“Hey - check this out, Lily,” said Marguerite. She reached down and pulled up the cuff of her father’s pant leg, revealing the famous shiny red socks printed with tiny green trees that John had given him one year for Christmas, and which he reserved especially for the holidays. “It must be Christmas,” he would announce to the family, as he raised the legs of his pants, “I’m wearing my special socks!” Then he would scratch himself, and laugh until he provoked a coughing fit.
“Oh my God,” said Lily with a giggle.
“John picked out his clothes and wanted him to wear those socks. What a wise guy.”
The boys had been more involved in the arrangements than Lily - even mysterious Henry, whom no one understood and who simply disappeared and didn’t talk to their father for months at a time - even he was crying.
“Lily,” said Marguerite, placing her arm around Lily’s shoulder. “Do you remember that tiny ceramic Dalmatian that Charles gave Mom one year - the one that used to sit up on the window ledge by the kitchen sink?”
“Wasn’t it like dressed up like a fireman? With a red hat and a red coat?”
“Yeah - yeah... don’t you remember that time we teased Dad with it, by having it follow him around the house?”
“I do remember that!” said Lily. “First we took it and put it on his smoke stand, just before he sat down to watch the news -”
“And then we put it in the medicine cabinet right next to his aftershave, when we knew he was going to go get ready for church.” Marguerite started to gently laugh.
“He kept saying, ‘What the hell?’ and ‘What is going on here?’” A wave of giggles rose up from Lily’s belly.
“And then he sat down for a smoke before church, and we had placed the little dog next to his coffee cup.”
“Oh, my God,” said Lily, trying to squelch her laughter, “When we got into the car to go to church, and he found that little dog on the dashboard-”
“He screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘Jeepers Cripes! Where the hell does this dog keep coming from!?”
Lily and Marguerite stood wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, their bodies rocking with the force of their efforts to stay quiet. Lily was barraged with images from her childhood. She saw her father getting off the city bus and retrieving his leftover saltines from his suit coat pocket, saved just for her. She saw herself sitting on his lap as a child, trying with all her might to pry apart the fingers of his clenched fist to get the penny inside as he looked on, giggling at her efforts. She saw him at the head of the table on Easter, mumbling prayers she couldn’t understand and sprinkling them all with Holy Water that he stole from the vestibule at church. The memories rose and spilled over her, gushing like the tears that now flowed freely down her cheeks. Lily and Marguerite clung to one another as their bodies convulsed with sobs. Lily wondered if she would ever be able to stop.
The firm touch of Joe’s hand against Lily’s back caused her to look up and find him there, wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a silver satin necktie. His hair was combed straight back from his face, gelled in place, making his nose appear more prominent and lending him an air of authority. Lily could imagine him saying to his customers, “Buy this furniture. Sign here.” They would do it without question, whether they wanted the furniture or not. Marguerite looked up and deposited Lily into Joe’s open arms.
“Hey Joe,” said Marguerite.
“Hey,” said Joe. He leaned over and gave Marguerite a peck on the cheek. “So sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.” Marguerite turned toward the casket, crossed herself, and then walked away.
“You doin’ OK?” Joe asked Lily. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her on the top of her head.
“Yes, I just hate this. I hate wakes. And I feel so out of place here.”
“Let’s go then,” said Joe.
“I can’t leave, Joe.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my father’s wake - I have to stay for the whole thing.” After a moment she added, “Don’t I?”
“Let’s just tell everyone you don’t feel good - they can’t make you stay if you’re sick. We’ll go back to the house, unpack a few more boxes, order a pizza... just you and me... wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yes, but -”
“Look, Lil - do you really think anyone is even going to notice that you’re gone? I know they sure as hell won’t notice that I’m not here. Marguerite is the only one who even said hello to me, and that was because I went up to her. I’m sorry to say this, but they don’t care. If you were Iris or Violet, they would notice, but you know how they are - you know you’re not one of the chosen ones.”
“I know you’re right,” said Lily. “But still, I can’t just leave.”
“Leave it to me,” said Joe. He tightened the grip of his arm around Lily’s shoulder. “Just stick with me and if anyone stops us, let me do the talking.”
Lily looked back over her shoulder at her father’s body as Joe turned and led her toward the door.
The following afternoon, the family was to meet at the funeral home and then form a motor procession to the church. Lily arrived before anyone else. She stood in the doorway of the viewing room. Her father’s now closed casket sat at the opposite end of the room. Lily slowly marched toward it, accompanied by the pungency of eucalyptus and the melancholy of organ music that wafted down from the speakers in the ceiling.
Lily stood at the casket with her hands shoved into the pockets of her parka. This was the last time she would ever stand in her father’s presence.
“I’m so sorry that you died, Dad. Especially so suddenly like that.” She struggled to find something meaningful to say – if not for his ears, then at least for her own. “I remember once you took me with you on errands and we stopped at Howard Johnson’s. I got a Coke and you got a piece of pecan pie and a cup of coffee, remember?” Lily’s tears left streaks of black mascara trailing down the front of her face. “You probably don’t. Anyway, I asked you about lockjaw, of all things - I must have heard about it on TV or something. You told me it was called ‘The Grin of Death,’ and I was horrified. I told you that I wanted to die in my sleep and you said, ‘Not me. I want to know it’s coming. I want to have time to make my peace with God.’” Lily blew her nose and deposited the used tissue into the pocket of her coat, oblivious that it had fallen straight through and landed on the floor at her feet.
