Bella glances down at it, as though she can read my thoughts. “You’ve had an accident.”
“It’s no business of yours.” My tone is clipped and prissy. That’s the version of me Bella brings out.
“I might have something in my car.” She looks towards the lemon-colored Datsun parked close to the cabin. The paint is peeling, like a cicada trying to rid itself of its shell. She’s driven over shrubs as she parked, white foamflowers crushed into the soil.
“I don’t need your help,” I declare.
“Frankie, I—”
That voice again. I want to smack it out of her.
“Why are you . . . Who told you I was here?”
Bella looks at the ground. “Daniel Gardner came to the house.”
“The house . . . You were with Papa?”
“I told him I’d come see you. I’ve got food in the car.”
The thought of Bella coming instead of Papa—Papa who would bring the right clothes and coffee, my favorite food, even a couple of books—makes me feel hot and prickly all at once.
“You’re staying with Papa.”
“Just for a—”
“Since when?”
“Yesterday. I—”
Yesterday, the day of the funeral. The coffin, so impossibly shiny, gleaming, that it seemed wet. The pallbearers, grown men, Daniel, Alex’s friend Jason, sniffing back tears, their faces pale and twisted with grief. The dark vacancy in the earth. The cucumber sandwiches.
“Yesterday. Right. We buried him yesterday, Bella.”
She looks at her feet, at her chestnut-colored sandals, a silver ring on the top joint of her second toe. “Frankie . . .” Her voice is thin now, barely there.
“Yes?” I urge. “Frankie . . . what?”
“I . . . I’m sorry . . .”
“Sorry you weren’t there? Sorry you’re never there?” My voice is rising; I can’t control it. “Sorry you never replied to my wedding invitation? Your own sister’s . . . Sorry that Alex . . .”
I can’t finish. I shake my head, lick my dry lips. My cheeks are hot; it feels as though I’m burning.
“Frankie, I didn’t think you . . . Funerals . . .”
“Get off my step.”
She blinks. Then she steps down and out of my way.
The key slides into the lock. I hear her cough, just like the night she left. A tiny, polite cough to clear the throat. To stop tears from falling. I don’t look at her.
“Leave, Bella.”
I push open the door, slip inside, and close it so hard it slams and rattles in its frame.
* * *
Bella doesn’t leave until the light is draining from the sky. I sit on the lumpy single bed and turn the pages of The Swiss Family Robinson, barely reading a word, waiting for the sound of her engine turning over. I don’t go to the window, don’t go out to the bathroom, simply wait, restlessly, inside the dark cabin, remembering all the ways she has hurt me, let me down. I’m hot and jittery, almost breathless. Mad.
It consumes some time, recalling Bella-hurts. They can be twisted and turned and stared at from many angles. As sharp and hard as engagement-ring diamonds.
First there are the things she’s wrecked, from when she was small to when she should have known better. The handle broken off a christening mug; the hair snipped from the head of my favorite Barbie doll; her name written, sloppily, in blue crayon inside one of my books; grass-stained T-shirts; shoes stretched from her larger feet; earrings with stones missing. She couldn’t borrow something without damaging or losing it, and that made me possessive and territorial in response. She makes me ungenerous and petty, I fume, gritting my teeth. It’s her fault and she couldn’t care less.
I force myself to read about the shipwreck and the Robinson family, now ashore, finding ways to survive. I try to dive into the words, to stop thinking about my sister.
It isn’t just the broken things. You can’t trust Bella’s word. She says she’ll be somewhere and then she forgets. She is late, always late. Late and laughing as though it’s no big deal you’ve been waiting in the cold or the rain. She isn’t concerned about anyone else’s life, anyone else’s time. She’s concerned about her life, and sometimes barely that. She’s concerned about the last-minute invitation to a party; about the boy she’s kissing, the latest one, who is different from the one before but really the same, who smokes cigarettes and knows about music and drinks liquor straight from the bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Like it’s cool, like he doesn’t look like a bum.
