by CD Reiss
We sort through colors and towels. Zia hums an Italian folk song. She does it when she wants to get her mind off things. I join in with the parts I remember. It’s funny the things the brain remembers. Songs I haven’t heard since I was a child come rushing back in earnest, notes and melodies rolling off my tongue like my own name.
But a dark spot is filling me up, one fueled by terror and anxiety. Here we are, folding laundry and singing old songs, when Zio—a man so allergic to showing weakness he didn’t shed a single tear when he almost cut off his thumb—was sobbing on the floor upstairs with a terrifyingly powerful man towering over him.
I clear my throat carefully. “Zia, I’m worried about Zio.”
Zia stops humming and lets out a slow, heavy sigh. She folds another towel into a neat rectangle with sharp corners. “He’s taking care of men’s business.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’re two sides to this world, and if you’re lucky, you’ll have a man to deal with the cruel one.”
“Cruel? Do you mean—”
“Mammà?” Zio’s voice trips down the basement stairs. He sounds strong. As if whatever happened in his office was a figment of my imagination. “Are we ready to eat?”
He sounds so calm. So normal. As though this is any other day and he wasn’t just kneeling on the carpet at the king’s feet. My stomach turns to stone, and I don’t know if it’s fear or relief that weighs it down.
“Come, patatina.” Zia pats my hand with a warm smile. “Let’s feed your poor zio.”
I grab the basket of folded clothes and follow her upstairs. Zio sits at the head of the table with a newspaper covering his face. While Zia tends to lunch, I take a quick peek in the office. It’s empty. Like a shadow without a light, he’s gone.
Zio flips the pages as if he wasn’t just a cowering mess.
Zia makes lunch as if she wasn’t playing blind and dumb to the cruelties in her own house.
Santino’s shadow is still in the dark corners. He was never just a man. He was always more. Re Santino. Re means king—though of what? What has he done to earn the awe of the neighborhood? There are whispers, sure, but what human man can be as powerful as they say he is? He’s accused of—and admired for—crimes that happened before he was born, given credit for universal mysteries, and assumed mythological status whenever the younger women among us talk. A man can be strong and powerful, but those claims are always prefaced by, “He’s Re Santino, so…”
I know one thing for sure.
I never want to see him again.
2
VIOLETTA
The hot eye of the sun burns a glorious tan into my pale winter skin. Trying to figure out if its gaze is protective or malevolent, I look right into it with the ocean breaking in the background and a cold drink sweating in my hand, but the sun isn’t talking.
Fine. I can wait. It’s the most beautiful day of my life. I have all the waves and fruity drinks a girl needs, and none of the boring obligations. No school, no family, nothing. Just me and the beautiful outdoors. I could live in this moment forever.
In the distance, a group of guys with fine, well-oiled muscles play volleyball with an open cooler and blaring radio at the base of the net. I reposition myself so I can watch them against the backdrop of breaking waves. Scarlett will kick herself stupid when she realizes this is what she gave up to go to freaking Iceland.
“Violetta!”
The hottest of the group, perfectly blond and tanned, calls to me. I shouldn’t be able to see his piercing blue eyes from that far away, but I can discern the webs and flecks of hazel at the center. I’m walking toward him before I wonder how he knows my name. Maybe the name is more common in Greece than back home and he’s calling someone else. Still, I play coy and tighten the knot in the side of my bikini bottoms. I may not be the Violetta he wanted…but I could be.
“Violetta!”
A seagull screeches my name. That’s strange. Maybe too much alcohol under a malevolent sun conspired to make me hallucinate.
I’m coming, I’m convinced I call to Mr. Dreamy Blue Eyes, even though I can’t hear myself.
“Violetta!” he says in a woman’s voice, and the sun is gone.
The sand disappears beneath my feet. I’m back in my bed in Secondo Vasto, USA—which lies a hundred realities away from my pristine beach. Sleep clings like wet sand between my toes, but firm hands shake me awake.
