The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  Dedication

  For Rose

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Book One: The 1930s 1: Filomena

  2: Lucy

  3: Amie

  4: Petrina

  5: Filomena

  6: Lucy

  7: Amie

  8: Petrina

  Book Two: The 1940s 9: The Family

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Book Three: 1957–2019 30: Nicole and Filomena

  31: The Family

  32

  33

  34

  35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Camille Aubray

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Nicole

  New York, April 1980

  I never needed to ask my godmother for a favor, until the day that my husband was offered a job at the White House. It was April in 1980, and James and I had been living in New York for only a year. We’d met each other in Paris and gotten married there, but, since both of us were American-born, we always thought of the United States as our home, so we were glad to be back. I thought our lives were pretty settled now, here in Manhattan. I was working as a news researcher for Time Inc., while James practiced law.

  But one bright spring day, James announced, “I’ve just had a very interesting chat with Cyrus Vance. He wants me to come work with him in Washington at the State Department.”

  “The Secretary of State wants you?” I echoed, awed. As with all important decisions, we discussed this over a candlelit dinner at our favorite restaurant.

  “It won’t be an easy job, with President Carter smack in the middle of this hostage crisis in Iran,” James admitted. “Mr. Vance is a good negotiator, but there’s a lot of infighting going on right now in the White House. And Vance, poor guy, has got a bad case of gout, so he’s gone to Florida to recover. He told me to go home and discuss this job offer with ‘the wife.’”

  I rolled my eyes. “I suppose I’m lucky that he didn’t say ‘the little wife,’” I groused.

  James grinned. “Vance wants my answer when he returns from his vacation. If we say yes, they’ll do an FBI background check. It’s strictly routine. But they will look into everything about you and me—our friends, families, work, everyone who knows us well. Vance says it’s best to tell him up front whatever he should know—‘just so there are no surprises.’”

  “Meaning what?” I asked, not grasping the situation at first.

  “Oh, you know. They have to investigate to see if there’s anything from our—or our relatives’—pasts that could make me vulnerable to blackmail, that sort of thing. I told him my family are modest folks, and I’ve never known any people as honest and good as your family!”

  There in the flickering candlelight, he kissed me in a husbandly, appreciative way that made me feel especially well loved. “So don’t worry, it all looks like smooth sailing ahead,” he concluded. Then he contented himself with finishing off his boeuf bourguignon, and I nodded.

  But all this talk of investigating my family alarmed me, although I couldn’t say why. It was just an inexplicably uneasy feeling creeping over me, as if shadowy phantoms lurked in my peripheral vision—but if I turned to see them head-on, they instantly retreated into the dark corners from whence they came. I took a quick gulp of red wine to steady myself.

  Not long afterwards, we visited my mother in the Westchester suburbs. When James went out early one morning to play some tennis with a friend who lived nearby, I decided to dispense with the little question that was still nagging at me. I told my mother about the job offer and asked, point-blank, “Does our family have any skeletons in the closet?”

  It was the expression on her face, rather than her words, that gave me pause. She blushed and glanced away quickly, looking slightly guilty, before she recovered and said, “Not really. Certainly not in your time. But why would your husband want to go to Washington? Your brothers think President Carter is in a real fix with this hostage situation in Iran.”

  My older brothers were prone to making such dire pronouncements at Thanksgiving dinners. Today I had to agree that the times were not auspicious. But at the moment I wasn’t concerned with politics; it was family history that mattered. I tried to learn more, but I knew my mother well enough to realize that I would never really get a detailed answer from her.

  Moreover, something in her quick, furtive look stirred that strange feeling of dread in me again. This time I was determined to find out why. So, after Mom hurried off to an appointment with her hairdresser, I decided that the only person who could help me was my godmother. She lived right next door, in this secluded seaside enclave of just four houses on a tiny spit of land overlooking the Long Island Sound. Our extended family had moved here after years of living in Greenwich Village.

  I knew every inch of these backyards where I’d played with my cousins, and every corner of the little cove where I’d learned to swim in the salty sea. But over time, such memories had receded like the sea’s tide, once I’d gone off to Europe to study and grow up.

  Now just crossing the lawns and walking up the pebbled driveway of my godmother’s house made them all come rushing back—and I felt like a little girl again, peering into the bay windows of her dining room to glimpse her at the big, old-fashioned formal table, where she’d reigned over mysterious “meetings” with my mother and my two aunts. I can still see the four of them commiserating in low, conspiratorial voices, then falling silent whenever the children came running in.

  My cousins and I always referred to our female elders as “the Godmothers.” When I was ten years old I’d devoured Greek and Roman mythology, so I went through a phase where I pretended that the Godmothers were really goddesses in disguise.

