[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series

by Angela Scipioni

  At the foot of the table and within arm’s reach of Lily’s mother was a short bench for William and Charles. And of course, the short bench at the head of the table was for their father, the only person in the family for whom dinner ever waited, and who was the only one who could signal its beginning with the recitation of “Grace Before Meals.” Lily wondered why they never said “Grace Before Meals” at breakfast or lunch, but maybe that was because no one really felt that grateful for puffed rice or bologna.

  “Grace Before Meals” was no doubt the title of an entry in a long since discarded book of rhyming prayers, intended to cajole God and invoke His favor by saying just the right things at just the right time. There were prayers for mealtime, prayers for waking, prayers for bedtime, prayers to St. Anthony for lost items and to St. Jude for lost causes. Perhaps as a child, Auntie Rosa – being the eldest English-speaking Capotosti in her family – was charged with teaching these essentials to her four siblings, as well as to her parents. And quite possibly, as she read the prayer from the book, its title was mistaken as part of the prayer itself. This is how they learned it, how they taught it, and how they said it every night, starting and ending with the sign of the cross:

  “InthenameoftheFatherandoftheSonandoftheHolyGhostAmen. Grace before meals bless us O, Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen. InthenameoftheFatherandoftheSonandofthe-HolyGhostAmen.”

  It seemed like way too many Amens, but nonetheless no morsel of food was eaten, no glass of milk was raised until the final “Amen” was uttered, and when it was, all pretense of decorum was hastily discarded.

  Lily sat, fork in hand, watching as dishes whizzed past, grateful that a glass bowl of applesauce had at last come to rest next to her plate. She could barely reach the serving spoon, and getting a full scoop from the bowl to her plate took concentration and time – something she would learn you could not afford when the food was circulating. By the time she successfully managed to give herself a serving of applesauce, the mashed potatoes had passed her by, and the corn had settled at the far end of the table, separated from her plate by three hungry brothers and a distant father. Lily made a note to herself not to waste time on applesauce in the future; her mother always bought those big jars and they never ran out. Go for your favorite stuff first, and then look into the applesauce situation. The same thing applied to canned fruit cocktail, boiled cauliflower, and pickled beets.

  Lily pulled herself to a standing position on the bench in order to reach the platter upon which a pile of ham had been heaped, but which had been quickly depleted to a few small remaining scraps. She stretched out to the full length of her body, grabbed the serving fork and speared the two slices she wanted.

  “Lily,” said her father. “Eat a piece of bread before you take seconds on meat.”

  “But this is my firsts,” said Lily.

  “Well then, sit down and ask someone to pass the platter to you next time. We don’t stand up on the bench and reach for our food.”

  “We do if we want some ham,” said Lily under her breath, pulling the meat from the serving fork and placing it next to her applesauce.

  “What was that?” her father asked.

  “Nothing,” Lily answered quickly, sliding back into her seat and smacking the salty drippings from her fingers. She was fully aware of her father’s intolerance for talking back, and firmly dedicated to avoiding the wrath of his hand. His poor hearing was a saving grace; if some sass slipped out before you could catch it, chances are that he didn’t understand it, which came in very handy, especially for Lily, Marguerite, and Alexander – who grew to become the most outspoken of the clan.

  “Me and Marguerite went exploring,” said Violet in between enthusiastic chomps of corn-on-the-cob. “And we found a pond with all these ducks just walking around with no fence or anything.”

  “Marguerite and I,” corrected Lily’s mother.

  “Marguerite and I.” Violet wiped bits of corn from the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. “Then, we kept going past the school and there’s this little store called The Bungalow where they sell milk and eggs and bread and stuff, Mom.”

  “A loaf of bread in there probably costs an arm and leg,” said Lily’s mother, while slicing the ham on William’s plate into bite-sized pieces. “You pay extra for that kind of convenience.” It worried Lily that convenience was so expensive, which would probably explain why her mother looked so tired all the time. Saving money was hard; it required the making of everything “from scratch,” and traveling great distances for cheap baked goods. On Saturday mornings, they would drive past three grocery stores to go to the Millbrook outlet where you could buy day-old bread for half-price.

  “But it is good to know there’s a place nearby,” she added, “in case of an emergency.” Lily wondered what might constitute a bread emergency and decided that any night when they had meat and no bread was a bad situation, since no one would be allowed to have seconds that night.

