The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  Mario absorbed this. “How did you get Chris away from the farm?” he asked.

  “I hung around that one-horse town near the farm, waiting for my chance. One day Eddie’s parents went out to some county fair to sell livestock, and Chris was left behind on the farm. Chris looked damned glad to see me. Didn’t even hesitate when I asked him if he wanted to come back to America with us or stay with Eddie’s folk. So now I’ve got him at an inn here in London. We all have to stay put for just one more night, Mario, and then we’ve got passage for all three of us to go home.”

  The cab stopped in front of a rather nondescript tavern with rooms above that served as an inn. “Best I could do, with the war and all,” Frankie said. “It’s clean enough. Chris had his supper; he’s upstairs in the room, resting. Let’s get you some chow. They’ve got a thing here they call bangers and mash. Sausage and potatoes and peas.”

  The publike atmosphere was warm and comforting. Men were drinking and talking and throwing darts at a target on the wall near the bar. Frankie led the dazed Mario to a table in a far corner. Mario sat with his back to the wall and ordered a pint of pale ale with his supper. The brothers spoke frankly, comparing notes. Frankie told him that he was finally in the clear after the Pericolos had tried to set him up. Then they talked about Johnny.

  “Rosamaria wrote to me about him,” Mario said quietly. “But it’s still hard to believe that he’s dead. We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to him.”

  “I know.” Frankie nodded. “I keep thinking he’s still up there in the mountains at that place, reading books, waiting for us to come see him.” They both fell silent.

  When they were done eating, Frankie searched his pockets. “I’ve been smoking since I got here,” he admitted. “I’m out of cigarettes. There’s a little shop across the alleyway that sells them. You go on upstairs and say hello to Chris.”

  Frankie paid the tab and handed Mario the keys to their room. Mario said, “Does Sal or the family know we’re coming home?”

  Frankie shook his head. “I didn’t want to tempt fate by announcing our plans. Never know who’s listening in or reading telegrams these days.”

  Mario understood. As Frankie rose and headed out, Mario reached down under the table, searching for his cane. It had fallen onto the floor in the darkness, amid the sawdust that made it easier to sweep up any spilled beer or cigarette butts.

  And as Frankie went out the door, another man, seated alone at the bar, quietly rose and followed him, out into the dark alleyway.

  * * *

  At home it was clear to everyone in the family that the whole world was changing.

  “The President’s dead!” Pippa announced importantly one day in spring. She’d heard all about it at school. “Did you hear me? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is dead!” she intoned as if she were a radio announcer.

  Soon afterwards, they learned that the Vice President, a man called Harry Truman, who once used to sell hats, had asked the country to pray for him, saying that he felt as if “the moon, the stars, and all the planets” had fallen on him when he was sworn in as the new President.

  “That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it?” Petrina observed.

  And then, the news came that the Germans finally surrendered on the seventh of May, and the war in Europe was over.

  “Now we just have to beat the Japanese!” Amie’s twins said enthusiastically.

  One summery day, while the children were playing in the yard and the Godmothers were gathering at Tessa’s table just before dinner, they heard a car pull up and honk its horn.

  “Who can that be at the supper hour?” Petrina asked apprehensively. She hoped that nobody had gotten in trouble with the police again.

  Filomena went to the parlor window and cautiously peered out from behind a curtain. A taxicab had pulled up to the curb, and the driver had come out to assist a dark-haired serviceman in uniform, who was leaning on a cane as he got out of the car.

  The man raised his head, and Filomena saw Mario’s face gazing back at her. His curly hair had been cut so short that at first she couldn’t believe it was he. He waved and made his way up the front walk.

  Filomena hurried down the stone steps to meet him halfway. She flung herself into Mario’s arms and kissed his face and his neck. For a moment she was simply weakened by emotion, very much needing the strength of the loving arm he put around her.

