The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  “Dumb housewife, indeed,” Amie muttered, indignant now. And were they talking about Tessa’s murder when they’d made that particularly nasty last remark?

  Now she heard the milkman’s delivery van arriving at the alleyway, so Amie realized that she couldn’t escape out the back door, either, without being seen. The milkman might tell the bartender she’d been inside. The barman would soon enter, to serve espresso, cappuccino, and little sandwiches that were pressed in a machine like a waffle iron. He must not see her yet.

  Amie retreated to the ladies’ room. She was safe, for the moment. She would wait until the bar officially opened for the hungry morning crowd. She listened to the bartender whistling as he unlocked the front door and arrived for work. She heard him turn on the radio, low, while he prepared for the busy day ahead. She heard him calling out to the deliverymen unloading out back: the milkman, and then the beer man, and the bakery boy who brought the sandwiches. They were all shouting and laughing as they worked. Then, finally, the customers began streaming in.

  At last, Amie slipped out of the ladies’ room and moved quickly through the bustling throng of hungry people. The barman was too busy to notice her, but she walked right up to him, as if she’d just arrived through the front door.

  “Everything all right today?” she asked. She saw him jump, and for a split second, an unmistakable look of guilt crossed his face. It was only a moment, but it told her all she needed to know. “Just checking the books,” she said as she headed to the back office. But then she kept going, right out the back door. The truckers were gone.

  She knew that Mr. Strollo would show up soon. She hurriedly crossed an alleyway, turned the corner, and ducked down the side street from which he usually came. The street was full of people. She watched every passerby, then finally spotted his familiar figure. Strollo didn’t notice her until she walked right up and deliberately collided with him, dropping her purse dramatically on the ground.

  “Scusi,” she murmured. As he stooped to pick up the purse of the clumsy pregnant lady who had knocked into him, Amie bent her head near his and whispered, “Mr. Strollo, do not go into my bar today. My bartender has let some investigators come in, and I fear they have put a wiretap at your table.”

  Strollo straightened slowly, his face impassive. His lips barely moved, but she heard him utter the words “Grazie, ricorderò questa gentilezza,” before he turned and went in the opposite direction.

  When Amie reached home, she saw that Sal had pulled the car up to the curb but was sitting there, parked, as if lost in thought. She knocked on the window, and he got out quickly.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, concerned. “Do you need my help?”

  “Listen, Sal,” Amie said breathlessly. “I’ve been thinking about your offer. Do you still want to buy the bar from me?”

  Sal nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well,” Amie said, “I think that’s a fine idea. Of course, I’ll have to discuss it with the Godmothers. If it’s okay with them, then we’ll have a deal.”

  “That’s great, Signora,” Sal replied.

  Then Amie felt obliged to tell him what had happened this morning with the intruders. Sal listened gravely, undeterred from making this deal, as if such things were the price of doing business.

  “Could be the narcotics bureau boys,” Sal guessed.

  “But we don’t have anything to do with drugs!” Amie said indignantly.

  “Of course not. Perhaps they hope to implicate Strollo. My guess is they caught the bartender dealing in the stuff and got him to cooperate,” Sal said. “For all we know, he could have lied and said he was peddling dope for us.”

  “Then you’d better fire that bartender!” she warned.

  Sal said dryly, “Unless Strollo gets to him first. Fine with me.”

  Now he glanced back worriedly at the house. Amie recalled that Sal had been sitting in his car here, fretting about something else before she’d arrived.

  “What’s bothering you, Sal?” Amie asked quickly.

  “I lost touch with Frankie,” he said quietly. “The last I heard was when he said he thought he had a lead about Chris. Nothing since. So I just sent word to Frankie again, to let him know that the charges against him were dropped and that Mario was being sent to a hospital in London—but I can’t even tell if Frankie will get this. We have contacts in Ireland who’ve been ferrying our messages and helping him, guiding him around, but I’m not hearing much from them, either. I don’t know how to tell Lucy this.”

  Amie saw that Sal—who was unafraid to confront any tough guy on the street—couldn’t face Lucy and was now behaving like an undertaker. This defeatist attitude would disturb Lucy even more than the information. “I’ll tell her,” she volunteered.