  Violet continued. “And they have two huge racks of candies. Candy lipsticks, jawbreakers, Tootsie Rolls… all for a penny! Right, Marguerite?”

  “Uh-huh,” Marguerite mumbled, enthusiastically nodding in assent as she shoved a slice of buttered bread into her mouth.

  “That stuff will pull the fillings right out of your teeth,” said their father. “That’s all we need – more dentist bills.”

  “They sell Parliaments in there too, Dad – but I didn’t see any Thunderbird.”

  Their father kept a gallon jug of Thunderbird wine in the refrigerator to have with Sunday spaghetti. It had a screw top and a sketch of a bird with huge wings on the label, which read, “Alcohol: 17.5% by volume.”

  Their father chuckled. “Well, no, I don’t suppose you would find Thunderbird at The Bungalow. I’ll have to see if there’s a liquor store around here somewhere.”

  “Thunderbird is what the winos down on Broad Street drink,” said Alexander. “’Cuz you can get plastered for about two bucks.”

  “Young man,” said Lily’s father, straightening his back and placing the palms of his hands on the table, one on each side of his dinner plate, “I’ll have you know that your grandfather – Anselmo Carlo Capotosti - has enjoyed Thunderbird every day practically since the day he arrived in this country.”

  Their father stared at Alexander, and Alexander stared back, each of them convinced that his point had been made.

  “OK,” said their father, turning to the rest of the family. “I want to make sure you all know the dinner rules here. Most of them are the same as our old house, but because it takes me longer to get home from work now, we will be eating dinner at five forty-five sharp. Just as a reminder: Rule number one – Jasmine, what is it?”

  “Being late will not be tolerated.” Jasmine recited.

  “Marguerite – what’s Rule number two?”

  Marguerite looked down into her lap. “No getting up from the table unless you’re excused.” Everyone knew that this rule was inspired by Marguerite, since she couldn’t wait to get up from dinner each night to wash her hands. She liked to wash her hands. A lot. She washed her hands before dinner, after dinner, during dinner, first thing in the morning, just before bed, and sometimes even in the middle of the night. Marguerite washed her hands so much that they were all red and cracked, which made Lily’s father very angry. But the more he yelled at her to stop washing her hands, the more she washed her hands. Whenever they came back from seeing the special hand-washing doctor, Marguerite was either crying or very quiet and would go into the bedroom and not come out – sometimes for the whole rest of the day. When Lily asked her mother what kind of medicine they give you for washing your hands too much, she simply said, “Never you mind about that.”

  “And Rule number three, Henry?” continued Lily’s father.

  “No phone calls during dinner,” replied Henry dispassionately. Henry didn’t seem to have any friends – at least none that ever calle
d or came over. He simply disappeared after dinner each night, and no one would see him again until the next night – but as long as you went to school every day and showed up on time for supper, no one seemed to really care where you were or what you were doing in-between.

  One of many other rules governing the use of the telephone was that it could not be answered unless it had completed two full rings. Uncle Alfred operated his guitar studio out of their home on Winston Road, so they had a business line, which meant that Uncle Alfred and Auntie Rosa had to pay a dime each time they made a phone call. In order to avoid the fee, whenever they wanted to call the Capotosti house (which accounted for nearly all of the calls they made), they would let it ring once and then hang up. A one-ring call was the secret signal to call them back. It was almost as cool as having a special red phone, like on the Batman show. So, under threat of the blame for costing Auntie Rosa an extra dime, no one was allowed to answer the phone until it rang twice. And if it rang twice during dinner, you had better hope that it wasn’t one of your friends on the other end.

  At the new house, the telephone sat on the wall directly behind Lily’s father, like the tabernacle behind the priest at the altar. Across from him was the back door. He was the sentinel of both during dinner. He could reach the phone from where he sat at the table, and when it rang that evening, he extended his right arm up and over and placed it on the receiver. It rang a second time. Forks froze and glasses halted in mid-sip as all eyes turned to the head of the table for a clue about who was ignorant or stupid or forgetful enough to call during dinner.

  Their father raised the receiver from the cradle and, with a grand motion, brought it to his ear.

  “Mmmm….yell-oohhh,” he answered melodically. “Alex? I’m sorry, dear, but there’s no one here by the name of Alex.”

  Alexander dropped his fork onto his plate. “Dad, cut it out!”

  “No, dear, I’m sure. I do have a son named ‘Alexander’ however. Is that whom you are looking for?”