I was glad when she left five years ago, coming back home less and less over the years. If there was ever any closeness between us, it existed only when we were children, and then our paths forked. Her path, her life so distant from mine she seemed more and more foreign as time went by. But I’m still angry with her; that’s never disappeared. I feel more angry with her here, now, than ever.
Papa would have driven to the apartment. He would have found the things I always wear: jeans and shorts, T-shirts, my green cardigan, sneakers. He would have packed the pajamas that are folded under my pillow and plucked my toothbrush from the cup in the bathroom. If there was a book open on the nightstand he’d pack that too. Papa would have remembered cotton underwear and socks in balled pairs. He’d bring my mail, and a bottle of sunscreen, just in case. He’d close the closet door on Alex’s side, always left open, all Alex’s empty shirts on hangers in a neat row. Shirts missing a body. He’d pause and breathe in and try not to cry, because he loved Alex too. Because I loved him. Because Alex had made his daughter happy.
I try not to cry now.
I will myself not to open the door and shout at my sister to leave, to stop ruining my life, because that isn’t really the truth. But it’s easier to hate her than to hate God, to hate a faceless, careless, callous Providence that puts young men into watery graves and too-young women into black grieving dresses.
There’s a rustling outside, by the door, and my body stiffens. My breath quickens, my heart races, blood and anger pumping through my veins. I hear the little cough, which instantly enrages me, as if it’s a curse, a cruel taunt.
“Leave me alone!” I want to shout, but don’t, because I want to be angry and silent.
Bella is the wild, selfless, thoughtless one. If I am cruel it’s her fault, and if I am cruel I will be elegantly cruel.
The broken things, the broken promises . . . and then there’s the worst thing.
I was watching. I saw it all. On the edge of a party, Cousin Cristina’s engagement party, in the half light, much like the light outside now. Such a big gathering of people: Caputos almost as far as the eye could see, even some of Mama’s family; Sicilians and Calabresi and those who simply called themselves American; dark heads and loose mouths, arguing in the way that only people who truly love one another can. Two people together could go unnoticed in this kind of crowd, this kind of noise. Two people talking over paper plates, plastic forks in hand. Bella’s lips as red as blood, her long hair loose over her shoulders, her free hand jammed under her thigh, her eyes doe-wide. Her teenage face forever imprinted in my mind as she leans in . . .
“Frankie?”
Her voice comes to me through the hinges of the door. All my muscles tense.
“Frankie?”
I wait. The door is unlocked. If she opens it, I will shout. I will throw my book at her head and scream all the things I’ve kept inside for all these years. All the tarry, poisonous things, the truth of it. I’ll scream until I run out of voice. Till there is nothing left in me.
I stare at the door handle as though willing her in. Just you try it.
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t call my name again, doesn’t turn the handle. There’s the shhh shhh of cardboard moving against the front step, and her exhaling, and the crunching over stones and leaves to get to the car. I hear the car door open and close again, and finally, finally, the engine turning over.
Only when the sound of the car has completely disappeared do I get up an
d open the door. There, in the sunset, is a large fruit box. I see the tops of cans, smell coffee, see my pajamas folded on top of a neat pile of clothes.
* * *
I lift the box into the cabin and sort through the contents. T-shirts and jeans, a pair of shoes, a sweater. Mail that looks like bills, which I ignore. Pink- and blue-lidded Tupperware containers. Arancini, Uncle Mario’s homemade salami, cotolette in aluminum foil, a bag of apples, sliced provolone, another bag holding half a loaf. Leftovers from the wake. No cucumber sandwiches. Aunty Rosa’s cannoli. My silver coffeepot and grinds. Everything arranged carefully in the big box, like a puzzle. Now, with the contents littered all over the bed, it looks like Bella’s bed did at Christmas. I always pulled each present from my stocking slowly, and arranged them in ordered piles, making the anticipation last as long as possible. And, if I’m being honest, to aggravate my sister. Her frustration at my neatness, my snail-slow pace, was a gift in itself.
