“I’ll do it part of the time,” Gemma’s mother conceded reluctantly.
“Me, too,” said Aunt Millie, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth. “And so will Betty Anne.”
“Let’s nail this down,” Michael insisted. “Because if we’re going to do this, we have to start right away. Today.”
Gemma’s mother heaved a world-weary sigh. “I can watch her during the day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”
“I’ll do Thursday and Friday,” Aunt Millie offered.
“What about weekends?”
The room went silent.
Gemma ran through her own schedule in her head. “I can do Sundays,” she offered tentatively.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” a voice piped up. It belonged to her cousin Sharmaine, Paulie’s sister. Gemma and Sharmaine had never gotten along. Once Gemma revealed she was a witch, she became persona non grata to the holier-than-thou Sharmaine, who, ironically, was rumored to be banging her parish priest on a regular basis.
“What’s your beef?” Michael asked politely.
“You know what my beef is,” Sharmaine sniffed, staring disdainfully at Gemma. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea for her to spend too much time around Nonna. That witch crap might upset her.”
Gemma went to open her mouth but a quick look from Michael told her that, as family facilitator, he preferred to handle it. That was fine with Gemma.
“Are you saying you’ll watch Nonna on Sundays, Sharmaine?” Michael asked.
“I can’t,” Sharmaine said coolly. “I’m busy.”
“Doing what?” Anthony chortled. “Letting Father Flynn slip you his special communion wafer?”
“Bite my ass, Anthony,” Sharmaine snapped.
“Just one bite?” Anthony lobbed back. “Two or three might help make it smaller.”
“You sonofa—”
“Stop!” Gemma shouted. Sometimes she wondered why she still gave a damn about being accepted in her family, especially when they behaved like sniping, backbiting lunatics. She knew it happened in lots of families, but hers seemed to have elevated it to an art. “Can we please stop tearing each other to pieces and focus on the problem at hand?” Her family’s gaze bordered on the mutinous, but she’d made her point. She turned to Michael. “You were saying?”
“You sure you can be at Nonna’s on Sundays?”
Gemma nodded. “Yes. I can do all day Sunday and Sunday night, and probably Monday and Wednesday nights as well. I just need to check with my part-timer.”
Michael looked around the room, his gaze pointedly resting on Sharmaine. “Can anyone else help out?”
Sharmaine suddenly became fascinated by her own feet.
“If Connie does some, I do some, and Gemma does some, Betty Anne can do the rest,” Aunt Millie said. “She doesn’t have a job.”
“She’ll kill you if it means missing bingo,” Gemma’s mother pointed out.
“Let her try,” Millie growled.
Gemma thought the matter settled, but Michael’s uneasy expression said otherwise. “Are you sure about this?” he asked her again, “With the exception of Paulie, everyone here lives in Brooklyn. You sure you don’t mind jack-assing out from the city?”
“It’s not a problem,” Gemma assured him. “Besides,” she added with a hint of self-deprecation, “I have no life anyway.”
“Plus broomsticks are faster than public transportation,” Anthony kidded her under his breath, winking as he nudged her in the ribs.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Gemma murmured back.
“An idiot who gives you free cannolis all the time, so watch it.”
“That settles it, then,” Michael said. “Nonna will be watched at home by Aunt Connie, Aunt Millie, Aunt Betty Anne, and Gemma.”
“Depending upon what shifts I’m working, I can be a backup person,” Angie offered.
“Me, too,” Theresa put in.
“We’ve got it covered then,” Michael said, looking relieved. “Meeting over. Everyone mangia.”
———
Moving toward the buffet table where Anthony had set up steaming trays of lasagna, Gemma was suddenly hit with a profound sense of exhaustion. Though the family meeting had lasted less than an hour, the emotional pitch had left her drained. Or maybe she was feeling drained by the prospect of shuttling back and forth between Manhattan and Bensonhurst? She didn’t doubt she could help to take care of her grandmother while still running her store, nor was she having second thoughts. She was a little worried about where all her energy would come from.