“Come now, lazy girl,” my aunt’s voice urges. Definitely not Mr. Dreamy Blue Eyes. Damn. “I need help in the kitchen. We have guests coming.”
“Five more minutes, Zia,” I plead with a groan and bury my head farther under the pillow. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back in Santorini, surrounded by gorgeous sun-kissed men and frosty drinks. I’ll even take the talking seagulls if it means I’m there rather than here.
“You had five more minutes. Up, up.” She claps twice with the urgency of an impatient drill instructor.
Protests die on my tongue—when Zia needs me in the kitchen, there’s little room for argument.
Seeing I’m awake, Zia pats my arm and leaves me alone to brush my teeth and throw on sweatpants and a tank top.
Downstairs, I hear the familiar hum of Nana Angelina and dishes banging. If Nana’s cooking, that means the guests are important. We’ll eat in the proper dining room that’s kept spotless and unused, entertain in the actual living room with the uncomfortable velvet couch, and cook in the extra kitchen in the basement.
There is little I love more than cooking big meals. The basement kitchen takes up half the footprint of the house. Tables for rolling dough, a six-burner stove for simmering sauces, the walk-in pantry full of dried herbs and baskets of tomatoes. My stomach urges me out of bed faster than my aunt.
When I get to the upstairs kitchen, the door to the basement’s open, and Nana’s voice comes up the stairs, singing an old Italian song I know and understand. Oregano and garlic scents greet me long before my family, and I inhale deeply as I walk into the basement. If I wasn’t so set on becoming a nurse, I’d want to be a chef. All those dishes dancing together, flavors mixing, the groans of pleasure from everyone eating.
Come on in, hunky, blond beach boys. I know the way to your heart.
“What is she doing down here?” Zio demands before I can even get a piece of bread in the raw sauce on the stove. At five-eleven, he’s tall for a southern Italian, broad and muscular from years of contracting work, with a ring of ear-to-ear gray hair around a bald dome. He never got the nineties-era memo about moustaches and keeps his trimmed and full as a beat cop.
“Helping.” Zia comes out from the kitchen, apron temporarily starched and clean. She’s bone-thin and fighting arthritis with sheer will. Putting her hair up every morning hurts her fingers, but even when Zio took back a comment he made in his twenties about short-haired women being unattractive, she wouldn’t cut it. “What else would she be doing?”
“She needs to be studying.” He gathers one thick hand into a fist he’d never use on his wife.
“She finished the test, Guglielmo.” She only uses his full name when she means business.
“Madeline.” Zio’s frown is as wide as the old scar on his arm. “She has a list of books to read for the summer.” He turns to me. “Right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Right.” He points at his wife. “When your sister gets here, you’ll have enough cooks in the kitchen.”
“I’m fine,” I sing, swiping a chunk of yesterday’s crusty bread along the surface of the sauce.
They ignore me.
“You know exactly why she’s needed in the kitchen,” Zia says.
“You know exactly why she needs to prepare for next year’s classes.”
“I have all summer to do the reading,” I say, popping the sauce-soaked bread into my mouth and shoving it into my cheek so I can talk around it. “I know what needs knowing.”
“She has a duty to the kitchen.” Zia backs me up even though
she didn’t hear a word I said.
“She has a duty to her studies.” Zio’s voice raises to the attic.
“You already let her miss mass.”
“Woman.” His voice is a warning my aunt doesn’t seem to hear. “Don’t forget your place.”
“My place? Don’t you forget yours,” Zia snaps, her words far more weighted than a conversation about my study habits. “She must help with the cooking.”
My jaw freezes mid-chew. She never talks to him like that in front of me.
And why’s my uncle looking at her with surrender? I’ve never seen him look at her as if he knows he’s lost the fight.
Soured butterflies flit across the tight muscles of my stomach. Why are they arguing about me as if I’m not here? And why does Zio suddenly care so much about my studies? They know I’m a good student. I’m a solid 3.8 reading the books on the bus. There’s no use getting a nine-week jump on the material for another .2 when there are dinners to cook and fun to have.
