The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  When she closed the door behind them, Amie let out a long sigh of relief.

  “Lucy, why shouldn’t we press charges?” she demanded indignantly.

  “Because,” Lucy said calmly, “Pippa apparently did have a gun with her. She and Gemma found it at your house, Amie, in a hatbox, when they were playing together.”

  “It’s Johnny’s gun,” Amie said instantly. “The one he got when he was going to shoot the Pericolos. He told me to keep it, in case there was any trouble. It’s untraceable, he said.”

  Filomena spoke up. “Mario said the same thing to me. I keep his at the jewelry shop, in case somebody tries to rob us.”

  Lucy looked at Petrina. “So Pippa knows how to use a gun?”

  “Richard’s a huntsman, and, not having a son, he took Pippa to target practice and skeet shooting,” Petrina admitted. “She’s good. She could have shot that priest’s nuts off, if she really wanted to.” She added remorsefully, “Poor Pippa. I yelled at her. I should have known she wouldn’t do such strange things without a good reason. It hasn’t been easy for her, with the divorce. She doesn’t trust men anymore. She was very brave, to stand up to that creep.”

  “Yes! But today she was just too embarrassed in front of those cops to defend herself properly,” Lucy said. “She’s all right now. She only needed for us to believe her.”

  “What about Vinnie and Paulie, are they all right?” Filomena asked Amie.

  Amie said worriedly, “They just told me that all the boys dread being asked to go up to the church roof. That priest has bothered other kids ever since he arrived, but they’re all too ashamed to tell the grown-ups. This was the first time the twins went up there. But they said they’re not afraid anymore, because the priest was ‘a crybaby’ when Pippa said she’d shoot him. The twins were only worried that Pippa might be arrested today, because of them. They told me that we all ought to ‘dummy up’ about this, so Pippa won’t get into trouble.”

  “Good God,” Petrina breathed. “This is not the sort of education I had in mind for our children.”

  “No. But they took care of themselves,” Filomena said softly. “At least we know that they can, if they really have to.”

  26

  September 1944

  By September, the Godmothers had purchased several houses in the suburbs to fix up and resell, and an apartment building to rent out. Then, in a town called Mamaroneck, Petrina discovered four beach houses that “needed work” but occupied a promising little seaside enclave on a totally private spit of land, so charming that the Godmothers decided to buy these for themselves.

  Petrina was supervising the renovations. Three of the houses were rather dilapidated, but the fourth was in better condition and she was able to quickly upgrade it so that she could live there on the weekdays year-round, allowing Pippa to continue her studies at the private girls’ school she’d been attending in the suburbs. The town was only two train stops south of Rye, where they’d been living with Richard when they were still a family.

  “So Pippa’s life won’t be disrupted at all by this move,” Petrina said triumphantly to the Godmothers, “and I’ll have a shorter commute into Manhattan!”

  That same month, Filomena gave birth to a happy baby girl whom she named Teresa, in honor of Tessa. Everyone said that the infant looked just like Filomena, and perhaps she did; but when the little one gazed up at her with a contemplative, curious expression, Filomena saw Mario’s face looking back at her, and the effect was startling.

  “How strange it is to see a reflection of the one you love, and yet this child is a completely new person,” she marveled. She was unprepared for the joyful tenderness that little Teresa evoked; her very warmth and scent overwhelmed Filomena with physical love.

  At the same time, she felt a fearful anxiety, for this infant had pried open the door to a corner of Filomena’s heart that she’d kept resolutely locked, the place where she’d buried her own childhood memories. At first, this depressed her. She did not want to remember how it felt to be abandoned. She whispered fiercely to little Teresa, “Don’t worry, no matter what happens, I will never give you away.” How could a woman abandon her own child? Filomena now realized just how desperate her mother must have been to let go of her that day. So for the first time, she was able to pity her parents, even if she still couldn’t quite forgive them.

  She also felt, in a profound way, a sharp new kinship with every living creature on earth, especially now, with the world at war, so blindly determined to destroy itself. She ached with sorrow for those beautiful old European cities and every innocent creature caught in the crossfire. Suddenly, Mario’s letters were more vital to her than ever, and she wrote back urging him to do whatever he had to do to stay alive.

