“Did I ever tell you about your aunt Em?”
Gia stilled. He never talked about his family. “They’re gone,” was all he said. There were no pictures, no stories, just quiet moments on birthdays and holidays when her father was thinking of them, and Gia always knew.
“Well, she was tough as nails. Could scare anyone off the block with a look and wasn’t afraid of dumping water on their heads if she had to. I was more scared of Em as a kid than I was of my parents. She was a field nurse . . .”
The way he paused told Gia she hadn’t come back.
“You take after her,” he said and smiled so sadly his eyes were wet at the corners. “When people are gone, you know you won’t see them again, but sometimes you catch pieces in other people, and it takes the air out of your lungs. And you . . .”
He pressed his hands to his face and wiped away whatever feelings were bubbling underneath, but Gia let them rise, wishing he’d tell her more about Aunt Em, because her heart felt full with her, with the idea that she might’ve taken after someone she’d never met, that it might explain all the things about herself she didn’t see in her parents or Leo or her cousins.
“Come on,” he said, snapping back to himself. “Let’s get some ice on your hands.”
They went inside. Her father closed the door quietly, but instead of going to the kitchen, they made their way slowly up the steps to the second floor, avoiding the creaky spots, then tiptoed down the hallway to Leo’s closed door. It was quiet. Still. The room smelled faintly of vomit, strongly of sweat. A filter, Gia thought. A marsh is a filter. Her mother was in a chair at the foot of the bed, resting her face on her arms, her hair messy around her. Leo was curled on his side, mumbling slightly, the blankets kicked away, his forehead dotted with sweat, his eyes lined with dark circles, pale, but sleeping. He did not look comfortable, but he did not look extremely uncomfortable either. It equaled what Gia had expected. If anything, it calmed her.
Her father led them back downstairs, poured Gia a glass of milk with a straw, and put a bag of frozen peas on her hands. He took cookies from the jar and put them on the table without a plate or a napkin, but neither touched them.
“It’s easy to blame Ray,” he said. “But your brother made some shit choices.”
Crumbs dotted the table like a constellation on a wooden sky, the swirling wood grain slightly nauseating. Something had to be at fault, a first event all the others could be traced back to. Creation. Illness. Everything had a timeline. A cause and effect.
“I’ll take care of Ray.” Her father nodded, as if deciding for himself. “No more fights, OK?”
“How?” Gia rested her head on crisscrossed arms, her fists and fingers pulsing, knocking through her skin for a second fight, but underneath the throbbing, she was satisfied. She’d done her part, made the right choice by taking action, so what was her father’s plan? She wanted details. A path. Logic. Because she’d gotten lucky this time.
Her father ran his fingers through her hair, and Gia closed her eyes, knowing words weren’t coming. He wouldn’t tell her, which meant it was better if she didn’t know. Instead, she was thankful to be home, where the refrigerator hum and the clock tick and the rattling pipes recharged her.
“C’mon.” He stood and stretched his arms over his head. “Let’s get you to bed.”
But instead of walking Gia upstairs, he crossed the street with her to Lorraine’s, where her father hugged her on the porch and waited until Gia waved at the window before going inside. Lorraine was still asleep as if nothing had ever happened. If not for her sore muscles and the missing perfume, Gia would doubt it too.
As she lay awake, scenes from the fight flickered in her head: grass stains on her knees, a bottle cap in the grass, Ray’s rib against her calf, the keys in his back pocket rubbing her leg, one of Ray’s eyes staring up at the sky like a fish in a bucket of ice. She’d seen enough fights in the lot behind the rectory to know when it was a good one and when it wasn’t, but she wasn’t sure what this was. There were some fights where kids went cold, stopped moving, hoping their fighter would give up and end it, but that wasn’t it. Or it was a poor match and the whole thing was over real quick. Only Ray had not fought back. Not even a little. That one staring eye haunted her now: waiting it out like he’d wanted to get beaten, deserved it, taking his penance. It didn’t seem brave anymore to beat on someone who wasn’t hitting back.
And it wasn’t enough penance, if that was what he thought it was. In Gia’s court, he still had a million Hail Marys to go.