  She would wait until after dinner, because she knew that Lucy would not eat a bite after such news. She would see that Lucy had a little wine with dinner, too, so that she might have a chance of sleeping tonight. Amie would explain it all and then assure Lucy that in wartime, such silences were not uncommon and didn’t always mean the worst . . . and that Frankie would surely be in touch again, very soon, with good news.

  29

  Spring 1945

  Easter came early that year, on the first of April, when the weather could still turn treacherous with the bitter winds of winter’s last stand. But the sun was determinedly pushing through, and a few bold squirrels were scampering in the garden, while the first brave birds began to flutter and sing.

  Not long after the Easter holiday, on a particularly beautiful day when the sky was streaked with violet and pink and yellow, Amie’s baby came into the world.

  Amie was furious, because, just as she heard the obstetrician say, “Here comes the head!” they gave her sedation. “Why’d you knock me out?” she murmured in frustration when she awoke. “I made it through the hard part, with all the pain, for God’s sake! Where’s my baby?”

  “Right here,” Lucy said. Amie turned her head and saw Lucy cradling a bundled infant who was howling lustily for milk. Amie felt her breasts responding already.

  “Easy now, hungry one!” Lucy crooned, rocking the newborn gently. “Give Amie a chance to wake up first.”

  “Let me see, let me see!” Amie cried out.

  The doctor looked up and said in some surprise to Lucy, “Nurse, give the baby to the mother, she’s waiting.”

  Lucy reluctantly handed Frankie’s child to Amie, who was trying to prop herself up to see better. “What is it?” she demanded. “Boy or girl?”

  “Girl,” Lucy said with some satisfaction. She could not help thinking, Frankie already has one of those. Then, feeling slightly horrified at her own smallness, she said briskly, “We ought to think of a name for her, so I can put it on her tag.”

  “Nicole,” Amie said immediately, leaning her cheek against the baby’s warm little face. “That was my mother’s name.”

  “Fine,” Lucy said shortly. She knew that she was being mean to Amie, but she simply could not stop. Lucy had not been herself for weeks now, not since Amie had reported that there was no news from Frankie, and therefore, nothing about Christopher, either. Lucy had gone back to her old habit of working the late shift, so that she wouldn’t have to talk to family members, who meant well but only made her feel worse when they tried to reassure her. So she slept by day and roamed the world at night, like a bat.

  The doctor said, “Everything looks fine here. I’m exhausted! Nurse, see that this new mother and daughter get to their room and have what they need. I’ll check on them before I go home tonight.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  After Lucy got Amie settled in her room, and little Nicole, having been fed and changed, was sleeping contentedly on Amie’s chest, Lucy said with false brightness, “Amie, we have to talk.”

  Despite the fact that Filomena and Petrina had warned Lucy to wait until morning so that they could all be there to help decide what to do, Lucy could not resist the pleasure of sharing this twistin
g pain in her heart with the woman who had caused it in the first place.

  Amie lay back on her pillow, suddenly utterly exhausted after the adrenaline rush that had been fueling her strength throughout her labor. She gazed at her sweet little infant in the pink blanket and whispered to her, “I always wanted a girl.”

  Yes, here was the very daughter she’d longed for, so that Amie could buy pretty baby dresses, comb her curls, teach her all the things she’d wished her own lost mother had had time to tell her. Amie had even dreamed of the twins’ having a little sister to protect. “Look at your soft, curly hair,” Amie crooned, for Nicole had not come out of the womb hairless, no, not this pretty little female. Nicole was listening to her mother with a bright, intelligent expression.

  “Beautiful girl,” Amie whispered.

  “Amie!” Lucy said sharply. Reluctantly, Amie turned her gaze toward Lucy, who wore a hard, enigmatic look. The truth was, Lucy didn’t really care about having another girl to present to Frankie—if he ever came home to her again. He loved Gemma, but he’d always treated his daughter like a china doll that he didn’t want to risk breaking. He’d been much more interested in playing ball with Christopher, and with Amie’s twin boys.