  Even their names sounded mythological to me: Filomena, Lucy, Amie, Petrina. Four powerful witches brewing their plots and stirring their pots of magic. The very fact that these sisters-in-law had asked one another to be godmother to their children gives you an idea of how insular my family was. They believed that strangers were dangerous, to be viewed with suspicion. But we cousins, like all young people, outgrew such feelings, for we knew we needed to reach out and make our way into the larger world, despite all its perils.

  Today I found my godmother standing on the generous front porch of her Victorian house, her back straight, her head held high. She was in her mid-fifties, her fair skin creamy and smooth, with barely a line on her face; and her hair, worn in a coil at the back of her head, was dark and lustrous. Although she’d lived in America for decades, she still had an old-world, formal manner. Her large, almond-shaped eyes seemed to see right through you, which most people found quite daunting. But she’d always had a soft spot for me, her goddaughter.

  “Buongiorno, cara Nicole,” she said as I kissed her cheek.

  Her house had an expansive view of the soft and dreamy blue-grey Long Island Sound. I was glad to discover that the porch still had an old-fashioned glider seat, made of metal in a braided basket-like pattern, big enough for the two of us. We sat there, leaning on cushions, gliding back and forth, chatting about the weather.

  Finally, with her finely-tuned instinct, she said quietly, “What can I do for you, Nicole?”

  The
surge of apprehension I’d felt earlier had now intensified into a bone-deep dread that I still could not identify. Maybe secrecy exists in all families, I don’t know. The trouble is, you can’t entirely forget something that you don’t entirely know. It occurred to me that I might not get another such private, meditative opportunity to finally confront these ghosts with her.

  So I told her about James’s important job offer and the possibility of a “routine” background investigation. Although her face never changed its expression, I heard her make a quick, soft gasp. That was enough to tell me that I had been right to come here and ask questions. I watched her carefully as she remained silent for several minutes.

  “Please, Godmother,” I said finally. “Whatever it is, I need to know now.”

  Gently she warned, “You tug on one thread, you might undo the entire tapestry.”

  But, oddly enough, she looked as if somehow she’d been waiting all along for me to come to her like this. She said, “All right. Only because it’s you, Nicole. But some of what we say to each other today must remain just between us.” She added wryly, “At least, wait until I die before you chatter about it. And understand, I am in no hurry to go!”

  I nodded, and she said, “Well, then, where shall we begin?”

  I took a deep breath. Everything about the four Godmothers was so mysterious. Who had they been before they became our Godmothers? They seldom spoke of their girlhoods, lightly but firmly resisting our questions, until we cousins finally accepted that the past was a brick wall, no point trying to peer over it. Just what were these secrets that had united them all this time—and were somehow the source of my childhood fears? I sensed that violence and other bad things lurked in those shadows, yet I, too, had kept them hidden, even from myself.

  Well, my godmother was right. It only took one tug on a thread, one question leading to all the others. And that’s how I finally got the whole story.

  Book One

  The 1930s

  1

  Filomena

  Santa Marinella, Italy, 1934

  Filomena’s mother held her hand tightly as they stood on the platform watching the train pull into the station.

  “Stop dancing, Filomena, or you’ll fall down and get hurt!” Mama warned, adjusting her daughter’s flat-brimmed hat with a sharp tug.

  Filomena tried to be still, but she had never been at a train station before, much less ever boarded a train, and her heart was leaping with excitement, like the fish who jumped out of the water with joy in springtime, making her father sing to them as he cast his nets. “How long will we ride on the train?” she demanded, thrilled.

  “Many hours, many, many hours,” was all that Mama would say.

  She had wakened Filomena early this morning as if it were Christmas, and made her put on her best dress and coat and hat and shoes, saying only, “We are going to visit a very important friend of this family.” Not only that, but Mama had given her a boiled egg to eat with her milk and bread, and another boiled egg to slip into her coat pocket.

  Filomena had strutted with pride, wishing that her siblings could see her, but her two younger brothers had disappeared early with Papa to help him on his boat. And Filomena’s two sisters were old; they were twice her age and all they cared about was finding boys to marry. Filomena was going to be eight years old in September.

  Now the train slowed to a complete stop at the platform, belching steam and soot like an ill-tempered dragon. Filomena buried her face in her mother’s skirts so that the soot wouldn’t hurt her eyes. Her mother jerked her by the hand and said tensely, “Come. We go up the train’s stairs. Let’s count as we go: One, two, three, up! Up! Up!”

  The metal steps clanged loudly as they mounted them. Other people were suddenly pushing to get aboard, but Mama managed to enter a carriage quickly and secure a seat for her and her wide-eyed daughter.

  Filomena was a bit overwhelmed by all the strangers, and she saw that a few were staring at her mother, probably because Mama was wearing those dark-tinted eyeglasses. Mama sensed this, too, but lifted her chin defiantly and turned her face to the window.

  “Sleep, figlia mia,” she said. “We have a long way to go.”