And they know if it’s a big, important meal, I can help.
“Don’t do this in my house,” Zio growled, low and ominous.
“Don’t do this in my house, old man.” She snaps a dish towel off a metal bowl, revealing a swell of dough.
It doesn’t feel as if they’re arguing over my participation in the kitchen. It feels harder, deeper, as if this is somehow life and death instead of osso buco.
It’s uncomfortable, watching them bicker like this over me. They act as though my autonomy is gone, as though I’m some kept woman who can’t make decisions for herself. This isn’t like my zio, waving around his man card as if he’s king of the house. Nor is it like my zia to challenge him.
“What’s going on?” I say finally, because I’ve never seen a battle like this.
Their eyes land on each other, and there’s a flicker of understanding I’m not permitted.
“Tell her,” Zia says, rolling the dough onto the butcher block.
He stands straighter, chin up in defiance to his wife before he turns to me. “Your cooking is for your family. Your studies are for you.”
Zia scoffs, then punches the dough.
“I tell you what, I’ll spend an hour working through the reading list, then I’ll come help.” I take a deep breath and hold it, waiting to see if my compromise sticks. I don’t like them making decisions for me, but I hate watching them argue more. Maybe they’ll just send me back to bed. My mind can return to Greece and pretend none of this ever happened.
The doorbell rings, but it’s just a courtesy. Zia’s younger sister, Donna, comes right in with her three kids.
With help coming through the door, I figure Zia’s lost the fight. But Zio frowns deeply again, then mops his head with a handkerchief.
“Fine, Violetta. You work a little and then you help.”
He shoots a look at Zia that I can’t quite decipher and disappears into the folds of the house. With a floury hand, Zia pats my cheek gently and turns her attention to the dough.
Feeling like a bocce ball knocked against the wall, I try to slink off, but my tiniest cousin, Tina, catches me in the hall.
“Vee-oh-letta!” she cries in the squeak of a four-year-old as her patent leather Mary Janes clack on the wood floor, then clop the rug. She holds up a sheet of paper with a drawing of a blue, four-legged creature with red spots. “I made a horse for you!”
“Wow,” I say, kneeling to take it. “It looks exactly like the horse I took you riding on for your birthday!”
“Yes!” Tina claps. “That’s her! Freckles!”
“Oh my God,” her thirteen-year-old sister, Elettra, says with crossed arms. “It looks like a trash bag on sticks.”
I swat the teen’s calf, noticing the stockings and dressy shoes.
“It does not,” I say to Tina. “Can I keep this?”
“I want to make it better.” She snaps the paper away and runs to the TV room where her aunt keeps her crayons.
“Hey.” I stand as Elettra’s trying to storm away. “She’s little. Why can’t you be nice?”
“Because I’m in this dumb dress,” she whispers angrily. “And these shoes are killing me.”
“Why are you guys still dressed up from church?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” Elettra snaps, then stomps into the kitchen like a warrior sent to fight an injustice her generals won’t even define.
Medical nonfic is agony. I can barely concentrate because I keep circling back to the argument between my aunt and uncle. My precious Zs. Zio’s never been down my throat to study before, and it was never a problem for me to help in the kitchen.
Surgical processes I memorized the second I read them the first time look like gobbledygook on the page while I try to work out what just went on. The doorbell rings as people arrive. The usual suspects for Christmas or Easter—aunts, uncles and all their children—but not a random Sunday. Must be one of those lucky weeks everyone’s around.
At the end of the hour, I close my book and decide surgery is easier to understand than human relationships.
I’m about to go down when I remember how Elettra and Tina are dressed. I might not know why they’re staying in their Sunday shoes, but I can’t go down there unshowered in sweatpants and sock feet.
After a shower, I riffle through my closet, finding a dark pink peasant skirt and white button-front shirt. I put them on and check the mirror. My friends would laugh at this getup, and Mr. Dreamy Blue Eyes—who is definitely out there somewhere—wouldn’t take a second glance at me looking like this. I undo the second button of my shirt to show a hint of white cotton bra. I look a little like a movie star in my plunging neckline and decide my skirt’s long enough to skip stockings.