Chapter Twelve
On Sunday, Gia rang her own front bell because the door was locked. The back door was too. She tore off the bread crusts she’d brought for the rabbits because no one would remember to feed them and rang the bell again. Then she gathered the newspaper on the lawn, tried the bell again. And again. Agnes finally answered, her hair greasy, blinking back the sun on the porch as if she’d woken up on the moon, holding a metal bowl she must’ve just rinsed in the sink, and Gia fought the urge to straighten the bathrobe Agnes had thrown over her clothes so sloppily it dragged on the floor, collecting dust at the hem.
“Can I come in? I need some clothes.”
Agnes rubbed her forehead so hard it left a red mark. “Now’s not a good time, Gia.”
“But I need my uniform for school.”
“Lorraine must have an old one.”
But she didn’t. It didn’t make sense. If she had an old uniform, it would’ve crossed the street a long time ago. Plus, anything in Lorraine’s closet wouldn’t fit right, and she couldn’t go to school with a million safety pins digging into her waist. The stairs to Gia’s room were right over Agnes’s shoulders, shadowy without the lights on. It would take less than a minute.
“But why can’t I just go upstairs and—”
“Do me a favor and ask Lorraine, please,” Agnes snapped. “I don’t have time for this.”
The door swung shut. Gia stared at the spot where her mother had been and knew it must not be going well, but it hurt. More than Gia wanted to admit, so she kicked a pebble down the sidewalk for a while and swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing Lorraine was at her new church, or whatever it was, and it was only Aunt Diane in her armchair. She kicked pebbles as far down as almost to Ray’s house before turning around and starting over.
“Something bothering you?” Mr. Angliotti asked as he pulled a trash can to the curb.
“No,” Gia lied.
“Kicking rocks for fun, then?”
“Something like that,” Gia mumbled, because she didn’t belong anywhere at the moment, and no one minded her one way or the other. It was lonely.
“Navy yard’s closing in ’66.” He sighed, staring off toward a moon sliver in the sky. “End of an era.”
Not for her. Or Lorraine. Or Leo, Ray, or Tommy. They’d never stepped foot in the navy yard. It was a weird thing to tell a kid. Gia waited for him to say more, but it seemed he’d run out of words and waved goodbye.
It was getting dark, and she couldn’t kick pebbles all night, so she went back to Lorraine’s and took a deep breath before walking toward the armchair and turning the TV down.
“The navy yard’s closing,” Gia said. “In 1966.”
Aunt Diane stared at her from the chair, but there weren’t any bottles tonight, just a bag of potato chips.
“I thought you might like to know because you used to work there.”
Aunt Diane nodded.
“Yeah, so . . .” What a stupid idea. She’d never been lonely enough to talk to Aunt Diane. Even Crazy Louann would’ve been better, but here she was.
“You know what the funny thing about metal is?” Aunt Diane asked.
Gia only stared, her back to the flag on the mantel and the pictures of Uncle Lou.
“It looks solid until you blast heat on it. Then it does whatever you want.” Aunt Diane’s mouth twisted into a kind of smile, but a painful one.
“Like ice,” Gia said, thinking of icicles
thick as carrots hanging from the garage, or icebergs strong enough to rip ships in half, even though they were only water.
“Sit. It’s the Sunday Night Movie,” Aunt Diane said, pointing at the other chair. “Turn the volume up.”
Together they watched a movie about building a railroad until Gia fell asleep and woke up to her uniform hanging from the coat tree in the hallway. Her mother had even pressed the pleats until they were stiff, tucked a peanut butter sandwich in waxed paper into the pocket. Her mother hadn’t made her lunch in years. She unwrapped it and ate the whole thing in tiny bites even though the bread was a little stale, because her mother had made it just for her and it tasted like home, even if Lorraine was upstairs humming the same three lines again and again, burning incense that smelled like the heart of a faraway forest. For a minute, Gia was home again.