  Filomena would normally have broken away from her mother’s grasp and run up and down the carriage, fearlessly asking her fellow passengers any questions that popped into her head, for she’d been born with a natural exuberance. But she was tired; she had not slept well last night. Her bed was in a tiny room that had once been a closet, right next to her parents’ room, and she could hear their noises. Most nights her parents were so weary that they slept immediately, but sometimes they made fearful sounds that reminded Filomena of the night animals who came skulking under the windows, to fight or make babies; often it was hard to tell the difference.

  And sometimes her parents yelled at each other, which they had done last night. Filomena had pressed her pillow to her ears, but still, she could tell that it was a bad fight. Her parents quarreled endlessly until finally, like a storm, their argument broke into a crescendo of pure rage. She could not hear the words, just her father bellowing, her mother screeching defiantly, and terrible thumps against the wall, and cries of pain from poor Mama—then, silence.

  In the morning her father, scowling, mutely went off to work. At such times Filomena found it hard to believe that this was the same man who, in a better mood on a better day, would take her for walks in the town square and buy her a gelato, and then sing to her all the way home. She loved going down to the sea with him, where the sky was a wide-open blue and the tide a sparkling complementary shade of azure, lapping at the soft sands of the beach dozing under a warm sun. The old stone houses there were huddled together like something from a fairy tale, dominated by a big medieval castle, built to protect the town from pirates. The castle was surrounded by beautiful pine, palm, and olive trees, and in summertime the sea breeze carried a whiff of the garden’s roses and violets. Filomena always thought that one day a prince would come out of the castle and invite her to dance with him.

  But Filomena was not going with her father to the sea today. Her mother had emerged from the bedroom with one blackened eye, looking defeated. That was when she’d announced to Filomena that they were going away to visit some friends of the family. Filomena was glad to escape the tension that filled the house so thoroughly and seemed to remain there, even when everyone else had left it.

  “Does Papa know we’re going?” Filomena had asked curiously.

  “Of course,” her mother had said shortly. “It was his idea. Come, let’s put on your good dress. And don’t forget your hat! Be quick and be bright.”

  They all knew that she was “bright,” even though her father had pulled Filomena out of school, over the protests of her teachers—especially one professoressa who’d made a special trip to their house just to say, “Filomena is a shining star who could make you proud.” The teacher had made Filomena demonstrate how she could add up long columns of three-figure numbers in her head, without working it out on paper.

  “This would be remarkable in a child of any age,” the professoressa had tried to explain. “But for such a young girl! Imagine what she could do if you kept her in school.”

  The teacher’s visit had provoked one of those fights between her parents, but it wasn’t important enough to blacken an eye. Her parents simply decided that the school was only trying to make Papa waste money on the useless education of a girl, end of discussion.

  * * *

  It was nearly dusk when their train lurched into a new station and jolted Filomena awake. All the people who’d been in such a hurry to climb aboard were now in just as much of a rush to get off, pushing and shoving. Her mother waited calmly until the steps were clear; then they climbed down, again counting aloud as they went.

  “We are in Naples now,” Mama declared above the noise of traffic, “a very big and important city. But there’s no time to waste. We have a bus we must catch. Let’s go!”

  In
the babble of voices, Filomena heard something familiar. “Here, everyone talks like Papa,” she said. It had never struck her as odd that her father spoke a bit differently than the other people in Santa Marinella; Papa was from “the South,” rougher in manner and speech than her genteel mother. Filomena had a good ear and was a perfect mimic; sometimes this got her in trouble, such as when people like the mayor or the priest thought she was making fun of them.

  “Come,” Mama said tersely, steering her through the bustling crowd, until they reached an outdoor terminal where several buses were rumbling as if in a hurry to go. Filomena panted as she climbed up onto a bus. She dropped into a seat between her mother and a very fat lady who was already dozing. Filomena yawned and she dozed, too.

  When the bus jolted to a halt at its destination, everyone climbed down sighing with relief. More than one person said, “Uf!” with a note of finality. Mama found an empty bench and told Filomena to sit down and eat the egg that was in her pocket. When she was done, her mother told her to use the bathroom, because they would have to walk the rest of the way.

  It was much hotter here. The road was dusty. Mama seemed tireless, walking with the steady gait of a hardworking horse and holding her daughter’s hand the whole way.

  They were in a strange land. There was no sea. There were only wide fields on both sides of this dirt road, full of amazing things, which Filomena gazed at as she and her mother passed them. There were beautiful dusty-green-leafed vines, which Mama told her produced wine grapes, and then fields of golden grain plowed into neat rows. Next came green pastures dotted with strange animals that Mama pointed to and explained: the cow that gives us milk, the sheep that gives us cheese, the pig that gives us sausages, the chickens that give us eggs.

  At first, it was like going to a county fair and seeing remarkable things like clowns and jugglers. But after a while Filomena suddenly and acutely missed the sea; she felt an ache in her heart at being away from the salty air of their little village.