I slip on a pair of white sandals and go downstairs, where the entire extended family has packed into the house. Gross smoke from stubby cigars seeps from under the door to Zio’s study, curling around deep conversations about important things. Every woman in our family, from tiny cousin Tina to ancient Nana Angelina, hums between the two kitchens, carrying, stirring, chopping. Between gossiping and instruction on proper cooking technique, Zia’s usually the head of a well-practiced surgical team, but she seems more subdued today, and the players aren’t at their Sunday chattiest.
As soon as I join them, it goes quiet.
“Will you miss school?” Zia breaks the silence.
“Probably not.” I smile tightly, ever aware they’re all staring. “It’s been so busy. I had, like, a million study groups this week and I bet I could sleep until grades come in.”
My friends and I didn’t get much studying done in group, but it felt like the right thing to say, with everyone treating me like a goldfish in a tiny bowl.
“I’m sure you did wonderfully.” Nana Angelina squeezes my hand. “Such big brains, those Moretti girls have.”
“Why don’t you help with the bread?” Zia gives my shoulder a tight squeeze. “You are so good at the bread.”
Bread’s easy. The vibe in the kitchen, however, is anything but. Everyone is too eager to help me, too complimentary on the way I knead and roll the dough. The way they look at me is…weird.
“Such technique!” Zia Donna coos, giving my waist a squeeze. “You’d never know it the way she’s so slender, Madeline. She’s a prize indeed.”
My gut sours. This was the way they looked at me when they told me Rosetta wasn’t coming back from her trip to Napoli. This was the way they treated me when they told me she’d died there. Pneumonia. No chance to recover. One moment I had a sister and the next I didn’t.
They didn’t look me in the eyes then either.
I know what that look means. The weight of it. The feel of it across my skin.
Pity.
If they’re giving me the Pity Face, it must be something truly awful. Like the time Zio’s cousin Gino was here from the other side and took a deeply icky interest in me. I couldn’t escape his rough grasp as he praised my childbearing hips and slim waist. His anchovy breath put me of
f the little fishes forever.
“Who is coming to dinner?” I swallow fear and channel all my anxiety into cutting a loaf into manageable slices.
“Some of Zio Guglielmo’s business associates.” Zia tries to pull off a casual response, but I can feel the stress under it.
Zia Donna and Nana Angelina share a look over a massive pile of finger cakes.
“How many? A hundred?” I look at the bread I’m cutting. The beige slashes in the top, spreading open like wounds, the layers of knife marks in the butcher block table Zio made for Zia decades ago. Rosetta and I did our homework and ate together and colored pictures of unicorns and rainbows at this table.
Our table hasn’t ever had this much bread on it.
No. One time. When I was a little younger than Elettra. We had this much bread on the day the devil came in the door and cut me open with his cruel eyes, exposing a darkness I spent all my discipline and rigor denying. I hated him for it.
“How much bread do we possibly need?” I babble nonsense to shut this shit out of my head.
“What if Re Santino wants more and we don’t have it?” tiny Tina chirps.
The cruel, terrifying, beautiful, mysterious man in the doorway hasn’t shown up in years. Now he’s coming to dinner so soon after standing over Zio as he wept? And all Donna wants to do is muse about my waist size in comparison to my hips? Why is no one asking why?
Suddenly, the anchovy seems quaint.
I’m torn in two—terrified and curious. I can’t bear the thought of seeing Zio like that again. A man who never cries, a man who carves cement with his bare hands, weak and exposed. It hurts my heart just to think of it.
“I’ll get King Santino whatever he wants.” Elettra twirls her skirt with a saucy look on her face as hot as the strange feelings bubbling through my veins.
Zia Donna grabs Elettra violently by the arm and growls. “You shut your mouth.”
“Ow! Ma!” Elettra winces and tries to pull away.
The whirling activity in the kitchen freezes, prosciutto and tomatoes practically floating mid-air.