  “Mario, caro mio!” she cried. He smelled of wool and cigars and steamships and taxicabs and other hints of foreign places. His body felt a bit bulkier, more muscular. She pulled away from him, just to gaze into his eyes. His travels had left a palpable aura of strangeness about him, a hint of a wider world of both wonder and yet unimaginable ugliness.

  “Is it really you?” she murmured as they kissed. “Or am I only dreaming?”

  “It’s me, all right,” Mario said ruefully. “Goddamn, you can’t possibly know how good it is to be home . . . and to see your beautiful face, for real this time.”

  Filomena said softly, “We got the telegram that you were wounded. I couldn’t tell from your letters—how bad is it? Are you in pain?”

  “It’s not too bad. I will need one, maybe two more surgeries eventually, but they say after that, I should be able to walk better,” Mario said in that lovely voice that she had missed so terribly, for so long. He glanced up and saw the other Godmothers standing in the doorway.

  “Where’s my little daughter?” he demanded. Petrina, who was holding Teresa, now brought the baby to him. Mario, still leaning on his cane, put his face right up to the child, who reached out with her small hands and grabbed his hair with instinctive delight. Mario murmured, “Dammi un bacio, la mia bambina.”

  “Give your papa a kiss,” Filomena said, and Teresa made kissy sounds, turning her face up to him. Mario kissed her, then looked up at the family in the doorway.

  “Lucy,” he said, “there’s another fellow here to see you.”

  He nodded toward the taxicab, which was still there, as the driver and a lanky young redheaded boy were hauling some duffel bags from the trunk of the car. Mario waved to him, and the redheaded boy looked up slowly, almost uncertainly.

  “Is that—Christopher?” Lucy whispered, wanting to rush out and clutch him to her heart, but stopping herself because of the reserved look on the young man’s face. “Oh, God. He got so—tall—” Her voice choked off and she could say no more.

  “He’s all right,” Mario said in a low voice. “Chris still had some questions about how you came to be his mother. I told him that as far as I knew, he was always yours, Lucy, because you were the one who really loved and wanted him. Just take it slow with the boy, okay? Don’t ask for too much, too soon. He needs some time, to get used to us again and feel safe here.”

  Mario resumed his normal voice and called out, “Hey, Chris, say hello to this lady who’s been worried sick about you ever since you went away.” He said it in a meaningful tone, as if he’d already briefed Chris to keep in mind how much Lucy loved him and how painful his absence had been for her. Chris dutifully climbed the stairs and awkwardly held out his hand to Lucy, not knowing how else to express what he himself wasn’t even sure of.

  Lucy let him shake her hand as she thought, He’s so tall and he’s so thin, and he’s already grown into a new young man, and yet I still see the same sweet face of that infant that made me want to protect him. Her heart was aching with sympathy and longing.

  But she only smiled at him as she touched his shoulder and said lightly, “Well, now, it’s high time you showed up, my laddie! I thought you’d run off and joined the army with Mario.” Chris looked startled, then realized that she was teasing him and grinned.

  “Come on in, my darlin’,” Lucy said, steering him gently inside. The others showered him with affection, which he bashfully appreciated.

  Lucy paused, then turned to Mario. “How did you find him?” she asked, half in dread. “And—where’s Frankie?”

  For
she’d noticed that three duffel bags had been brought from the trunk of the car, but only two passengers had come out of the cab.

  Mario nodded toward Lucy’s town house. Sal was standing on the front stoop, talking to someone whose back was turned. Sal shook hands and walked off down the street. The other man now turned and made his way to Mario and Lucy, cautiously, as if he, too, had been wounded. He looked exhausted, but as soon as he caught her gaze, he gave her a jaunty grin, and suddenly he looked like her Frankie again.

  “Hey, Luce!” he called out. “I’m starved. What’s for dinner?”

  Lucy, overwhelmed, felt herself trembling so hard that she could barely gasp out words of greeting. But as Frankie came closer, she reverted to the usual way she dealt with him when he was being impossible, and she gave him a mild shove. “You bastard! Why didn’t you tell us you were on your way home?” she exclaimed indignantly, still trembling.