I change into jeans and a T-shirt, clean underwear and socks. It’s a relief to be out of the black dress, which I ball up and shove into the top shelf of the closet. I put the rest of the clothes and the sneakers in the closet next to the man boots, and the food and coffeepot on the counter by the sink. I leave the mail in the box. There is no toothbrush or toothpaste. I run my tongue over my teeth; they feel slick and dirty. I can’t remember a time I went longer than twelve hours without brushing my teeth.
I wash my hands, and sit at the tiny table, and bite into the crust of a lukewarm arancino, wondering which relative made them. The rice is sticky and the filling salty and cheesy. I lick my fingertips, then fold slices of provolone into my mouth. This is Papa and Aunty food. Comfort food.
Afterwards, I find a flashlight that doubles as a hanging lamp and hook it up so the cabin has some light as the sun vanishes, swallowed by the forest. Soon the night noises will start. Owls; creatures hunting for food to feed their furred or feathered families. I press down firmly on the Tupperware lids and put them in a plastic bag, the handles of which I knot together.
I curl up in bed with the book, knees to my chest and stomach full. As a child I read practically anything—classified ads, recipes on the backs of food packets, the bits of old Italian newspapers that lined drawers. I couldn’t understand all the words but I traced my finger along the fat, rolling vowels, tasting out the sounds in whispers. I have always been in love with words. My earliest memory is of Mama reading me stories, stumbling over the English that sounded awkward and glassy from her mouth, her kisses pressed into my hair. I have only a handful of memories of her, and those are the most precious. Quiet times, full of love and words.
Elizabeth, the mother in The Swiss Family Robinson, reminds me of the aunties. Frank and resourceful, armed with cooking skills to transform any tropical island animal into dinner. Adversity does not dissuade her.
As the darkness bears in, and the owls start to call, as though mourning, I put down the book. I reach up to switch off the flashlight and lie awake in my clothes. That’s when my body starts to yearn. I am learning that grief can feel a lot like hunger. Aching and dizzying.
Growing up in an Italian home I wasn’t often hungry. Perhaps Italians know that hunger feels too much like sadness. They know that to love someone, to make them happy, means ensuring they are fed. Alex used to groan about how much food got eaten at our family dinners. He got heartburn from the thick, fatty salami and soft, warm polpette. He didn’t understand our fawning over Nonna’s secret pasta al forno recipe, stuffed with meatballs, cheese, pasta, and eggs. He couldn’t believe we ate octopus and rabbit and, sometimes, mainly the older family members, pigs’ feet. We fed him full of artichokes, macaroni, caponata made with capsicums and cauliflower and tomatoes while the cousins talked of breakfasts in Sicily—chocolate granita or gelato stuffed into brioche rolls. After dinner, Papa urged Alex to join him and the uncles for an affogato, vanilla ice cream with black-as-spades espresso poured over the top. Alex always gave me a pleading look as he went to join them. Too much food! Too much love was what he really meant. He wasn’t used to it. His family was more reserved, sometimes seeming a little ashamed of strong emotion, of crying and cuddles and loud laughter. That was foreign to me. Our family was the opposite—love poured out and over, in all its various forms. As food, or criticism, or the tears Aunty Rosa shed as if on cue. Love in the tugging of a brush through your hair, Aunty Connie’s spit on a tissue rubbed against your cheeks, hands thrown up when you walk into the room, tight embraces, advice you never asked for. However it comes, it comes—as with the bowls of pasta—in abundance. Lashings and lashings of it.
I long for Alex as if I am starving. I wish for my life as it was. Without confusion and guilt and grief. I ache past the point of mild discomfort, past the point of annoyance.
Often, these strange days, I find myself making prayers. They start out with Please, God and never seem to finish. Please is all I can ask for, because the rest is too hard. Bring him back. Undo it. Make it right. Make it normal again. These are the impossible things that cannot be prayed for. There is no saint for this. Not like when Aunty Connie can’t find her purse and appeals to Saint Anthony. Not like when we take a long trip in the car and Papa whispers a Hail Mary, his fingers resting on the Saint Christopher medallion around his neck. There is no saint for this and no prayer for this. Instead, just Please . . . please . . . please. I close my eyes and don’t move a single muscle while I make my impossible request, over and over and over. As if being still and quiet and keeping my eyes shut might make it possible.