A week later, Gia washed the sheets and tidied Lorraine’s room, not that Lorraine was there much anymore. If she wasn’t at the chanting place, she was at the hospital for her nursing classes or the bakery, where she’d told Big Louis to shut his mouth and not make any comments about where she’d been if he really wanted her to come back. Well, actually, she hadn’t said that. She’d asked Gia to. Thankfully, Big Louis had just laughed and waved her away. “Sure, she’s welcome back here. Sure.”
But not for long, Lorraine had told Gia one night, because she couldn’t stand knowing that the bakery used so many eggs anymore. Or butter. Or milk. They stole those things from animals.
“But we like cookies,” Gia had insisted.
“We did.” Lorraine had sighed and flipped the light switch off. “And I’m sure chickens would like their babies. Cows would rather give their milk to their calves. It’s unnatural. Taking things that aren’t freely given.”
“So what do you eat instead?” Gia had asked in the darkness, but Lorraine had only mumbled a half-hearted good night.
The next day, Eddie rang the bell for Gia. They’d been in the living room, she and Aunt Diane, Gia reading and Diane half-awake. She kind of liked the TV now. The noise emptied her head.
“Come home,” he said. He’d taken a shower and shaved and was wearing clean clothes wrinkled from being in the drawer for too long, but the half circles under his eyes were puffy, and his limbs hung around him like clothes on a laundry line after an unexpected storm. He looked exhausted, and it made Gia wonder what her father had looked like when he’d come home from the South Pacific, if he still dreamed about torpedoes in the middle of the night when his room was as dark as an ocean without a moon. “It’s OK now.”
But Gia didn’t trust it. The dark shade her father had tacked to Leo’s window was down now, the window cracked. All the windows were open, but it didn’t have that summer-day feeling to it, more like they were airing out the plague.
“And your mother could use your help.”
Two kids rode by on bikes, dressed in bedsheets with cut-out eyes, pillowcases wrapped around their wrists.
“Dad?” Gia said. “Is it Halloween already?”
He looked as surprised by the ghosts on their bikes, pedaling, laughing under their sheets, pillowcases swinging, as she did, and Gia’s throat tightened because she’d missed it, hadn’t even realized it was already the end of October, and she would not be wrapping herself in toilet paper this year to make herself a mummy or going door-to-door with Tommy and Leo because Ray and Lorraine were too old now. They all were.
“I’ll pick up some candy,” he said. “Come on. You can get your stuff later, but come see your brother first.”
She didn’t want to. Not really. But she followed him across the street. The rabbits were huddled together because it was chilly in the shade. Inside, her mother was curled into a ball on the couch. She opened her eyes when the door opened. But closed them when she saw it was only Gia and Eddie. Everything was a mess. The trash had not been taken out. There were dishes in the sink and fruit flies hovering where a bunch of bananas had browned on the counter. The steps upstairs were littered with shoes and clothes. Gia was glad the windows were open because it felt like the house was closing in around her.
“We had to give him little amounts at a time because quitting cold wasn’t working. So we’ll cut him off little by little,” Eddie said.
Those sounded more like her mother’s words, but Gia stayed quiet.
“Leo,” Eddie called from the bottom of the stairs. “Come see your sister.”
There was a shuffle, and like a good prisoner, Leo appeared at the top of the stairs. They used to play jail as kids, taking turns being a prisoner or a jailer, rubbing dirt on their clothes and going barefoot as the prisoner, the jailer handing them small cups of tap water and one piece of sliced bread through the banister bars, occasionally announcing that someone was free to go. The prisoners played rummy on the steps and made up stories about what they’d done to end up in jail while the jailer chewed on candy cigarettes.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she answered, trying to match the kid at the top of the stairs in a sweaty pair of pajamas holding a bottle of Coke with the number one fighter in the neighborhood. He now looked like the fight had been kicked out of him.
For now. It was obvious to Gia that all he needed was the chance to spring himself from the banister jail, and he’d be back in business.
And that was all there was to say. Leo went back to his room. Eddie went for bagels and orange juice while Gia cleaned up at Aunt Diane’s, then at her own house, until the dishes disappeared from the sink and the fruit flies scattered. They ordered Chinese food that night and ate from take-out containers in silence until Gia turned on the TV just for noise, the whole house feeling like a truce no one trusted as kids skipped past outside, spraying shaving cream on bushes, smacking cars with tube socks full of baby powder.