  Amie sensed all this, and now she said, quite firmly, “I know what I said when Johnny left the sanitarium, but things have changed. You don’t want another daughter. You’ll never really love this child, knowing it’s mine. A baby should stay with her mother. That’s what’s best for all.”

  “And Frankie?” Lucy asked bitterly. “It’s his child, too, you know. And he will be coming back to me, Amie. I know he will.”

  “Well, neither one of you is going to take this baby away from me. Understand?” Amie said with a newfound sharpness. The exhilaration of giving birth had imbued her with a strange, strong clarity, as if the blurry world of her own nearsightedness had finally come into sharp focus. Life had given her this precious gift, to counteract the heartache of losing Johnny and her own mother. She was tired of taking orders from Lucy.

  “Is that clear?” Amie persisted. “When Frankie comes back, if you want me to tell him that this is Johnny’s child, then that is what I’ll do,” she offered, feeling that Lucy didn’t entirely deserve her generosity but sensing that perhaps this was what Lucy wanted to hear.

  Lucy studied her keenly. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Say it’s Johnny’s child. I don’t want Frankie—or anyone else besides the Godmothers—to ever know it’s his. And there’s one more thing. Filomena says you want to move to the suburbs and enroll your boys in school there. That’s a good idea. Are you really going to do it?”

  “Absolutely!” Amie said enthusiastically, relieved that Lucy had agreed to let her keep Nicole and their feud could finally end. “It’s all set. The house Johnny picked out should be ready for me and the children to move into by July. And since we all agree that I should sell the bar to Sal, I’ve got Domenico working on the paperwork for the sale.”

  She had told the Godmothers all about what happened with Strollo. “Wasn’t Sal clever when he found the wiretaps but left them there?” Amie whispered. “He actually hired a couple of showgirls to sit at Strollo’s table and chatter about Broadway shows! He said it would ‘bore the dicks stiff.’ And it did!”

  For, after the “bugs” yielded no fruit to the investigators who’d planted them, one day, mysteriously, the wiretaps vanished—and so did the bartender.

  “I don’t give a damn about Strollo and that bar of yours!” Lucy snapped. “Listen carefully, Amie. Here are my terms. This summer, you go to Westchester and stay put there. I don’t want you hanging around my husband here. So don’t come back to the city unless I invite you, on holidays and stuff. I want you to give me your half of the town house, so that you can never come back and live in it. Plus, I want Johnny’s name on that birth certificate for Nicole. And if you ever try to tell Frankie it’s his baby, then so help me God, I’ll go to Anastasia, find out where Brunon is buried, and turn you over to the cops. You understand?”

  Amie caught her breath, wondering if Lucy had gone a little crazy, holding her misery so tightly that she blamed Amie for everything—even Frankie’s disappearance, and Christopher’s. If Lucy was like this now, how would she feel if Chris or her husband never returned? And now, to speak of Brunon, on a special day like this!

  Amie glared at her. “You promised you’d never mention him again.”

  “You keep your promise,” Lucy said meaningfully, “and I’ll keep mine.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it. Now, please tell Filomena I’d like to see her,” Amie said stiffly.

  Lucy went home and told the others about her agreement with Amie. Petrina sized up Lucy and decided that it was useless to warn her against lying about this baby. Perhaps this was all for the best. Then Lucy told Filomena, “Amie is asking to see you.”

  “I’ll go right now,” Filomena responded. “Will you two look after little Teresa for me?”

  “Of course,” Petrina said soothingly. “Come on, Lucy, let’s have a cocktail.”

  When Filomena arrived at the hospital, Amie said ecstatically, “Here, you can hold the baby. Isn’t my daughter beautiful? Her name is Nicole, after my mother.”

  “She’s lovely,” Filomena said, accepting the pink bundle with a smile. “You know, she’s only seven months younger than my Teresa. I think our daughters are going to be very close friends. Won’t that be nice?”

  This was just the opening that Amie was hoping for. “Oh, yes! And, Filomena, there is something very important that I need you to do,” she said, leaning forward intently. “It’s the most important thing I’ll ever ask of you, and if you agree, I swear I’ll never ask for another favor,” she added dramatically.

  Filomena said, “I’m listening.”