“If I could only ask you one thing, if we could really have a conversation right now, I would ask you if you had a chance to make your peace.” Lily broke down sobbing. People should at least be able to die the way they want to. Out of tissues, she wiped her face with the palm of her hand, dragging mascara and tears and snot across her cheek. “I really hope you did.”
A door slammed and Lily spun to see Iris standing in the entrance. Her hair - now auburn - was perfectly styled around her heart-shaped face. A sifting of snowflakes - rivaled only by the diamond studs in her ear lobes - twinkled momentarily on her shoulders and then melted under the diffused lighting of the funeral parlor. As she walked toward Lily, she seemed to float, wrapped in her fur coat, her poise, and her beauty. Lily was reminded of the quote that used to hang over Iris’ bed when they were in high school: Beauty is silent eloquence. Yes, that was Iris.
“Lily - oh, Lily!” Iris hugged Lily and she buried her face into Iris’ collar, wishing to disappear into the softness as they sobbed together.
“I didn’t get a chance to see him,” said Iris. Tears rolled down her face. “I wanted to see him again, you know?”
“I know,” said Lily. “I’m so sorry.”
“But at least now this is how I will remember him,” said Iris. She placed a photo of their father onto the lid of the casket.
Lily picked up the photo. Their father was seated at a table at an outdoor cafe by a shimmering blue body of water, which was dotted with yachts and sailboats. He was tanned and smiling, a cigarette in one hand and a tiny white ceramic cup in the other
.
“Where did you get this photo?” Lily asked.
“It was taken in Portofino last summer when he came to visit me. Isn’t it cool?”
“Oh - I didn’t know he went to Italy.” The photo must have been taken shortly after Lily’s wedding. Which she paid for herself. Because her father didn’t have any money.
“Lily, you should have seen him. He was in his element. We had to pay to sit at that table, and he stayed there nursing that espresso all afternoon. He said, ‘I paid for this table, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to get up until I’m good and ready.’” Iris took the photo from Lily and carefully set it back on top of the casket. “Yes, he was certainly a different man when he was there. Everyone thought he was my sugar daddy - like he was some sort of famous playboy with a young girlfriend!”
“I’ve never seen him so happy,” said Lily. “I almost didn’t recognize him.”
In so many of Lily’s recent memories of her father he was screaming, or crying, or cursing, or sick. She did not know this dapper man lolling in the sun by the sea. He only existed in a photograph. Maybe that’s what happens when people get some distance from their troubles. Lily couldn’t help but realize that she was part of what he ran from, and Iris the place to which he fled.
Iris dabbed at her tears with the white cotton handkerchief she’d pulled from her brown leather clutch.
“Let’s remember him this way,” she said. “Sitting in Portofino, without a care in the world.”
“Wishing that he had been that way would make us feel better, but you know Iris, it’s not true. It’s so sad, but it just wasn’t true.”
“It was true that day, Lily. Can’t you just let me remember the good times? And can’t you do the same?”
Lily tried, but when she closed her eyes she only saw him angrily struggling for his life, desperate to make his peace with God.
“I guess I can’t,” she said.
The sisters stood, each with one hand on the casket, the touchstone to their common past.
From: Iris Capotosti
To: Lily Capotosti
Sent: Sun, September 26, 2010 at 11:11 AM
Subject: The last time I saw Dad
Dear Lily,
The last time I saw Dad alive was the Christmas before he died. We were saying goodbye to each other at the airport, in Rochester. He hugged me in his usual melodramatic way, but for some reason, it didn’t seem overdone. It was as if all our unspoken feelings had to fit into that one embrace, and I was afraid of leaving something out. I couldn’t bring myself to let go, until Gregorio dragged me away. I think it was then, during that visit home, that the consequences of my choice to move so far away really started to sink in. I realized all kinds of things, good or bad, could happen to anyone in the family, at any moment, and I wouldn’t be there to share the joy or the sorrow. Just like I hadn’t been there for your wedding, or when our sisters’ babies were born, or when you lost yours. And now I know that you lost two, poor Lily.
There was such a deep look of exhaustion in Dad’s eyes that day, I knew no number of good nights’ sleep would ever cure the weariness. Not the kind of sleep you get on this earth, anyway. I can’t say exactly what it was, but something shifted inside me, and I broke down and cried in his arms like I had never done before. I bawled all the way to New York, and never stopped until we were over the Atlantic, when Gregorio finally slipped me a Valium to shut me up.
But I’m grateful I have such happy memories of his trip to Italy. That was the first and only time I saw Dad as just a man, on the first real vacation of his life, toting a secondhand suitcase he had picked up at the flea market. He said he couldn’t really afford the trip because he was concerned about being able to help the younger boys out with school expenses. I guess when there were so many of us, the worry (like everything else) was spread so thin, it didn’t do anyone any good. Maybe by the time he got down to the last three, there was enough of some things to go around. He also said he couldn’t rest until he knew where I was living, and how Gregorio was treating me. I don’t know if it was true, or whether it was just the argument he used to justify the trip to himself, but that’s what finally convinced him to come.