There were bags of candy by the front door, but no one rang the bell.
Leo didn’t go to school. He walked as far as the corner in his uniform, the tie loose around his neck and thrown over one shoulder, one sleeve rolled up, the cuff of the other balled up in his fist, his pants bagged around the knee, like he was one of the drunks leaving the bar by the train station. Agnes that morning had wet her fingers to push the hair out of his eyes, as if smoothing stray hair into place would correct the disheveled heap her son had become. His knee had bounced under the table as he forced down spoonfuls of cereal just to be let out of the house.
It was unnerving watching him wiggle his jaw, face twitching. You could, Gia realized, physically see the chemicals being released, coursing through him like a roller coaster on a track, surging, spiking, dropping, coasting, arms up in the air, people screaming and white-knuckling the bar, or when it whooshed to a stop after a few last uneventful dips and rolls, her brother hopping off before the bars were up, racing back for the next go.
Except that when he veered off at the corner, Gia followed, ignoring Aunt Diane in her plastic lawn chair on the porch, who was watching the parakeets heavy on the wire. She’d never ditched school before, and now, in her pleated skirt and knee-high socks, she might as well be a crumpled can on a fence waiting for a BB shot. The neighborhood emptied as school started, the commuting crowd already at their desks. Lawn-care crews revved leaf blowers, and housewives took short rides to the supermarket before rushing home for morning soaps as chicken marinated for dinner. She wondered if this normal, calm life was really so bad after all, if it was not preferable to following your doped-up brother and trying not to be seen. Up ahead, a meter reader rang a bell, and Gia walked around the far side of the truck because it was better not to be spotted. Less risky.
Truant. That was what her father called the kids he picked up for ditching school and brought home again. It was strange then that kids would do anything but go to school, and now here she was, on the outside of everything too.
Leo lit a cigarette and tossed it aside after only a few breaths. He was unraveling. Walking faster. Limbs jaunty. Gia squashed the cigarette under her toe to put it out, k
eeping her eyes on his back. He crossed the footbridge into Hamilton Beach, past the weeds, then into them, his head barely visible above the mess of brown sticks. She hesitated at the weed line, thinking of the trash inside, the weeds scratching at her legs, thorns, burrs clinging to her skirt. Or long snakes opening their mouths to swallow frogs or mice whole, snapping at the bones, strangling them in a coil, the shape bulging through their skin as the animal died slowly inside. She pressed her fist to her mouth and bit down, leaving teeth marks to offset the scream in her chest, her stomach rising and pulsing as unfairness burned in her chest; her brain was calculating fear to keep her safe, while her brother’s, well, he might as well be a zombie.
One step. Then two. Just go. She imagined the kidney-shaped island on the Hudson, the tent on her real island, and then she imagined Thanksgiving: her father with a full plate instead of only buttered noodles, the cells in his stomach healing when he slept through the night. No more circling the neighborhood. No more missing money. Her mother carrying piles of warm, folded towels to the linen closet instead of ice buckets and vomit bins to Leo’s room. And Leo. She couldn’t exactly remember what she wanted him to be anymore, but it wasn’t this.
Following someone through dry weeds was tricky. Branches snapped and rustled through the path he’d cleared. She stopped every few feet to stand on tiptoes and find his head above the weeds, the path back. He stopped. The weeds thinned, and an old tree house came into view: a rickety plywood thing stained with mold, littered with empty beer cans, the labels weathered. It had fallen at some point or been dragged here, and now it was spray painted with swooping tags, and bits of clothes and chip bags were scattered around. Leo ducked through the cut-out door, kicking bottles and cans as he shuffled, and then it was quiet.
Above her, the sky was a perfect blue. A seagull flapped toward the water with a shell in its mouth and released it into the weeds, where it dropped soundlessly. She’d forgotten about snakes and now worried that someone else would come here, some other beer-drinking spray painter. Birds called out from trees overhead, announcing their presence—or someone else’s. It was time to go.
A Frenzy of Sparks: A Novel Page 16