Like hunger, the grief takes up my entire mind and fills my stomach and my heart with . . . nothing. I am drowning in nothing. In emptiness. In loneliness. I scramble through the deep forest darkness to find the tied plastic bag, and search out the edge of one of Aunty Rosa’s precious, pastel Tupperware containers. I crack open the lid and feel the sugar-dusted tubes of cannoli with the tips of my fingers. I lift one to my mouth, press my teeth down through the crisp crust to the soft sweet ricotta sprinkled with chopped pistachio nuts. The cannoli tastes like home. But it doesn’t make it all better.
“I loved him,” I want to say. “And he loved me. He did. I know it.”
I just want it to be how it was. Simple. Simple and unbroken.
* * *
After a trip to the outhouse, I stand in front of the sink and run a wet cloth over my body. I long for a bath, though it’s not cold.
I daydreamed about the big claw-footed bath we would get when we had our own house. Four bedrooms—enough for us, two kids, and a study. A bathtub I could sink into. Deep enough and long enough to hold both of us. Alex loved being in any kind of water. He was a fish, his mother told me once, uncharacteristically wistful after three gin and tonics.
After prom, Alex and I had a bath together.
I told Papa I was staying at Angela’s, and Alex told his mom that his mate Bobby was having a bunch of guys over. His story was at least partly true. We pooled our money and booked a motel. We’d talked about it for months. I barely remember the prom because I was already thinking about the motel and staying with Alex for the whole night without having to say good-bye. I knew we would make love that night. We’d talked about that too. A girl in my class, Janet Longhurst, told me she’d lost her virginity at a house party to a college boy. Who wants to lose their virginity like that? To some college boy you’ll never see again. I didn’t want that. I wanted it to be with Alex, for it to be sweet and honest and real. I wanted it to be with Alex for the rest of my life. Every minute of that long prom, I thought about waking up in his arms. And when he looked at me like he could see through my prom dress it sent electric waves up and down my spine.
We left the prom hand in hand, ignoring the teasing from his friends. Someone had tied cans to the back of his dad’s car, like we were a bride and groom. I got out a mile down the road, in my long blue dress and heels, and untied them. Cars drove by honking, with guys hanging out the windows, whistling and carrying on. Alex r
aised his middle finger out the driver’s window, but he was grinning; we both were.
When we checked in to the motel he put on a deep voice for the receptionist. I was clinging on to his hand so tight I thought I might scream.
Alex unlocked the door to the room and let me go in first. The floor was carpeted in plush navy, and the bed was covered in a worn, floral bedspread that made Alex laugh out loud. “Grandma did the decor.”
I pulled the blinds down and rushed into his arms, desperate for his lips on mine. We kissed until my face hurt.
On that navy carpet, my dress twisted up around my hips, Alex sat back off of me, a little breathless. “Wait.”
“Wait?”
“I got something.” He reached over to the backpack he’d brought in from the car, unzipped the front pocket. Tea-light candles tumbled out. He retrieved a couple of handfuls more, then dug around until he found a black lighter. He flicked it on and raised his eyebrows at me. “Come with me.”
I pulled my dress down, stood, and followed him into the bathroom. The light was one of those long fluorescent bulbs. There was a bathtub with a showerhead over it, and a small sink with a mirror. I noticed my lipstick was smeared around my mouth, and the pimple on my forehead that I’d smothered with concealer was poking through in a raised bump. I wiped the lipstick off with the back of my hand before Alex snapped off the light. He lit the candles one by one, arranging them around the tub. I bundled up the shower curtain—floral again, with gray mold stains at the bottom—and slung it over the curtain rail before turning on the bath taps.
The candle flames flickered over the water filling the tub, and I no longer noticed the worn linoleum or the chipped tiles. It was just Alex and me, the running water and dozens of little lights, dancing on their wicks.
I turned off the taps while Alex lit the last candle and placed it on the edge of the sink. We were surrounded. Then he came over to me, so close I could feel his breath against my cheek.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hey.” My voice came out deep and soft.
Season of Salt and Honey Page 4
