too young and confused to have any awareness of what was really going on. Angie switched channels on the television, while Silvia drew pictures in her sketch-book. Donna smoked outside and then came inside. She then went to sleep only to wake up screaming at around three in the morning. Silvia consoled Donna by telling her that “Everything will be alright.” At first, Silvia felt strange to be acting like a mother to her own mother, but then it felt very natural. The next morning, she resumed being a child by playing on a swing set that was just outside the motel.
“I joined Netflix,” Donna said, as she sipped her wine. “Already, my queue is so long. I hope I live long enough to watch everything on it.”
Silvia chuckled, “I have a feeling you’ll be around for a long time.” She wanted to add something like, “Now that you left Dad,” but she stopped herself. She didn’t want to go further into family drama at the moment. Rather, she just wanted to enjoy her food while she could because she knew that, at any second, Donna would continue her pursuit of asking about herself or their family.
“Do you ever think about what you would like to do, eventually, in terms of a career?” asked Donna, eating a piece of turkey with cranberry sauce.
“All the time, Mom. It’s just that I rule out every idea I come up with.” She stopped eating as if the subject at hand had ruined her appetite.
“Tell me some of them,” said Donna, who seemed to be delighted and relieved that her daughter was opening up to her.
“Well, I thought of becoming a college professor, like you but that’s a long road, like I’m sure you know. I just don’t know if I have it in me to go to school that long, and with the economy being such crap, getting a job like that would be tough. I’m not into the whole graphic design thing. I don’t want to get stuck working for some advertising whore. And I thought of museum conservation, but I would have to go back to school for that, and it seems like it might be boring and I might not be able to get a job.”
“What about being an art school teacher? I can see you working with children.”
Silvia formerly dismissed this option with the excuse that she didn’t like children, but she was learning, through her brief experience at Savor the Flavor, that she really did like them. This wasn’t a bad idea at all.
“Yeah, I can really see you doing that,” Donna continued. “You’re so playful and spontaneous for starters. You’re an amazing artist. I think it’s something that might be rewarding and fun for you.”
A smile of hopefulness came upon Silvia’s face, as she thought of doing something besides the dead end jobs that she had been working since she graduated college. This would be something that she might actually enjoy, and something in which she would be able to utilize her talent as an artist.
“Now you might have to go back to school for a teacher’s certification, but I’m sure that can’t be too difficult,” Donna said. “Maybe you can live at home.”
This last suggestion didn’t bode well with Silvia, and she swiftly jumped at her mother. “You can’t live with Dad! What makes you think I can?”
“You’re better at it than me. Look at the way you got him to AA. Besides, living with him temporarily is not the same as being married to him.”
“That’s true,” said Silvia, her new found hope returning. Indeed, maybe living with him would not be so bad. Maybe he would get better. Maybe he would even stop drinking. She had not heard him vomiting in the bathroom in at least a week. That signaled a possible cutback in his alcohol consumption. Besides, she would barely be at the house between work and school. And it would be temporary. As soon as she was done getting her certification, she would be off to Portland. She felt overcome by exhilaration. The first thing she would do tonight would be to look into teacher certification programs in South Jersey. Then she would have to find out about the requirements, costs, and the length of such a program. Her thoughts raced. She was getting ahead of herself, her mind zooming in her maniac fit of excitement. Her mother, who must have somehow intuited her daughter’s racing, brought her back by the gentle reminder that she was still very young and had plenty of time.
Olive Branches Don't Grow On Trees Page 13