She had just scooped out a helping of lasagna when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned. Her mother was there.
“Hi, Ma,” she said, instinctively tensing. Her reaction to her mother had become Pavlovian by now, her body bracing for rejection and stress. “What’s up?”
“Thank you for offering to help take care of your grandmother,” she said stiffly.
“I love Nonna. You know that.”
“Yes, well, it’s very nice of you,” her mother continued, not quite looking at her. With nothing more to say, she moved to join Aunt Millie at a nearby table. Gemma stared after her, touched. Her mother had never been one for compliments, even before they were estranged. For her to say something nice was monumental. Elated, Gemma turned back to the buffet table. Perhaps something positive would come out of Nonna’s illness. She certainly hoped so.
———
“Let me just say one thing: You’re out of your fucking mind.”
Frankie’s voice was so loud that Gemma sank down in her seat as the other patrons in the diner turned to look at them. It was bad enough Frankie had come strolling through the door with a neck brace on, drawing attention to herself. Did she have to bellow on top of it?
“Keep it down, will you, please?”
“How on earth are you going to run your store and help take care of your grandmother?”
“I can do it.”
“How? No wait, let me guess: Your magickal powers enable you to practice bilocation.”
“I wish.”
“Seriously, Gem, how are you going to manage this? You’ll be so exhausted you won’t have time for a life.”
“What life do I have now?”
“That’s not the point,” Frankie insisted. “You and I both know why you offered to do this.”
Gemma shifted uneasily. “Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because you want to get back in your mother’s good graces.”
Gemma took a sip of coffee. “That’s part of it.” There was no denying it: She had come to the same realization a few days before, sitting at her kitchen table loading her new insane schedule on to her Palm Pilot, envisioning months, maybe even years, of sheer bloody exhaustion. Then it hit her: Part of her reason for doing it was because maybe—just maybe—it would somehow help redeem her in the eyes of her family, especially her mother.
“You don’t understand. My mother came up to me after the meeting and actually thanked me for offering to help. That’s major, Frankie.”
“No, it’s sad. I hate seeing you scraping and bowing when Queen Connie decides to throw you a few crumbs.”
“Better crumbs than nothing.” She appreciated Frankie’s protectiveness toward her, but in this case, Frankie was missing the point. Her mother had to start somewhere. One crumb, however miniscule, was a step in the right direction.
Frankie frowned. “I still think you’re nuts to take this on.”
“I love my grandmother, Frankie,” Gemma replied softly. “I want to spend as much time with her as possible before”—she began choking up“—she doesn’t know who I am anymore.”
“Oh, Gem.” Digging into the Beatles lunchbox she used as a purse, Frankie pulled out a minipack of tissues, handing them across the table. “That’s really sweet.”
“I guess.” Gemma dabbed at her eyes.
“No, it is. Nonna’s lucky to have you. Really.”
“Please shut up before you make me sob,” Gemma joked, but she wasn’t kidding. One more tender word about how nice she was being to her Nonna and the waterworks would commence in full. That would really endear them to the surrounding diners.
Since Frankie rarely beat around the bush, Gemma thought she’d return the favor. “What happened to your neck?”
“I think I ruptured a disk.”
“How?”
“Playing frisbee with Alice Cooper.”
“Why don’t you go to a doctor and find out for sure?”
Frankie mumbled something about insurance, and Gemma let it go. How did people at the radio station, people who might not know and love Frankie the way she did, react to this never-ending parade of afflictions and illnesses? “Don’t you worry about being perceived as sickly by your bosses?” Gemma asked. “Isn’t it a liability?”
“It’s not my fault my immune system is suppressed and I’m unlucky,” Frankie replied indignantly. “Besides, I rarely ever miss work. Ever. As long as Lady Midnight sounds great behind the mike, who cares if her body is falling apart?”
But it’s not. You just think it is. Or want it to be. Or something.
