Across the Table

by Linda Cardillo

  “—he looks like Al Jr.” Al finished my sentence in a whisper.

  “We can’t see him as a replacement, a substitute. We need to love him for himself.” I said it out loud to remind both of us.

  “Love him? How can you do this, Rose?”

  “It’s not like you kept a woman on the side for years, Al, taking away from me and the family. It was one night. And it made me mad as hell, don’t be mistaken. But that child is a consequence of that one night. And I’ve never known you to walk away from the consequences of what you do.”

  “I won’t walk away. But I can’t ask you to take this on.”

  “You’re not asking. I’m taking it on because I see a child who needs to be fed and loved and guided, and I think I’ve got a good track record in that department. Particularly with boys.”

  “You don’t have to do this. We could send a check every month, make sure he gets an education.”

  “Living with a twenty-year-old cousin in a city that’s all glitz and booze and fast women? That’s like asking Mike to raise a child right now. We can do this, Al. Together.”

  He leaned toward me and stroked my face.

  “You’re remarkable, Rose.”

  “So are you, Al.”

  We walked back to the hotel arm in arm, working out how much to tell the kids about who Manny was and what we intended to do. In the end, we decided it was too soon to tell them anything at all. We asked Mike to take Toni out to eat and didn’t include them at dinner with Dom and Manny and Antonio. The next afternoon, Al asked Dom to help us find a local lawyer.

  By the time we flew back to Boston we’d started the paperwork to adopt Manny and get him citizenship papers. Once his adoption was final we’d bring him home. We thought that would give us a chance to prepare the kids and the rest of the family.

  We decided that no one, not even Mike and Toni, needed to know that Al was Manny’s father. We told everyone we’d heard about some Cuban orphans through Al’s priest friend in Miami. It wasn’t too much of a lie, since it was through Dom that Antonio had been able to connect with Al. We said to the family that although Mike and Toni were almost grown, we weren’t quite ready to give up taking care of kids.

  A few eyebrows went up, but most of my women friends understood, especially those who’d recently watched their youngest get married and move out. I didn’t want anybody to think I was a saint and put me on a pedestal or, worse, think I was crazy and pathetic for taking my husband’s illegitimate child into my home. I wanted them to believe that I was adopting a child to fill my own need as well as the child’s. And I was.

  In March, Al and I drove back to Miami to complete the adoption and bring Manny home. When we left Miami he called us Mr. and Mrs. Dante and sat silently in the backseat hunched against the door and staring out the window. We took our time getting back, stopping along the way at South of the Border. Manny and Al played Skee-Ball and tried to grab a stuffed animal with one of those claws. We ate too many fried onions, had our picture taken with huge sombreros on our heads and picked up some fireworks to save for the Fourth of July.

  By the time we got to Baltimore, Manny and I had switched places in the car. He sat in front beside Al, joking with him and playing with the radio. When we stopped to eat, Al said, “Manny, we’re your family now, your parents. Strangers you call Mr. and Mrs., but your parents are Mom and Dad.”

  I didn’t think it would be difficult for Manny to call Al Dad. After all, he’d been looking for his father ever since he’d arrived in Miami. But I was a different story. I was pretty sure his memories of his mother were strong enough that he’d somehow feel he’d be dishonoring her if he called me Mom.

  “You can call me Rose, honey, if it’s too hard to say Mom. I understand.”

  “I never called my mother Mom,” he said. “She was Mami. Maybe I could call you Mama Rose.”

  And that is who I became.

  Good Friday

  ONCE BACK IN BOSTON we got Manny settled into seventh grade at St. John’s and talked to Father Collins at BC High about enrolling him there for high school when the time came. We wanted him to have the same advantages his older brothers had been given. But we also had the same expectations. He had chores in the restaurant, bussing tables at dinner after he’d done his homework. We discovered he liked baseball, and Mike took him to opening day at Fenway to see the Red Sox play the Yankees, and then found him a Little League team in the neighborhood. Mike even offered to coach a summer team when he finished at Holy Cross.

  Both Mike and Toni were more than great about our taking Manny into our family. Both of them got a kick out of having a little brother. And both of them were such do-gooders, always lecturing us about “social justice,” that they felt some of their ideas had finally rubbed off on us. They were proud of us. We’d surprised them, they said, by doing something “cool.”

  “Maybe we should tell Toni and Mike the truth,” I said to Al one night soon after we’d gotten back. “I worry about them finding out some other way. And I think it’s hard on Manny to ask him to keep a secret like this when he’s so young.”

  “What if the kids turn on me, lose respect for me, because of this? Especially Toni. You’ve had fourteen years. Remember how you felt when you first found out? I thought you’d never forgive me. Let them get used to Manny before we tell them he really is their brother.”

  I understood Al’s fear. He’d given so much to our kids. But more than their respect, I think he feared losing their love.

  “They’ll be angrier that we lied to them than that you’re taking care of your own son,” I countered. “They’re also smart, Al. If you and I saw the resemblance the moment we laid eyes on Manny, how long do you suppose it’ll take them to wonder why he looks so much like Al Jr.?” I knew I was pushing him, but I was listening to my heart on this one, just as I had that day at the beach.

