Penny from Heaven

by Jennifer L. Holm

I send back my meal trays untouched. The nurse says something to my mother.

  “Bunny,” my mother says, “you have to eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I say.

  It seems like everyone and their uncle starts showing up with food. Me-me brings a tuna casserole, Mother brings roast chicken, and Frankie stops by with a bag of fresh doughnuts. Aunt Gina brings macaroni, Uncle Ralphie brings candy from the store, Uncle Paulie brings filet mignon, and Uncle Sally brings a box of sfogliatelle, but I don’t touch any of it. I just can’t.

  Nonny appears in the doorway the next day, right before dinner. She’s wearing a black dress and carrying a plate of pastiera. She sits in the chair next to my bed, looking like a black angel against all the white of the hospital.

  “Tesoro mio,” she says, “eat.”

  Something in her voice makes me open my mouth, and before I have a chance to shut it, she pops a piece of pastiera in like I’m a baby, and it tastes so good, like it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my whole life. She feeds me another piece, and I keep waiting for her to burst into tears, but she just looks at me, her eyes so sad, and I don’t know what it is, but the tears start rolling down my cheeks, and once I start I can’t seem to stop. And pretty soon I’m crying for everything—for my arm, for Scarlett O’Hara, for Gwennie, for Uncle Dominic, for my poor dead father, for the great big mess my life has become. I bawl so hard, you’d think rivers would flood and houses would float away.

  I cry and cry and cry, and Nonny just holds me tight, her two strong arms the only thing keeping me from drowning in it all.

  I’m staring out the window.

  “Penny,” Miss Simkins says to me, “you have a visitor.”

  Mr. Mulligan is standing in the doorway, a newspaper tucked under one arm and a paper bag in the other. He’s the last person on earth I expected to see here, especially after how I’ve behaved.

  He doesn’t seem to think anything’s unusual, because he just drags up a chair beside my bed and pulls out a container of ice cream from the paper bag.

  “I heard you like butter pecan,” he says.

  “I’ll get some bowls and spoons,” Miss Simkins says with a smile.

  Mr. Mulligan’s not like any of my other visitors. He doesn’t want to know how I feel or whether I’ve tried my arm that day. He doesn’t ask if I need something to drink or eat. He just unfolds the newspaper and starts reading to me out loud from the sports section. His voice is deep and lulling.

  “The Brooklyn Dodgers . . .”

  I close my eyes and listen.

  Mr. Mulligan comes every day after his milk deliveries and reads me the paper cover to cover.

  We start with the sports section and then go on to local news and then to the obituaries, which are more interesting than you would think. After this we move on to the funnies section. Mr. Mulligan uses all sorts of silly voices to act out the characters. He does a great Blondie and Dagwood. Our favorite section is the police blotter. In the last week alone, there’s been one bicycle theft and a missing pet, and Mrs. Agnes Sloff reported seeing an “unusual” man peeping in her front window. We both agree that the police chief sure has his work cut out for him keeping up with the local criminals.

  Mr. Mulligan’s an interesting fella. Before becoming a milkman, he was in the air force and was stationed in Burma during the war. He says the worst part was after the war was over.

  “Took us nearly a year to get home,” he says.

  “A whole year?” I ask.

  “And we didn’t even get a plane ride back. Can you believe that? We had to take a ship, and it took thirty-three days. The Japanese had put all these floating mines in the ocean to blow up the American ships, but we had to go right through them to get back home.”

  “What’d you do?” I say.

  “There were minesweepers. They’d clear the mines so the ships could get through.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” I say.

  “One time I was sleeping below decks, and I guess the captain thought that we’d cleared the mines, and I heard all this shouting. I ran up on deck to see what was going on. Turns out the minesweepers missed one, and this mine was floating right toward us!”

  “Really? Right at you?”

  He nods. “All the boys on deck were shooting at it, but they were so nervous and shook up that they kept missing it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, this marine came running up with his gun and stood there, calm as can be, and took one shot and bam! He got it.”