  “Because right until the last minute I didn’t believe for sure that we’d make it,” Frankie said in his practical way, “and I didn’t want to stir you all up for nothing.”

  She saw that he was favoring one side of his chest. “Are you all right? Have you been wounded, too?” Lucy asked worriedly.

  “Yeah, but I’m fine.” He took her in his arms, felt that she was shivering, and held her close, kissing her lips softly, again and again.

  The others rushed back to the front door in amazement, clamoring for Frankie. “Come,” Lucy said, steering Frankie gently. “The gang’s all here. Pippa and Gemma and the twins—”

  “And who are these little ones?” Frankie asked, seeing Teresa and baby Nicole.

  Everyone was in the parlor now, all talking at once. Lucy held her breath as the men were introduced to the new additions to the family. Amie, still cradling her daughter, behaved as if she’d convinced herself, too, that this was really Johnny’s baby. When Amie looked up, Lucy caught her eye with a brief, silent warning: Remember what you promised. Stay away from my husband. Amie gave her a brief nod.

  Frankie, weary from his travels, simply accepted Nicole as Johnny’s child, and a gentle but sorrowful expression came over him as he thought of his brother. Mario, too, looked touched by the sight of baby Nicole. He smiled as Filomena said, “I am her godmother.”

  Petrina, after hugging Mario, had been silently watching them all. As everyone else went into the dining room to sit around the big table, she hung back long enough to detain Frankie with a hand on his arm, and she murmured, “Frankie—what happened? What about that man who took Chris away?”

  Frankie lingered momentarily with her in the vestibule, so that the others wouldn’t hear, and he said in a low voice, “We will never have to worry about Eddie anymore. He’s dead. That’s why I was talking to Sal. He’s already putting out the word in Hell’s Kitchen that Eddie was killed by an Irish local, in retribution for the union man he murdered over here. Eddie had enemies in Ireland, too. He’s buried where no one will ever find him.”

  “Did you kill him?” Petrina whispered worriedly.

  “No,” Frankie said shortly. “Mario did.”

  Petrina stared at him in utter disbelief. “Whaat?”

  “When I took Chris to London with me, someone must have seen us at the Irish train station, because Eddie caught up with us in London. The night before Mario and Chris and I were set to sail, Eddie jumped me in this dark alleyway near the tavern we were staying in. He pulled a knife on me. I tried to reason with him. He didn’t really want Chris—he said the kid was more trouble than he was worth because of us. But Eddie was convinced that we were behind the Pericolos and all the trouble they’d caused him, and Eddie said we ‘owed’ him something. So, first he asked for money in exchange for Chris. I was ready for this. I said we’d pay. But Eddie was drunk and he got mad—even after he took the money, he just came at me with the knife to ‘finish me off’ anyway. He got a stab in. I thought I was finished.”

  “But how—”

  “Mario had spotted Eddie getting up from the bar to follow me out. So Mario came up behind him, and just in time. Snapped his neck. The guy hardly made a sound.”

  Petrina stifled a cry of dismay.

  “Hey, Mario’s been at war,” Frankie said reasonably. “He learned how to kill, efficiently. What did you think they were teaching him? But he’s all right. Chris is all right, too; I told him Eddie was dead, and he didn’t even ask how it happened, he just said, ‘Good!’ Like it was a big relief. So, everybody’s all right.”

  “God!” Petrina gasped, sagging against the doorway in utter dismay.

  Frankie put a hand on her arm. “Smile, Petrina, they’re all waiting for us. Smile and let everybody be happy tonight. We’re all home, and we’re all safe and sound.”

  Book Three

  1957–2019

  30

  Nicole and Filomena

  Mamaroneck, April 1980

  My godmother and I had moved into the dining room to have lunch while we continued our talk. Now I fell into a stunned silence as I absorbed all she’d revealed.

