Vi nodded and gathered her purse while Lenny stood and waited. He extended his hand as if to say you go first, and they left the cafeteria.
At the elevator they crossed paths with Tootsie, who visited Frankie regularly, as had Doug Turner and other friends and neighbors, and of course Lenny’s brother, sisters, and their kids often spilled from Frankie’s room into the hallway. Tootsie glanced at Vi. Lenny skipped introductions, but from Tootsie’s smirk, he knew that she recognized her.
“Thank you, Lenny,” Vi said as she pressed her fingers against the side of his arm. “Whatever you decide, please just let me know.”
“I will,” he said. “After I talk with the doctor, I’ll call you.”
Tootsie stepped into an open elevator. “Going up. Should I hold the door for you?”
Vi released Lenny’s arm and smiled at Tootsie. “I think you’re being summoned,” she whispered.
“She’s changed,” Tootsie said, once the elevator doors closed.
“I guess.”
“Oh, you guess,” Tootsie said, laughing.
“Frankie doesn’t know that she’s here. Please don’t say anything.”
“Honey, you of all people should know that I’m good at keeping secrets,” Tootsie said, but Lenny ignored her innuendo.
Frankie was awake when they peeked in his room, and Lenny stepped aside to let Tootsie enter alone. “I’ll give you guys some time to visit,” he said and walked past the nurses’ station with the flashing Christmas tree and Chanukah candles and into the small lounge where cutouts of Santa’s sled chased dreidels across green walls. He entertained thoughts of going home to rest, but couldn’t bring himself to leave Frankie on New Year’s Eve. So he sat down, rested his head against the back of the chair, closed his eyes, and saw Vi stepping away from the elevator. His had not been the only gaze that followed Vi through the lobby.
He was exhausted, and despite thoughts of Vi and sitting in an uncomfortable chair, he fell asleep. The next thing he knew Angie was sitting next to him reading.
She removed her glasses. “Happy New Year.”
“What time is it?” The kink in Lenny’s neck and back told him that he must have slept for quite a while.
“After 1:00. You missed the festivities. A few nurses blew noisemakers ... not too loudly. Most of the patients were sleeping.”
“Frankie?”
“Yes, he slept through it.”
“Did Tootsie leave?”
“Hours ago. Not long after I got here. Nice woman. I think she has a crush on you.”
Angie tried to persuade Lenny to go home and rest. “Tomorrow night,” he said and walked Angie to the elevator, gave her a New Year’s peck on the cheek, and then headed back towards Frankie’s room.
On the recliner next to Frankie’s bed were a few folded clean clothes that Angie had left. He moved them and sat down. The room was dark except for the dim nightlight above Frankie, casting shadows and exaggerating the stubble on his chin.
Tomorrow I’ll shave him again, Lenny thought. These were the moments — in the dark, watching Frankie’s chest peacefully rise and fall, noticing something as mundane as the shadow of a beard — that Lenny’s heart broke over and over again, and his eyes filled for Gennaro and the DiCicos, including Big Vinny. Lenny knew that Big Vinny would have taken those bullets for Gennaro and for Frankie in a heartbeat. Instead, Big Vinny was left with a wound that would never heal — like a stigmata of the heart. It might scab over, but the slightest reminder — a picture of Gennaro, a song on the radio that Gennaro once sung, seeing Frankie, Johnny Pickle or any of the other boys — would cause Big Vinny’s heart to bleed all over again. It was hard to hate Big Vinny for too long, but just as hard to love him. Feeling sorry for him was the most Lenny could do.
24
The doctor didn’t foresee any problems with telling Frankie about Vi. In fact, she thought that meeting his mother might provide a muchneeded distraction, but Frankie barely responded to Lenny’s news. As it turned out, Lenny was the one who was stunned when he learned that Frankie already knew about Lenny’s email to Vi, that Gennaro had sent the email, and that Frankie also knew about Big Vinny’s envelope. Frankie was more interested in discussing the cartoline postale he had found in the safe than anything Lenny had to say about Vi.
Lenny positioned the shaving mirror while Frankie moved the electric shaver along his chin.