  “Holy moly!” I say.

  “Just goes to show you that you should always keep a marine around,” he says, and chuckles.

  “I’ll remember that,” I say.

  I look at Mr. Mulligan with his balding head and kind eyes.

  “I’m glad there was a marine on your ship,” I tell him.

  “Me too,” he says, and smiles.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Bomb

  It’s late. My eyes are closed and I’m trying to sleep, but I can’t.

  School’s started, and I never thought I’d say it, but I miss school. I miss the hallways and the teachers and the homework and even mean old Veronica Goodman. I would give my right arm to be back in school, ha-ha.

  Everything is dark except for the light at the nurses’ station. Most nights the orderlies and nurses sit around playing cards and talking. One of the orderlies, a fella named Harvey, is flirting with Miss Simkins. Their soft voices drift over to me.

  “Why you wasting time with that doctor?” Harvey asks.

  Miss Simkins laughs. “Who says I’m wasting time?”

  “C’mon,” Harvey says. “Now, me? I’d treat you real good.”

  “Yeah?” she says.

  “Yeah,” he says. “So how ’bout it?”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “How’s the girl with the arm doing?” Harvey asks.

  Miss Simkins makes a tsking sound.

  “Poor kid,” he says. “Jimmy told me her father was the one who had all the trouble. You know her mother then?”

  “Before my time. Sheila was here, though.”

  “So he was really a spy?”

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach so hard that I don’t know if I’ll ever get my breath back.

  “Must’ve been,” she says. “They took him away, didn’t they?”

  “Never can tell. What happened to him, anyhow?”

  “Died in jail, I heard . . . ,” she says, and then she lowers her voice and I can’t hear her anymore.

  I stare into the dark, and for some reason all I can think about is Pop-pop’s friend the translator. Now I know why he isn’t smiling in the photograph. It’s because even though he got answers to his questions, he knew nothing would ever be the same after that bomb was dropped.

  Which is what just happened to me here.

  Mother doesn’t come first thing in the morning because she has errands to run. I have to wait until lunchtime. But for once I don’t care about upsetting her. I need to know.

  “Hi, Bunny,” my mother says. “I brought you some pecan cookies.”

  “I know about my father being a spy,” I blurt out. “You lied to me!”

  The blood drains from her face. Then she covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes welling with tears.

  “Mother?”

  But instead of answering, she just turns and runs out of the room, right past Aunt Gina and Uncle Paulie, who are coming in.

  “Was that your mother?” Aunt Gina asks.

  “Was my father a spy?” I demand.

  Uncle Paulie pales.

  “He was, wasn’t he? Why won’t anyone ever tell me anything?” I ask, my voice rising.

  He looks helplessly at Aunt Gina.

  “Paulie, go see if Ellie’s okay, why don’t ya?” she snaps, and a moment later he is gone.

  “You gotta tell me,” I plead.

  “He wasn’t a spy,” Aunt Gina says, and sits in the cha
ir beside my bed. She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her handbag and taps one out, her hand trembling. Then she lights it and takes a long drag and blows it out slowly.

  “It all started with the radio,” she says in a dull voice.

  “What radio?”

  She doesn’t answer. Finally she says, “Your father loved going to ball games. But after you were born, he didn’t want to spend a minute away from you, so Dominic went out and bought this fancy brand-new radio so your father could listen to the games at home. One night your folks were sitting down to dinner, the doorbell rang, and some FBI agents came and took your father away. Took them both away, I should say.”

  “Both?”

  “When the FBI came to see Dominic about the radio, he said that your father had it, so they dragged both of them in for questioning.”

  “Because of a radio?” I ask, bewildered.

  “Italians weren’t allowed to have this kind of radio. See, after Pearl Harbor, the whole country went crazy. All of a sudden everyone was suspicious of foreigners. They passed this law: If you were Italian and didn’t have your citizenship, you couldn’t travel to certain places, or have radios with a shortwave band, or flashlights, or cameras, or I don’t know what else.”