  She was grateful for the company of Petrina and Pippa, who were spending their weekends in the city with Filomena. Petrina took seriously her role of godmother to Teresa, advising Filomena how to care for a baby with such delicate tasks as keeping her ears clean and fingernails trimmed; and how to select the right carriage and crib, the plushest baby bedding and the softest of infant clothes.

  Neighbors and merchants sent a shower of baby gifts to Filomena’s house. Among these tributes, one item stood out: an exquisitely hand-carved ivory jewelry chest that was also a music box for a little girl. It had a tiny golden carousel pony atop the box, which pivoted to music from the Broadway show Oklahoma! The finely-tuned tinkling song “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” rang clearly and sweetly as the pony twirled.

  “I wonder who sent this one?” Petrina mused. “The card must have fallen off. Oh, well. Probably a debtor who wants to stay in your good graces! He’ll let us know, soon enough.”

  But nobody took credit for the gift. No one in the family was bothered by this mystery except Filomena, who felt oddly apprehensive. Someone had noticed her child’s birth, and Filomena had been raised to worry that good fortune could also invoke the evil eye of jealousy.

  That afternoon, when the telephone rang, Petrina picked it up, and her expression instantly became furrowed with worry. “What? Where is she now? Is the doctor with her? All right, I’ll be right over.” She hung up. “Amie fainted out on the street. She’s home. I’ll go.”

  Amie lay in bed, trying to figure out what had happened. One moment she’d been coming home from the bar, feeling perfectly fine, and then, halfway down the street, she’d started seeing little black specks in front of her, which she tried to bat away, as if they were flies. But then there were so many black specks that it was like a heavy veil descending, and she felt herself slipping, falling into the blackness.

  Fortunately, her bartender had just stepped outside for a smoke, and he saw her go down. He shouted to a busboy, and they called Sal to take her home and summon the doctor.

  When Petrina arrived, Amie was asleep. The doctor explained the situation, gave Petrina some instructions, and left. Then Lucy came home, so it fell upon Petrina to break the news to her, upstairs in Lucy’s apartment so that Amie could not overhear.

  “Lucy, the doctor thinks Amie is pregnant,” Petrina said forthrightly. “He’s done some tests and will know for sure when he gets the results, but—he’s pretty sure.”

  Lucy felt herself mechanically, silently removing her hat and coat. It seemed to take a great effort when she finally spoke. “I think somehow I sensed this for weeks,” she said dully. “I just kept pushing it out of my mind. But a pregnant woman has a certain look, even before she starts to show.” Petrina said nothing, simply dreading how much Lucy had guessed.

  “It’s Frankie’s child, isn’t it? It has to be. Who else could it be?” Lucy said bluntly.

  “Amie’s been saying all along that Johnny’s feeling better. Maybe she and Johnny . . . ,” Petrina offered, then trailed off helplessly.

  “Not a chance,” Lucy retorted ruthlessly. “I went to see Johnny right after Frankie left town. Poor Johnny could barely breathe, much less make love.” She surprised herself by getting choked up at th
e memory of how Johnny had looked so emaciated—his bathrobe seemed to have grown bigger while he grew smaller. Yet the poor guy had been more optimistic than ever, so eager to recover, which made it all the more heartbreaking.

  Lemme tell ya something, Luce, he’d said to her. I’ve been reading all about life, and now I get it. I finally get it. You can’t let the wheels of society grind you into their gunpowder. Soon as I bust out of this joint, there’s going to be some changes. I’ll teach my boys how to read and learn, too, and I’ll get them away from the mugs and the crooks. But then he’d fallen back on his pillows, exhausted merely by the urge to create a better future.

  “For God’s sake, I’m not a fool,” Lucy said to Petrina now. “I can count the months! The child has to be Frankie’s.” Lucy made a quick calculation. “It must have happened that night the pair of them stayed up in the mountains together, because of the storm. I got this funny feeling that night, but I told myself it was nothing. Turns out, it was something.”