“Okay, so you found pictures,” Lenny said, “but what do you think about Vi coming to see you?”
Frankie turned off the shaver, slumped back into his pillows, and shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.”
“So I’ll take that to mean ...?”
Frankie said, interrupting: “I guess Great-Grandpa Leonardo and Gennaro’s great-grandfather were pretty close friends.
Lenny let the matter of Vi’s visit drop, at least for the time being. “Yes, you already knew they were friends in Sicily before Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma came to America. I think since they were kids.”
“That must have been hard to leave such a good friend. I mean they must have been close since he sent his kid here to live with our family. I mean, who sends their kid thousands of miles away to be raised by someone else unless it’s by someone you really trust.”
“They were difficult times, requiring difficult choices,” Lenny said.
“Yeah, I know the stuff about Mussolini. But still. I mean, he was only a kid, right?”
This was the most interest Frankie had shown in anything and the longest that he had sustained a conversation without collapsing into tears since learning of Gennaro’s death, so Lenny continued talking. He pushed the shaving mirror to the side and cleaned the electric razor with a small brush over the trashcan.
“Yes, he was only a kid, but he was in a lot of danger. The first time I heard Mr. DiCico tell the story about why his father sent him to America, he was sitting with Grandpa under the grape arbor. It was sometime after Big Vinny’s brother had been killed in Vietnam. I was sitting with the two old men. Old? They were probably the age I am now.” Lenny tapped the razor against the side of the trashcan.
Frankie didn’t roll his eyes as if to say I’ve heard this a million times, so Lenny continued. “Who knew where Big Vinny was. He was already running with a tough crowd, always getting into trouble, even with the police. Not that he didn’t get into trouble before, but after his brother was killed things got worse. Anyway, Mr. DiCico was reminiscing about Taormina. He did that a lot.”
“From the pictures it looks beautiful,” Frankie said.
“Pictures?”
“Yes, in the safe. The cartoline postale.”
“Of course, the cartoline postale,” Lenny said. “Anyway, Mr. DiCico talked about the morning he woke up and his older brother was gone.”
“This was his communist brother?”
“I don’t know if he was a communist, but I guess he was always talking about revolution and he hated fascism and Mussolini. So Mr. DiCico said that when he saw that his brother’s side of the bed was empty, he went to tell his father, and he found his father sitting on a small stool in some kind of barn or chicken coop, placing torn bits of paper on his tongue — chewing, swallowing, and crying.”
“Like hosts at Mass,” Frankie said.
“Mr. DiCico thought that it was a note his older brother had written, telling his father that he had joined the underground resistance, and his father didn’t want the note falling into the wrong hands, so he ate it. The Italian solution for most anything.”
Frankie actually smiled at Lenny’s little joke, and Lenny’s eyes filled at the sight of his son’s smile. He took a breath and continued talking. “Then, Mr. DiCico said that, like his older brother, he also began speaking out against fascism and Mussolini. He also criticized the Mafiosi for killing labor organizers and breaking up peasant cooperatives. He was barely a teenager, but he took up his brother’s cause. Too bad you never met him. An honorable man. So after the fascist police beat him up and
left him unconscious in a pigsty, his father wrote to Great-Grandpa Leonardo. And Great-Grandpa said: ‘Yes, send him to America.’ The rest you know. Your grandpa and Gennaro’s grandpa grew up together as brothers. Big Vinny and I also grew up together, though I wouldn’t call us brothers. And you and ...” Frankie’s eyes widened, and Lenny stopped talking when he realized what he was about to say. He took Frankie’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
A nurse came in the room carrying a cup with three pills, and Frankie frowned. He downed the pills quickly as the nurse took his vitals. Lenny thought of the three generations of DiCicos who had all lost sons to violence — be it at the hand of a distraught cabdriver’s son, a war, or fascism — Big Vinny, his father, and his grandfather had each lost a son. He didn’t tell Frankie all of what was said that day at the plywood table under the arbor. He didn’t mention that Giacomo DiCico had said that Vietnam took his good son but left him with the hoodlum son. Lenny also didn’t mention how Big Vinny’s mother had wailed for her murdered son, as Lenny imagined Marie DiCico must have done when she learned that Gennaro had been murdered.