  “But what’s this got to do with my father?” I ask.

  “Your father was born in Italy and came over when he was two. But it turned out that Grandfather Falucci never finished the paperwork, so your father and Nonny weren’t citizens. Freddy had begun applying for citizenship, but then the war started. So he and Nonny had to go and register as ‘enemy aliens.’ They had their photographs taken, got fingerprinted, the whole works.”

  “Nonny?” I gasp. “They fingerprinted my Nonny? What was she gonna do? Feed someone to death?”

  Aunt Gina throws her hands up in exasperation. “They thought that the Italians might be spies. They didn’t even want you speaking Italian.”

  It’s all so much to take in that my head is spinning.

  “The FBI wouldn’t listen when Freddy tried to explain that it was all a misunderstanding. Especially when they found out about him being an ‘enemy alien’ and writing for that Italian-language newspaper. And he didn’t even write about politics for that Italian paper,” she says in frustration. “He wrote for the society section. He wrote about parties! Picnics!”

  “What happened?”

  “They let Dominic go, but they took Freddy to Ellis Island, and then he was sent to this army base in Maryland. They put him in an internment camp there. Your mother visited him, and we kept thinking they’d realize they’d made a mistake and let him come home,” she says, and swallows. “Nobody saw him after he was sent to another internment camp in Oklahoma.”

  “Is that where he died?” I whisper.

  “Yeah, he died in that camp. Near about killed your mother when she heard. Your uncle, too. Dominic ain’t been right since.”

  “Is that why he quit playing ball?”

  Aunt Gina nods.

  “So my father wasn’t a spy?” I say.

  “Doll,” she says sadly, “his only crime was being Italian.”

  Then she looks past me at Uncle Paulie walking toward us with Mother. My mother’s eyes are raw with grief, and Uncle Paulie doesn’t look too good either.

  “Aunt Gina told me everything,” I say when they reach us.

  Mother nods, her lips tight, but she sits down.

  “C’mon, Paulie,” Aunt Gina says, and tugs the curtain around us for privacy.

  Then it’s just me and my mother.

  “I never wanted you to hear that,” she says, and her voice breaks. “Never. Your father was a good man. He loved this country.”

  “How did he die?”

  My mother’s eyes are shiny when she looks at me. “They said he had a gastric hemorrhage. He must have been sick for a while. I still can’t bear to think of him dying alone, far from all of us.” She takes a deep breath.

  “The way people looked at us when they found out. Here at the hospital my supervisor made a snide comment, and after that, I quit. I just couldn’t work with people who would say such things.” She shakes her head. “When your father died, I didn’t think I’d be able to go on. I was so angry. At everything. We had a perfect life and it was ruined. For nothing! For a radio!”

  I think of my father dying all alone, and the tears start running down my face. “But why did Uncle Dominic buy the radio? I thought he loved my father! How could he do that?”

  Something in her face softens. “Believe me, I know it’s easy to blame Dominic. But it wasn’t his fault, not really. Dominic didn’t think he had anything to worry about when he bought that radio; he was a citizen. He just walked in and asked them for the best radio they had. He wasn’t thinking of what could happen. We were all so young.” My mother sighs and looks away. “I’ve been angry for so long, and just when I started to feel better, this happened.” She winces. “It wasn’t fair of me to yell at Dominic like that, though. It all sort of caught up with me.”

  “I wish you’d told me all this before,” I say.

  “It was just too hard. How could we have explained it to you? It seemed easier to keep it a secret. And we didn’t want you to be ashamed. That was the one thing we all agreed upon.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  She nods.

  And then I ask the question I’ve always wanted to ask: “What did my father think of me?”

  “Oh, Bunny, he loved you so much,” my mother says with a gentle smile. “He called you cocca di papà. ‘Daddy’s little girl.’”

  My heart goes still.