  “Will you please do me the honor of being godmother to Nicole?” Amie said formally. Then she added in a rush, “You know I can’t ask Lucy, that’s for sure! And I think Petrina is just a little too permissive to be a steady influence on my daughter. I want my girl to be strong and calm, like you. I need to know that you will protect Nicole—from Lucy, from anybody—if something happens to me.”

  Filomena had been gazing at the little one lying quietly in her blankets; this baby seemed to be listening closely to the rise and fall of their voices, as if trying to make out what they were up to. Amie noticed it, too, and smiled.

  “She’s holding her breath till you say yes,” Amie teased. “All the nurses say she’s so ‘responsive.’ She’s going to be so smart,” she promised. “Not a little mouse like me. Will you do it, Filomena? You’re absolutely right; this girl will be close friends with your Teresa, just like Gemma and Pippa are with each other. So, you’ll be seeing my Nicole all the time, anyway. Will you be her godmother? Please say you will.”

  “Yes,” Filomena said softly, patting Amie’s hand.

  * * *

  Mario lay in his hospital bed half-dozing, waiting. It seemed to him that 90 percent of war was waiting—waiting to be assigned to a division, waiting to ship out, waiting to arrive, waiting on line for food, for clothing, for shelter; then waiting to fight, waiting to be discovered in a ditch when you were wounded, waiting to get evacuated out of the war zone, waiting for surgery, even waiting to die. By contrast, the remaining 10 percent of wartime—when the shelling erupted into the utter confusion of combat, which no movie could ever duplicate—went by so breathtakingly fast that your whole life truly flashed before your eyes at the speed of light, just to distract you from the astonishing pain of being wounded.

  Now Mario was waiting to be released from this hospital in London, a city he’d never really seen, because his medical unit had arrived in the night—after a tumultuous crossing in a ship that, while routinely defending itself against enemy attacks, had managed to kill some harmless bottlenose dolphins and harbor porpoises along the way. It was the collateral damage that disgusted Mario most.

  Lying here now, he missed Filomena. He’d dreamed
of her, written to her, even prayed to her, as if she could intercede with God himself. He only wanted to make it home and lay his head in Filomena’s lap, not caring if death overtook him after that.

  And so, he thought he was dreaming when the doctor, an older man stooped with his own fatigue, came in with a broad smile to tell him that he could finally go home.

  “You’re a lucky man!” said the doctor. “You’ve got family here to pick you up.”

  For one wild moment Mario thought it must be Filomena, as if she could simply take wing and fly across an ocean to escort him home. But then he saw Frankie, of all people, approaching with that familiar walk that commanded respect; yet, even Frankie, despite his usual high energy, looked older, touched with a few threads of premature silver in his hair as the price he’d paid to survive these days.

  “Sal told me you were here,” Frankie said briskly. “Come on, the doctor says you’re done. Let’s get the hell out before the military brass change their minds.”

  You couldn’t blame a man for being superstitious these days. What else was there to turn to? Not God, not science, not man nor beast. Only an ancient feeling in your gut that warned against lingering in the places where you’d suffered. Mario reached for his cane, which he still needed after the surgery, and Frankie helped him into his coat. When they reached the sidewalk, the cool, damp air on his face felt like a benediction to Mario.

  “I’ve been to Ireland, and I found Chris. He’s coming home with us,” Frankie confided in the English cab, an enormous vehicle that careened around London with mad expertise.

  “That’s great! But how the hell did Chris end up there?” Mario asked.

  “Well, that thug from Hell’s Kitchen—you know, Eddie—told Chris that he was his father, come back from the navy, so Chris believed him, because Lucy always told the kid the same story she told all of us: that Chris’s father went missing and was presumed dead. Eddie even said he was working for us now, and had a job to pull, and needed Chris’s help. Said they were going to Boston but took the kid on a freighter to Ireland instead. He locked Chris in his cabin for most of the trip, and as soon as they got to Ireland, Eddie went to his parents’ farm outside of Dublin and dumped the boy there. They made Chris work as an unpaid farmhand. But it was a blessing in disguise, because Eddie took off for Dublin on his own, so he wasn’t around Chris much.”