  Of course, some of this I already knew. My mother, Amie, had kept her promise to Aunt Lucy and never told Frankie that I was his daughter. But when Mom thought I was “old enough to handle it” after my graduation, she’d told me the truth about my birth—her affair with Frankie, her “arrangement” with Lucy. I went through various stages of disbelief and outrage.

  I remember saying accusingly to Mom, “So that’s why Aunt Lucy acted as if I were a land mine that she didn’t want to get too close to.” For, although Aunt Lucy had been kind enough to me at family gatherings, I’d sensed that she didn’t really want me around. I almost felt she was a little afraid of me. Now I knew it wasn’t my fault that she’d sometimes wished I didn’t exist.

  “But she loves you,” my mother had assured me. “She always sends you a birthday gift. So you must keep this to yourself and not upset Aunt Lucy.” In effect, Mom made it impossible for me to discuss it with Uncle Frankie. By this time he and Aunt Lucy had moved to California, which I suspect is why Mom finally told me. “In this family,” she concluded, “it’s best not to dwell on the past. I always felt that Johnny was looking out for you, just as a father would. He’d tell you, ‘Be happy in the present, and make the most of your life.’”

  After that bit of news from Mom, I’d stared into the mirror for weeks. I don’t look much like my mother; people say I’ve got her cheekbones and her smile, but she’s a blonde, and I have the brown eyes, dark hair, and pale skin of my father’s side of the family, just like my brothers, Vinnie and Paulie. And although Uncle Frankie—as I continue to think of him—was always friendly to me, I knew that he had a fearsome temper; I’d heard him shout at Chris, and at his daughter, Gemma, too. Whereas, I’d always believed that Johnny, the benevolent-looking man in the silver-framed photograph atop my mother’s piano, was my loving papa who’d died before I was born, so, even now, Johnny still feels like my guardian angel.

  It was at this time that I became aware that my godmother truly wanted to help me. I don’t think that Mom told Filomena about our “chat,” but Filomena must have sensed my distress. She never gave me advice or consolation, but whenever we spoke, she kept the conversation focused on my future, always asking about my plans to go abroad to study, even telling me that she’d consulted a fortune-teller, who’d predicted that my destiny would be fulfilled in France. Strange, how just having an adult treat you as promising can be such a lifeline.

  For, soon afterwards, I moved to Paris to do my graduate studies at the Sorbonne, and I fell in love with James, so the shock of the past, as incredible and infuriating as it was, seemed far away now, eclipsed by the dazzling present and the promise of a bright future. I was glad to be a grown-up at last, free of my family and all its entanglements. Perhaps my mother had succeeded in teaching me to push difficult memories out of my mind, after all.

  But every now and then, I had that fearful sensation that there were other secrets lurking among the sh
adowy threats that I could only barely glimpse in my peripheral vision.

  Now, with this new information I’d just obtained from Godmother Filomena, some pieces of the puzzle were falling into place; yet, they also raised more questions. Knowing what dangers Mom had faced in her life, I realized how much she’d tried to protect me.

  “Wow,” I said, sitting back in my chair in amazement. “We kids only sensed what was going on, but we didn’t really know that the Godmothers tangled with big-time gangsters!”

  I felt a surge of admiration for those four brave women struggling to get out from under the thumb of such powerful brutes. At the same time I was wondering, with mounting apprehension, if the State Department’s background check, which my husband had warned me was imminent, might turn up some of my ancestors’ troubled history. Could anyone hold it against me, and could it actually put an end to James’s career?

  As if reading my thoughts, Filomena said quietly, “Nicole, it was a long time ago—in a different world—and it has nothing to do with you or your husband. It doesn’t matter—now.”

  I nodded hopefully. Surely this was true. Even so, I dreaded going back to tell James about these things that might just cut short all of his plans. Earlier this morning, I’d left a brief message with Mom to let her know that I’d gone to visit my godmother. Now, just as we were finishing lunch, the telephone rang. My husband had some news of his own.