  We sit there for a moment, the noises of the hospital washing over us.

  “Mother,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I ask you one more question?”

  “Ask anything you want,” she says, and her voice grows stronger. “Anything at all. I promise, no more secrets.”

  “Will you please scratch my back? It’s really itchy.”

  They move a new kid into the bed next to mine, another girl.

  Her name’s Vivian and she just got her appendix out; she’s not dying or anything serious like that. She has an older brother who gives her this magazine with comics called Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD, which is awfully funny.

  We whisper to each other after lights-out, and Mr. Mulligan brings ice cream for both of us. It’s nice to have a new friend.

  “He sure is swell,” Vivian tells me after Mr. Mulligan leaves.

  “I know. You feeling any better?” I ask.

  “I’m sore,” she says, and grimaces. “I wish I had my lucky rabbit’s foot. I know I’d get better faster if I had that.”

  “You can borrow my lucky bean,” I say.

  “What’s a lucky bean?” she asks, curious.

  I nod toward it. It’s sitting on my bedside table.

  “It’s for good luck,” I tell her. “My uncle Dominic gave it to me.”

  “The one who lives in the car?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “Can I see it?” she asks.

  I lean over for it, but because I’m balanced kind of oddly, I knock the table and the lucky bean starts to slide off. I don’t think; I just reach for it with my bad arm.

  I reach.

  My arm moves, my fingers curl, and just like that, I have my life back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  What’s in a Name

  It’s a miracle, but not like the miracles you hear about in church.

  My arm doesn’t start working all perfectly. At first it’s only my fingers, but soon my hand is moving. It’s the middle of September when they let me go home. I have to wear bandages and a sling and promise to do exercises, but at this point I’d promise to eat Me-me’s liver seven nights a week just to get out of the hospital.

  I go home to find that my bedroom has been completely redecorated.

  “Do you like it?” Me-me asks, her hands folded in front of her.

  The
poodles are gone, and the walls have been painted a pale turquoise, the color of the ocean. There’s a white chenille bedspread and new lamps with fancy glass bases. It looks sort of like Aunt Gina’s bedroom.

  “And how!” I say.

  “He missed a spot,” Pop-pop says, pointing at the wall with his cane.

  “Don’t start with that again,” Me-me tells him.

  “Who missed a spot?” I ask.

  “That Mulligan fella painted the room,” Pop-pop grumbles. “Your mother and grandmother didn’t want me going up on the ladder. I told ’em I could do it, but they ganged up on me.”

  I raise my eyebrows but don’t say anything.

  My arm gets stronger by the day, and when I go to see Dr. Goldstein, he’s impressed with the progress I’m making.

  “You’re going to end up in the textbooks,” he says.

  “As long as I don’t end up back in the hospital,” I say. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Dr. Goldstein says.

  “You know,” I say, “you kinda look like Gregory Peck.”

  “I hear that a lot,” he says, and flashes me a smile good as any movie star’s.

  Aunt Gina takes me to a fancy hair salon, and Uncle Nunzio has a bunch of new dresses made for me. Between the haircut and the dresses, I look glamorous, like a new girl.

  I start going back to school. Suddenly I’m real popular. Boys offer to carry my books. It seems that almost dying is a good way to improve your social life. Even Veronica Goodman leaves me alone, which is nearly as good as my arm working.

  Everyone asks the same question: “How much did it hurt?”

  “A lot,” I always say, and watch their eyes go round with awe and something else—admiration. I want to tell them that almost dying is awfully easy.

  It’s the living that’s hard.

  One afternoon after school Pop-pop brings me a brown box. I can hear something inside, scratching to be let out. I open the box, and a little black kitten with a smudge of white fur on its side scrambles out.

  “Figured you could use some company,” Pop-pop says, clearing his throat.

  “She’s so sweet!” I say, rubbing my face in the kitten’s fur.

  He scowls. “She? She? It’s a boy! Don’t they teach you anything in that school of yours?”