“Speaking of Lady Midnight, did you ever hear from Uther?” Gemma asked.
She couldn’t believe it: Frankie, who’d probably spent the night with more rock stars than Pamela des Barres, looked almost bashful. “I did.”
“And—?”
“We’re going out for a goblet of mead on Saturday night.”
“That’s great!” She was happy for Frankie. For Uther, too. Maybe this would help Frankie get over her loser ex-husband. “Your neck should be okay by then, right?”
“I hope so.” Unable to move just her head because of the brace, Frankie craned her entire torso around, looking for Stavros. “Where’s the man with the coffeepot when you need him?”
“I’m sure he’ll be along in a minute.”
“Speaking of men,” Frankie said as she stiffly turned back to face Gemma, “have you run into Sean?”
“No, thank God. I’m sure he and Barbie have been holed up in his apartment having fun.”
‘Torturing ourselves again, are we?“
“Not torture,” Gemma replied calmly. “Just fact.”
She was grateful when Stavros interrupted them, making a big fuss out of Frankie’s injury and giving them a blow-by-blow account of his recent hernia operation. Sean Kennealy wasn’t a subject on which she wanted to dwell.
———
This time, Sean thought, crawling on his hands and knees through smoke so thick he couldn’t make out his own hand in front of him, I am not going to leave anyone behind. Having already checked one bedroom and finding no one, he’d moved on to the next, and the next, always with the same feverish tape loop running through his brain: Check the closet. Check under the bed. Check the furniture. Check everywhere you have to.
Swinging his ax in front of him, he hit something solid, and felt for it. Bed. Raising himself up on his knees, he patted the top of the mattress. Empty. Move on.
Feeling his way, he came to another door, and felt for the handle. It seemed stuck. Jostling it, he heard the pierc-ing warning bell go off on his breathing pack. He had five minutes of air left and then he’d have to get the hell out. Shit. He gave the door handle one good turn, and it seemed to do the trick. Proud of his determination, he flung the door open wide.
The boy stood smiling at him, glowing green in the jungle of his mother’s wardrobe. “Why didn’t you find me last time?” he asked Sean. Sean scooped him up into his arms and started crawling toward the bedroom door. But just as he reached it, the door slammed shut in his face. Then he woke up.
———
“Sean?”
Sean looked up from his dad’s La-Z-Boy to see his mother shuffling into the living room. She’d been complaining about not seeing enough of him, so he’d decided to go home to Oceanside for the weekend. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Go back to bed. It’s the middle of the night.”
“I could say the same to you,” she pointed out. “What’s going on? I heard you rattling around in the kitchen before.”
“I was just getting some milk. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was awake anyway,” his mother yawned, gathering the folds of her bathrobe around her as she sat down on the couch.
“Oh, yeah?” Sean found it amusing they were both up treading the boards at 3 a.m. He’d forgotten his mother was an insomniac. He had strong childhood memories of waking up to pee in the middle of the night and there she’d be in the living room, staring into the flickering blue light of the TV screen. “What’s eating you?”
“Life,” his mother replied.
Sean chuckled. “You and me both.”
“Everything okay with you and Gemma?”
“Great,” Sean lied. He didn’t want to have this discussion with his mother at three in the morning.
“I like her,” his mother said thoughtfully. “She’s very genuine, down to earth. Pretty, too.”
Sean forced himself to smile. “I’ll tell her you said so.”
His mother reached out, putting a hand on his knee. “You sure you’re all right? You forget: I’m a mother, which means I’ve got a built-in bullshit detector. What’s going on?”
Sean shrugged. “Just, you know”—he coughed nervously as the feeling of his throat closing up suddenly seized him, and he realized he might cry—“work stuff. Bad dreams about work.”
His mother reached out to touch his cheek. “Talk to me, honey. C’mon.”
“Uh, no, I really can’t.”