Once the nurse left, Frankie yawned and rubbed his eyes, but his questions continued. “So Great-Grandpa and Gennaro’s great-grandfather must have been very close, right? I mean to raise someone else’s kid, especially when you have your own kids to raise.”
“Yes, I imagine that they had been very good friends in Sicily.”
“It must have been real hard for Great-Grandpa to leave him.”
“I imagine it was.” Frankie acted annoyed with Lenny’s brief and matter-of-fact answers. He continued to press for more information, but Lenny didn’t know what else to say. Frankie suggested that two of the boys in the cartoline postale might have been the great-grandfathers when they were young, but Lenny didn’t know if that was true. He didn’t remember having seen the pictures before coming across them when he looked for Big Vinny’s envelope, and even then he barely looked at them. At the time, he had more pressing matters to be concerned about. Given the subject matter, he should have remembered if he had seen them before, but maybe not. Captain Beltrani’s photos of nude women he remembered, but maybe the von Gloeden’s nudes had not impressed him as much as Beltrani’s. He was no help to Frankie, who seemed much more knowledgeable about the cartoline postale than Lenny was. Frankie explained where he had hid them in his room, along with some letters. Lenny agreed that he would go home that night, find the pictures and the letters, and bring them to the hospital.
“One more thing,” Lenny said. “So are you okay with Vi coming to visit?”
“Yes, if she wants.” Frankie yawned as his medication kicked in, and his eyes glazed over. Soon he was asleep. He mumbled something about Gennaro and cartoline postale.
The rest of the day was less eventful. Frankie alternated between sleep and staring at the television. Tony visited briefly and, later, while Frankie pushed his supper around on its plastic tray, Angie arrived with homemade lasagna. That’s when Lenny left, but not without Frankie again reminding him to bring in the cartoline postale and the letters.
This was the first that Lenny had been home since Christmas, and the longest that Lasante’s had ever been closed — at least that Lenny could remember. He didn’t turn on the store lights. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention and have customers bang on the front door or windows for something they suddenly couldn’t do without.
Angie had given away perishables like milk and eggs and fresh ricotta, so he wasn’t concerned about food spoiling, but he checked refrigerators and freezers to make sure that they were working properly. The two, long, dark cavernous aisles seemed narrower, and he inched his way down the right aisle, up the steps, through the breezeway, and ignored the disapproving murmurs coming from the pictures hanging in the office. Once in the house, with the door shut between the dining room and office, he no longer heard the grumbling. He heated the lasagna that Angie had left for him and poured himself a glass of wine.
The kitchen radiator hissed, and Lenny responded: “Frankie’s going to be okay.” He repeated this aloud several times between bites of lasagna and sips of wine. He also whispered an occasional “Thank God.” When done, he rinsed his dish and wine glass and picked up the mail Angie had stacked on the counter. It felt good to busy himself with what was ordinary and familiar.
Angie had taken down the tree and all the Christmas decorations and packed them away — no reminders of the night the police officer came to the door. Lenny wondered if Ina might someday be there for Frankie the way Angie was always there for him. Might Frankie and Ina become family? They were young enough to create a history together. The thought of Frankie having a sister comforted Lenny as he climbed the stairs, went to his bedroom, dropped the mail on his bed, and then went to Frankie’s room.
Everything was just as Frankie had left it — an unmade bed, open books, the closet door open with dirty clothes spilling out of it into his room, and under his mattress were the letters and cartoline postale, just as he said.
The letters were correspondence between Leonardo and Salvatore DiCico regarding travel arrangements for Salvatore’s son Giacomo to come to America and live with the Lasantes. Nothing Frankie didn’t already know, but the cartoline postale were impressive. Lenny was taken back, if not slightly embarrassed, by Frankie and Gennaro’s likeness to two of the boys in the photos. Frankie was right, they probably were pictures of Leonardo and Salvatore when they were teenagers. Lenny looked through all of the cartoline postale, but still didn’t recall having seen them before a few months ago when looking for Big Vinny’s envelope. However, he was grateful that they gave Frankie something else to dwell on aside from what had taken place Christmas night and grieving for Gennaro.