  Her eyes flashed as if she were daring Petrina to contradict her. For months Lucy had been worried sick about Frankie, until Sal finally got word that he was “safe,” whatever that meant. Frankie didn’t dare say where he was. Sal thought it meant there was hope of finding Chris. Lucy had been racked with guilt about Frankie’s heroic departure. Now she understood.

  “No wonder that skunk husband of mine ran off to Ireland,” she said dryly. “I wonder who he’s more afraid of facing back here: the police, or me.”

  Petrina said firmly, “Frankie’s my brother, and he’s impetuous sometimes, but he loves you. He always has, from the minute you walked into his life. If something stupid happened, well, it happened. That’s all there is to it. Now he’s risking life and limb out there, out of love for you and Chris. So, forget about Amie. Her foot slipped; she’s been too lonely without Johnny. Think of the kids! You’re godmother to Amie’s twins, and they absolutely adore you.”

  “Do the children know there’s a new babe coming?” Lucy asked sharply.

  Petrina shook her head. “We just told them Amie has a touch of flu. I sent the twins and Gemma to Filomena’s house for supper. They’ll be back in a little while. So if you want to scream and yell, do it now, get it over with. I haven’t spoken to Amie, so we don’t know anything for sure. But if you’re right, try to forgive everybody, will you, Lucy? Because, take it from me, hatred only makes you sick inside, and it doesn’t change a damned thing.”

  Oddly enough, Lucy felt some comfort in knowing that even the glamorous, educated Petrina had suffered betrayal at the hands of a husband and was now trying to help her. Not without gratitude, Lucy said, “Oh, shut up and pour me a whiskey.”

  She watched Petrina’s long, fine-boned fingers pouring out two glasses. Petrina was so tall and slender, she made Lucy feel a bit, well, chunky. Glancing down at her own sturdy, stubby fingers, Lucy thought ruefully that you could only be just so sophisticated after you’d spent your days reaching into blood and guts at the hospital. She would like to use these two hands right now to cheerfully choke Frankie. But even in this moment, she knew that Petrina was right—Frankie did love her and Chris, enough to risk his life for them. Lucy still desperately wanted both of them back. Then she could wring their necks. She even found herself hoping that she’d find out the baby wasn’t Frankie’s, after all. Maybe Amie had had an affair with a doctor at the sanitarium. Women like Amie worshipped doctors as saviors.

  Petrina, relieved that her task of delivering the bad news was over, patted Lucy’s shoulder and said thoughtfully, “I don’t know if it’s the right time to tell you this. But Filomena and I hired a private detective, to chase down that strange nun who was in the apartment building the day the cops found that stolen stuff in Frankie’s office.”

  Lucy actually felt hopeful of a reprieve for Frankie. “Did you find out anything?”

  Petrina said, “Maybe. I’m going to meet with the detective on Friday. Plus, Gloria, the seamstress, called to say she’s finished that lacework for me. So I’m going back to talk to her. You come with me, and we’ll see what’s what.”

  “All right,” Lucy said, feeling suddenly truly exhausted by the conflict of emotions.

  Petrina rose and went to the oven, peered inside, then put on some oven mitts and pulled out a casserole dish. “Okay, dinnertime,” she announced.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just go to bed,” Lucy said in a tired tone. But the scent of the food actually made her hungry. Yes, she certainly did feel like devouring something.

  “You must try this,” Petrina said, lifting the lid and sniffing rapturously. “It’s from a secret recipe for lasagne Bolognese. My favorite aunt was from Bologna, did you know? She’s the black sheep of the family because she went back there to marry a communist. Anyway, you must eat. You can’t go to bed on a stomach that’s only got whiskey in it. You might wake in the night and take a knife and fork to Amie instead.”

  The next day, Amie confessed to Petrina that the child was indeed Frankie’s, and that it had happened only in a shared moment of grief between her and Frankie, nothing more.

  So it fell to Petrina, once again, to tell Lucy, who simply turned away and said nothing.

  “God, I wish she’d yelled,” Petrina reported back to Filomena. “It’s somehow worse, when Lucy is so calm and stoic.”

  “Give her time,” Filomena predicted. She had always sensed that beneath Lucy’s stalwart, tough personality, there lurked a sensitive creature so horrified by her own vulnerability that she could not even admit to herself when she’d been hurt. Filomena knew that she and Lucy actually had a lot more in common than most people suspected.