  “Let me think about it.”

  It took a few more weeks of my gently bringing it up, usually late at night when we were getting ready for bed and I had his undivided attention. Manny was starting to fill out on my cooking and I predicted a growth spurt as I watched him wolf down plates of baked ziti and linguine with stuffed squid. I dug out some of my recipes from Trinidad, thinking I might hit on a few dishes that were similar to what Manny had grown up with in Cuba. That gesture, plus the attention he was getting from Toni, who joked with him and helped him with his English homework and sat on the bleachers during his baseball games, made him seem more comfortable in his own skin.

  He was becoming such a part of us that we’d begun to forget he hadn’t always been a member of the family. For me, his taking his place at our table was a blessing, a miracle filling me up.

  “Did you see the kids tonight after closing, working together to clean up? They were laughing and fooling around as if they’d being doing it forever. Toni’s not going to turn her back on you, Al, for bringing Manny into the family.”

  “Okay, I hear you. How do you want to do this? Talk to them together when Mike comes home for Easter?”

  I put my arms around him and kissed him. “That’s a great idea.”

  On Good Friday we always closed the restaurant. Papa was going to a fish fry at the St. Anthony Society after the Stations of the Cross, so that’s when we decided to sit down with the kids to explain why we’d adopted Manny. They’d have a couple of days to absorb what we expected would be a bombshell before the rest of the family descended upon us for Easter Sunday.

  I made a simple meal: filet of sole baked with garlic, parsley and bread crumbs and an artichoke-heart pie made with mozzarella and Bisquick. Toni sliced some tomatoes and Bermuda onions and I sent Manny down the street to pick up a loaf of Campobasso bread.

  Mike caught the early bus from Worcester and arrived just as we were setting the table.

  When everybody was seated, I rested my hand on Al’s.

  “Daddy and I want to talk to you all about something important, something that needs to stay in this h
ouse.”

  Toni and Mike looked across the table at each other.

  “What’s wrong? Is one of you sick?” Toni’s voice was agitated. She’d always been the worrier in the family.

  “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just something we want to keep in the family.”

  Everyone waited. I squeezed Al’s hand. This had to be his show, not mine. He cleared his throat.

  “A long time ago, I made a mistake and hurt your mother. She had the goodness to forgive me then, and we thought we’d put it behind us.”

  Even with that limited information, I could see the understanding of what his father meant spread across Mike’s face. I prayed he’d keep his mouth shut and let Al finish.

  “We found out this winter that my mistake had greater consequences than the pain I caused your mother. The woman I’d been with—yes, Toni, that’s what I’m talking about—had a child. My child. I didn’t know that till Father Dom told me in Miami.”

  Al stopped for a minute. He’d kept his eyes down and his voice was almost a whisper.

  Toni started to speak, but Al held up his hand.

  “Not only did I find out I had a child, a son,” he went on. “I also learned that he’d lost his mother. He was an orphan.”

  I put my arm around Manny, who was sitting next to me, as Toni and Mike understood what Al was telling them.

  “Your mother, God bless her, knew before I did what we needed to do for this boy, and that’s why we adopted him. We want you to know that Manny isn’t just your adopted brother. He’s your brother. I’m his father.”

  The table was silent.

  Toni’s face crumpled as she tried to suppress tears. I could read her like a book even though she thought I didn’t understand her, and I knew she was fighting back disbelief that her daddy could have done what he’d just described. I held my breath, praying that she’d weigh the evidence of all that she knew of her father’s goodness against this one fall from grace, as I had done. But she couldn’t see beyond the betrayal. She threw down her napkin, pushed back her chair and bolted from the room. We heard her door slam.

  Mike turned to Manny, who was shaken by Toni’s departure.

  “Hey, squirt. I knew there was a reason you were such a good athlete! Welcome again to the family.” And he high-fived him.

  “Do you want me to talk to her?” I asked Al.

  “No. I’ve got to do it myself. I was afraid of this.” He stood from the table, squeezing Manny’s shoulder as he left the room. He was not a happy man.

  “I’m sorry, Mama Rose. I shouldn’t have come to Boston.”

  “No, honey. You don’t have to say you’re sorry. You belong here. Toni knows that. She just needs time to forgive her dad for not being perfect.”

  Nobody seemed interested in eating anymore. It was as though everything had been sucked out of the room—appetite, oxygen, conversation. I got up and began clearing the table, and Mike and Manny went into busboy mode, whisking all the dishes into the kitchen in record time. We all stayed busy, the boys rinsing and loading the dishwasher, me putting leftovers away.

  At least Toni hadn’t locked her door and had let Al in. I was afraid she was so hurt and angry that she’d refuse to speak to him. But from the low murmur coming from behind her door, I could tell she’d allowed him to say what he needed to say to her.

  “Let’s watch TV.” Mike pulled Manny into the living room when the kitchen was back in order. I was relieved that Mike wasn’t leaving to have a beer with his buddies the way he usually did on a Friday evening when he was home from Holy Cross. He seemed to understand that we needed to circle the wagons and pull ourselves together that night.