“Sean—”
“I almost let a kid die, Mom,” he blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. “There was a fire and I fucked up and I almost let a kid die.” He felt haunted as he stared into his mother’s eyes. “Ever since then I can’t stop thinking about him. I see him everywhere.”
“Oh, Seany.” His mother gathered him up into her arms as if he were still her little boy. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Sean replied hoarsely. “Part of my job is to be thorough and I failed, I failed that little boy—” He broke off, sobs shaking his shoulders as he covered his face with his hands. “Oh, Christ.”
It felt good to cry. What was the word? Cathartic. Though a rogue thought kept appearing as his mother soothed him and held him tight: I wish it was Gemma I was talking to. I wish it was Gemma holding me tight. Fuck, I miss her.
Eventually, he pulled himself together and pulled away.
“Sorry about that,” he said gruffly, embarrassed at having lost control.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What you’re experiencing is very, very common. Your father used to react the same way.”
“Yeah?” It made him feel a little better to hear that.
“Absolutely.”
He pressed his fingertips against his eye sockets. “I’m so tired. But I’m afraid if I go back to sleep…”
“I think you might need to talk to someone about this,” his mother suggested, sounding like she was walking on eggshells.
“Yeah, I know,” Sean admitted miserably. “But it’s not my way, you know, talking things to death.”
“But this is affecting your life, Sean.”
“I know.” Guilt descended on him as his mind flashed back to the last time he’d seen Gemma. She’d said the same thing, and he’d cut her off at the knees. Now he saw that she wasn’t pushing, wasn’t prying, wasn’t trying to make him into something he wasn’t. Like his mother, she simply saw someone she loved in pain and wanted to do whatever she could to alleviate it. What a clueless jerk he was.
“They have therapists at the fire department now,” his mother continued carefully. “Maybe you should check it out.”
“I might, Ma. Thanks.”
Much to his chagrin, he found himself still dogged by embarrassment. The guys at the house kept their mouths shut when they needed help. Was he
being weak because he was unable to suck it up and take it “like a man”? Then he asked himself, where had that attitude gotten his father? He remembered the awful, stomach-churning feeling of coming home from school not knowing what mood his father would be in, and he knew he had to talk this out no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Exhaustion suddenly swallowed him up, making him feel muzzy-headed.
He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told his mother he had qualms about going back to sleep. But now that he’d spilled his guts, maybe sleep would come, and he could rest. He appreciated that she’d listened to him and hadn’t passed judgment. She was a good mother; he told her so and saw the pleasure in her eyes.
But he wished he’d been comforted by Gemma.
CHAPTER 16
The last time Gemma had slept over at her grandmother’s house, she’d been twenty, seeking solace after a particularly bad fight with her mother. They’d stayed up late into the night talking, Gemma wishing Nonna were her mother. When she was small, she used to sleep over all the time, the sound of Nonna’s snoring up the hall a comfort to her. Gemma smiled, remembering the pure joy of sitting at the kitchen table, legs swinging, while Nonna made ricotta pancakes. Afterward they’d go to church, and Gemma would be entranced by the multicolored shafts of sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows. Nonna said sunbeams were God’s fingers reaching down to touch the earth. Gemma found that a comfort, too.
Now, pulling up in front of Nonna’s house on a Sunday morning, she was surprised she felt nervous about the day and night ahead. Gemma knew she must be conscious of not behaving differently toward her grandmother, unless she needed to for Nonna’s own safety. Yes, a definite diagnosis of Alzheimer’s had been made, but Nonna was still the same person, and deserved to be treated with the same love and respect, not like a child or some doddering old woman. She prayed everyone else in the family was on the same page.
The door was opened by her cousin Anthony, who had insisted on continuing his tradition of taking Nonna to early Mass at St. Finbar’s.
“How ya‘ doin?” he asked, leaning in for a quick peck to the cheek. ’Traffic okay?“
“At this hour, it was a breeze.” Shrugging off her cape, Gemma shivered. “It’s like an icebox in here.”
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