  It was precisely three days later when the storm finally broke. The children were in school, and Filomena held her weekly meeting to go over the books. They managed to get through it in a businesslike fashion, until Amie was tactless enough to remind Lucy that Gemma’s school was having a parent-teacher night, saying that Lucy should attend even though she was on the late shift at the hospital that evening.

  “You go,” Lucy said shortly. “You’re her godmother. She likes you more than me, anyway, because you don’t scold her.”

  “Oh, no,” Amie said without thinking. “You’re Gemma’s mother, it would mean so much more to her if you were there in the audience.”

  “Really?” Lucy snapped. “Well, Amie, you’re the expert on motherhood, aren’t you? So maybe when you have this baby, you can explain to Gemma why I am not the mother of her new little brother, eh? Why don’t you explain THAT one to my little girl, all right, Amie?”

  “It might not be a boy, you know,” Petrina said helpfully. Filomena shot her a look of disbelief. Lucy ignored them, her eyes fixed on Amie, who sat with head bowed in a penitent manner that only infuriated Lucy.

  “And while you are at it,” Lucy said, rising to her feet to tower over Amie and bring her words down on her like a whip, “maybe you can explain it to me, too. Maybe you can explain to me how you DARED to sleep with my husband, when yours is still alive. Maybe you can explain why, out of all the men in New York City, you had to pick my husband to throw yourself on. How could you?” Lucy demanded, her voice rising to smother the hurt feelings that she harbored, yet despised for making her feel so weak. “I’ve always trusted you, and I’ve stood by you, Amie. Damn it, even when—”

  “Don’t say it!” Amie screamed, rising, trying to flee the room. “It’s not only my fault that Frankie slipped up. It’s not like we chased after each other. We were both upset, that’s all, over Johnny and all. If you hadn’t lied to him about Chris, he’d never have turned to me—”

  With a shriek of outrage, Lucy caught Amie by the arm and forced her back in the chair. Lucy’s voice cracked with pain and fury now. “You already have two sons! Wasn’t that enough for you? Did you have to go and tempt Frankie with the one thing I couldn’t give him?”

  “Oh, Lucy, I am so sorry, you just don’t know how much—” Amie broke in.

  Lucy cut
her off. “Are you, now, girlie? Well, here’s your chance to prove it. When that boy is born, we’ll tell everyone he’s mine.”

  “No!” Petrina exclaimed, horrified. “Are you crazy? Not in this house again, I couldn’t stand it. No more secrets and lies in this family! Can’t you see where it all leads? Lucy, do you want Frankie’s son to run away one day, as Mario did, where he might get himself killed? Oh, Filomena, I’m sorry, but it was my fault that Mario left us. I think of this every night, it’s hell.”

  Amie looked up wildly and said, “But Lucy’s right, Petrina. Don’t you understand? If I tell Johnny the truth about the baby, it will kill him.”

  “Basta!” Filomena said finally, rapping the table sharply for silence. “That baby belongs to all of us. We’ll figure out what to say to the men when they come home. Right now, we are all we’ve got. We swore to stand by one another, no matter what comes. Those were your words, Lucy. And you, Amie—did you forget so soon?”

  Lucy threw up her hands, but Filomena fixed her with a stern gaze and continued, “You can’t go back on this oath at the first sign of trouble. Can’t you see, this is a test that we must not fail? Lucy, you are just going to have to find a way to forgive Amie. And, Amie, you are going to have to work extra hard to regain Lucy’s trust. That means stop using your weaknesses to get what you want. You’ve always leaned on Lucy; now it’s time for you to help her. That’s all there is to it. We have work to do. We must all be good to one another—at least until this war is over!”

  Lucy put her head in her hands to hide the tears that filled her eyes. The effort to swallow her sobs made her throat actually ache.

  “Men are just men,” Filomena said more quietly. “From now on, we must think of the children first.”

  The next day, Petrina insisted that Lucy come with her to the apartment house. Lucy suspected that this was mainly a distraction, to keep her from strangling Amie. But Lucy agreed to go, mostly because she couldn’t bear being under the same roof with Amie.