Dad shouldn’t have died like that, without any warning. He was my father, he was the one who was supposed to know what was best for me, and make me do it, even if I couldn’t see why. As kids, we always had to figure things out for ourselves, and managed to survive just fine. We didn’t have a choice then, but as I got older, I felt like I needed more help, instead of less. Like I was already tired of trying to cut it on my own.
As Auntie Rosa said, I could count my lucky stars I had Gregorio. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing is the same when your father is gone.
Love,
Iris
From: Lily Capotosti
To: Iris Capotosti
Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 at 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: The last time I saw Dad
Dear Iris:
If nothing is the same when your father is gone, then I guess things should have gotten better for me. But of course they didn’t. It wasn’t until after Dad died that I discovered how much he just couldn’t stand me, how angry he must have been all that time. I mean, when he said he couldn’t give me any money for my wedding (seemed like no one really wanted any part of it), I figured he was broke, not that he needed it to come see you in Italy - not to mention that he never even bothered to come by and see my new house, which was less than five miles away.
We had so much unfinished business, Dad and I. A few years after his death, I decided to go visit his grave - first time I’d been there since the burial. I thought I could finally have a talk with him, say the things I could never find a way to say to him when he was here. I even brought him a cup of coffee from McDonald’s. I sat down on the grass, lit up a cigarette, and started to say my piece. I melted into a blob of sorrow as all those memories came flooding back, all just as painful as they’d been back then. I don’t know what I thought I was going to accomplish. Did I expect him to reach out and comfort me from beyond the grave? Hug me and tell me he loved me?
He couldn't even do that when he was alive.
Love,
Lily
7. Iris
Whoosh-whoosh. The sliding doors at the end of the hall slid open each time someone exited, then snapped shut again, separating the pool of stayers-and-waiters from the stream of comers-and-goers. Iris followed the stream, her rapid steps propelled by the excitement that had climbed as the plane descended, and now bubbled through her veins like fizzy water, washing away her exhaustion.
Each time the doors slid open, her eyes searched the slide-show of images on the other side for snatches of recognizable elements. She had no doubt she would find her sisters even more attractive and accomplished than the previous time she had seen them, and that their reunion would certainly be more cheerful, considering their last get-together had been for their father’s funeral.
This was a magical time, when the Capotosti siblings were in their prime, confidently cutting a swath for themselves in the world, not a grey hair or wrinkle yet to be spotted on any of them. After an absence of over two years, Iris was looking forward to catching up with their lives, their families, their careers, their children. What worried Iris about the other side of the sliding doors was having to face the impact of the passing time on the older generation. Her father’s death had made her painfully aware of the fact that everything did not stay the same for them, that there came a time when those people whose unchanged presence and unwavering affection had been a point of reference in her life would suddenly grow old, fall ill, die. There would be no hugs smelling of Hai Karate aftershave and Parliaments on the other side of those sliding doors; not today, not ever again.
Whoosh-whoosh, a tall woman with a thick veil of dark hair. Whoosh-whoosh, a furry hat with a pom-pom sitting atop a
snowy head. Whoosh-whoosh, two little girls waving and jumping. Whoosh-whoosh, Iris broke into a run and was on the other side, too, the pom-pom ramming her solar plexus. Auntie Rosa might be slowing down, but she certainly wasn’t losing her touch.
“Lover-dover!” she cried, pressing her head into Iris’s belly, her cane dangling from her wrist. “I can’t b’lieve you’re here! I just can’t b’lieve it!”
“Aunt Iris! Aunt Iris!” Violet’s daughters chanted, Olivia instigating her younger sister Castanea to run circles around Iris and Auntie Rosa, their arms extended, pretending to be airplanes. The selection of the girls’ names was just one example of Violet’s sensitivity and originality. “Flowers are beautiful,” she had written to Iris, back when she was expecting Olivia, referring to their parents’ quirky tradition of naming the Capotosti girls after blooms. “But they’re delicate, they get trampled, they wither. I told Todd that if we have a little girl, I’d like to name her after a tree, rather than a flower.” Iris had never talked about baby names with Gregorio; no sense giving names to dreams you know won’t come true.
“C’mon, old lady, don’t be a hog!” Violet said to Auntie Rosa, placing an arm around Iris to pry her away from their aunt. The hat slid askew, the fake fur pom-pom slipping to one side like a scoop of melting ice cream atop a slice of hot apple pie.
“Violet!” Iris cried, as the sisters hugged, and she buried her nose in Violet’s velvet hair, filling her nostrils with the familiar scent of what used to be her favorite herbal shampoo until she moved to Italy. Violet and Iris corresponded regularly, exchanging photographs and news of vacations, jobs, and family, but there were no words to encapsulate the scent of a sister’s hair, the warmth of her hug, the look of understanding in her eyes.
The Complete Series Page 72