  I went and sat with the boys while they watched The Wild, Wild West, but I was too distracted to follow the show. Had I been wrong? Should we have protected Toni with our lies? And what was going through Mike’s head? He’d been kind to reach out to Manny, who was the innocent in all this, but would he do the same for his father?

  My heart ached for Al, trying to do right by all his kids. And I worried that I had urged him to be honest. Maybe there were good reasons the old generation had handled things like this by sweeping everything under the rug, hiding the truth.

  My head was pounding by the time Al came out of Toni’s room. I got up and met him in the kitchen.

  “How’d it go?” I bit my lip.

  “She’s pretty angry. I asked her if she would’ve wanted us to abandon Manny when we found out about him. And she said, no, she was glad we’d brought him home and into the family. So I asked her, should we have continued to lie about who he was, and again, she said no, that she needed to know he was really her brother. She said sometimes she sees flickers of Al Jr. in his eyes and his smile, and now she knows why.”

  “Those are all positive things.”

  “Yeah. But her disappointment in me, that’s what I can’t shake. ‘How could you, Daddy?’ is what she kept saying to me. I’m no longer my little girl’s hero. I’m the bad guy. And I gotta tell you, Rose, it’s killing me.”

  “Give her time, Al. Just like you gave me. She’s too young to understand that everybody makes mistakes in their lives, does things they regret. She’ll come to understand that what you’re trying to do now is make it right again, not make it worse. What’s she doing now?”

  “She said she wants to be left alone. But I told her Manny could use a hug from her, and soon.”

  That’s when we heard her door open and her footsteps go down the hall. I looked through the dining room and saw her slip down to the floor where Manny was sitting and throw her arms around him.

  I thought that would be it, a quick squeeze and then back to her hiding place. But she stuck around and watched the rest of the show with her brothers.

  I made Al and me cups of black coffee and put a shot of anisette and a strip of lemon peel in them.

  “I’m proud of you, Al. You did a hard thing today, a brave thing. It’s the end of innocence for Toni, but maybe that’s not so bad. Someday she’s going to look back on today and realize how important it was. And she’s going to be grateful to you for telling her yourself. I’m glad she didn’t hear it from some mean-spirited person who’d only be doing it to hurt our family.”

  “You’re a dreamer, Rose. But I agree—in the long run, it was the right thing to do. But, man, it hurts like hell to see that look in her eyes. I wish I could rewind my life and do it over again.”

  “We all do, Al. But there’s one thing I wouldn’t change even if I got to relive my life.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Marrying you.”

  After that Easter, we settled into the ups and downs of family life with three kids. Manny, after his honeymoon period of welcome to the family, got himself into a few scrapes that required some strong words. He was a little too quick to use his fists on the playground and more than once came home with a bloody nose and a note from Reverend Mother—not the same one who’d been head of the school when Al Jr. was there, thank God.

  We had two graduations that spring, Toni’s from Sacred Heart and Mike’s from Holy Cross. Manny got his first suit; he’d grown four inches since January. Toni was accepted into art schools in Portland, Maine, and Boston, and we told her we wanted her to stay in Boston and live at home. I didn’t think she was ready to be on her own, especially in Boston in the late 1960s, where every time you turned around there was another demonstration against the war or, worse yet, a love-in in Franklin Park with girls dancing around wearing flowers in their ratty hair and next to nothing on while everyone smoked pot. And with Toni at art school, it was going to be hard enough for her to hold on to the way she’d been brought up without also having to fend off the pressures and temptations that come with living on your own. I’d already had too many of my cousins tell me about the birth control pills they’d found in their daughters’ underwear drawers when they were putting laundry away. Maybe that was better than finding out your daughter was pregnant, but if you ask me, it was the fear o
f getting pregnant that kept most of my generation on the straight and narrow. Toni was still an innocent, too inexperienced and a prime target for getting hurt by the kind of freedom that was screaming at her from every corner and every television set.

  She didn’t like our decision one bit and cried and pleaded with us to let her rent an apartment down by the Museum School on Huntington Avenue. But we stood firm and lived through the silent treatment for a few weeks until she realized what a good deal she had—her own room, great food that she didn’t have to shop for or cook and parents who thought she was doing wonderful work.

  Mike came home from Worcester after graduation and got a job at the New England Merchants Bank. When we gathered for Thanksgiving that year we were a full house again. I added black beans and rice to the menu and learned how to make a mole sauce for the turkey.

  ROSE

  1972–80

  The Wedding

  I SHOULD’VE BEEN a better judge of Bobby Templeton when I first met him. It wasn’t at our home, where he should’ve come to meet us when he started going out with Toni. Instead, they’d meet at her art studio after school. I didn’t even know about him until I ran into the two of them downtown. They were holding hands. After all my worries about her not having any experience with men, I was too thrilled to see she had a boyfriend. I just wished she’d felt comfortable enough to introduce him to us at home.

  They were coming up out of the Park Street T station as I was on my way to go shopping.

  “Hey, Mom! We’re headed to Mike’s Pastry to pick up some cannoli. This is Bobby. Bobby, my mother, Rose Dante.”

  He let go of Toni long enough to shake my hand.