Lenny lumbered back to his room and undressed. A hot shower relaxed the kinks in his neck and back, and he stood under the shower long enough to rid his mind of What ifs and for the water to run tepid. He turned off the water, stepped from the tub, and rubbed himself dry with a bath sheet Frankie had given him years ago for Father’s Day. Running diagonally across the middle of the bath sheet were the words World’s Best Dad.
Slowly the steam cleared, and Lenny caught his reflection in a fulllength mirror hanging from the back of the bathroom door. He wondered what Vi had thought when she saw him. For 50, he wasn’t bad, but she was 39 and looked great. His body responded to thoughts of Vi. No fool like an old fool! he thought. One of Filomena’s many sayings.
The clean, crisp sheets and the weight of several blankets felt like a lullaby. If only Frankie were asleep down the hall, Lenny thought, and he dismissed thoughts of Gennaro because he could, because no matter how terrible it was that Gennaro was gone, Frankie would be home soon, and Lenny’s relief in knowing that surpassed his grief. He slept an unbroken sleep, the first since he woke to the shrill of the doorbell on Christmas night, and he didn’t wake until light framed the blinds in his bedroom. He dressed, drank several cups of strong coffee, and then called Vi and told her the number of Frankie’s room.
“Did you remember the letters?” was the first thing that Frankie asked. A breakfast tray sat on the table reaching across Frankie’s bed. The glass of juice was empty, everything else was untouched. Frankie’s hair was wet. He smelled of soap and lotion.
“Good morning. Nice to see you, too.” Trying small talk was a waste of time. It was clear that Frankie was anxious to see the pictures and hear about the letters.
Lenny pushed the table aside and sat on the edge of Frankie’s bed. He read the letters slowly, translating each word carefully. Some lines Frankie asked him to reread over and over, especially Salvatore’s words: “I miss our walks along the Ionian sea. We were young, and life was simple.”
Lenny now understood that Frankie was hoping to discover an intimacy in the letters that might suggest the great-grandfathers shared more than a platonic friendship, akin to the feelings that had existed between Gennaro and him, or at least, Lenny thought, the feelings that Frankie had for Ge
nnaro. Frankie’s hanging on every word and wanting them repeated reminded Lenny of overhearing Frankie and Gennaro’s conversation on Christmas Eve. Clearly Frankie was gay, and he didn’t just love Gennaro, he was in love with him, but now was not the time to broach the subject, and what difference would it have made? Lenny reread the letters to Frankie, agreed to write them over in English, and listened to Frankie muse aloud about the cartoline postale, especially the ones of the great-grandfathers.
Frankie fanned out the cartoline postale on the sheet before him. He lifted the occasional photo, held it up to Lenny, and commented on the likenesses between Leonardo and him and between Salvatore and Gennaro, and Lenny understood that Frankie was longing to discover something in these photos just as he was longing to discover something in the letters, something that a bullet or even death can’t erase.
Vi stood in the doorway. She appeared small and timid, not the solicitous academic who sat across from Lenny in the hospital cafeteria yesterday or the coquettish free spirit who breezed into his store some 19 years earlier. Frankie was focused on one of the photographs, and Lenny whispered to him that Vi was here. Frankie looked up, first at Lenny. His eyes shifted towards Vi. He appeared puzzled as if he were trying to understand the implications of what was about to take place.
25
The warm sepia of the cartoline postale against the harsh white of the hospital bed sheets and the emptiness of Lenny’s answers were of little comfort to Frankie. Everything — a friend visiting him or a new song on the radio — reminded Frankie that Gennaro was in the past, and as he looked from Lenny to Vi standing in the doorway of his hospital room, he thought: Here’s something else that I’ll never be able to tell Gennaro.
Gennaro was the one who had set this in motion, but he’d never know how it played out. Frankie surrendered with a weak hello — a greeting that sounded loath to accept the future. Was she older or younger or larger or smaller than Frankie had imagined her? But he hadn’t imagined her, or at least he didn’t remember. She looked like her photograph, the one on the computer, not the one on Lenny’s dresser.
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