  Alexander put his elbows on the table and placed his face in his hands.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact he is here, but we’re having dinner, and we don’t take phone calls during dinner. May I take a message? Umm-mmm. OK, yes I will tell him. Good-bye.” He hung up the phone and turned back to his plate. The children all watched as he sliced a pat of butter from the stick and smeared it over his corn.

  “Well….?” Alexander asked.

  “Christine would like you to call her back after dinner.”

  “Christine? Christine who?”

  “Christine – I don’t know. She didn’t give me her last name.”

  “I don’t know any Christine, Dad.”

  “Maybe it was Kathy, or Karen – do you know a Karen?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dad –”

  Their father pounded his fists on the table with such force that all of the flatware hopped in place, jingling like the bells in church during the Eucharistic prayer. Lily instinctively closed her eyes and bowed her head. My Lord and my God.

  “We do not use the Lord’s name in vain in this house, young man,” shouted their father.

  “Yeah? Well at least I got his name right.” Alexander mopped up the last of the food from his plate with the crust of white bread and shoved it into his mouth. He swung his leg over the bench and stood up.

  “You have not been excused,” said their father.

  “I have to take a crap,” said Alexander, walking out the back door.

  After dinner, the older girls were given unpacking chores, and Lily and Iris were sent outside to play. The swing set in the backyard hosted two white plastic swings hanging on rusted chains. As Lily and Iris swung to and fro, the chains creaked and moaned, each one singing its melancholy song, perhaps of days gone by and of children long since grown and moved on. The wails echoed throughout the neighborhood so loud that maybe even Auntie Rosa could hear it from her house. Even though it wasn’t a pretty sound, it made Lily happy – it was the sound of playing in your own big yard with your own favorite sister.

  When they tired of swinging, they wandered, exploring, climbing the apple tree, playing tag, peering into the windows of the chicken coop (which was even creepier than the basement), and as the sun settled lower into the sky, they settled onto a spot on the grass amid a patch of clover and dandelions, sitting cross-legged, facing each other. Together they picked pink and white cloverleaf flowers from the ground, making them into chains by tying the stem of one flower into a knot around the bloom of another. They fashioned tiaras, necklaces, and bracelets, adorning each other with them. Iris made one extra chain, and set it aside for Auntie Rosa.

  “Close your eyes and make a wish,” said Iris, handing Lily a fluffy white dandelion.

  There was so much to wish for; Lily couldn’t decide. She wished for a Barbie Doll, she wished to see the duck pond and go to The Bungalow and buy some penny candies, and she wished that their father would figure out how to fix the bunk bed in time.

  “OK – now open your eyes and blow on this, and if you can get all of the little fluffies to come off in one breath, your wish will come true.”

  Lily blew as hard as she could, spraying the dandelion more with spit than with her breath.

  “Ewww!” Iris giggled, wiping the spittle of Lily’s effort from her face with the palms of her hands. “Just blow on it, Lily – like you do with your birthday candles. Like this – watch.”

  Iris picked another dandelion and sat up high and straight as she filled her lungs with air, and then blew on the flower, spinning it as she rotated the stem between her thumb and forefinger, sending the tiny white fuzz into the air.

  “Oh, man!” she cried, pretending to collapse from the effort. “Here, let’s try again.” She handed Lily another dandelion and took another one for herself. Over and over again, they blew and blew, exhausting the supply of flowers within reach, as the bright orange sun faded into pink, cloaking wispy clouds in purple twilight.

  “I’m getting dizzy!” said Lily. She crossed her eyes, hung her tongue out of her open mouth, and rolled her head.

  “You look like Crazy Guggenheim,” said Iris laughing. “OK - but we have to try one more time, OK? This is our last chance. On the count of three – ready? One… two… three!”

  With a loud wheeze, they each drew in a deep breath and then blew with the entire force of their small bodies. With the effort of her exhalation, Lily farted, and they both fell over onto their backs, laughing uncontrollably. When their laughter finally subsided, they watched overhead as the hundreds of white seed heads they had set free drifted away, swirling and dancing in the slanted sunshine of the waning day.

  “Where do you think they’ll go?” asked Lily.

  “I dunno,” Iris replied. “Prob’ly far, far away from here.”

  9. Iris

  “But you said Daddy would fix our bed, Iris!” Lily cried, standing in the middle of the new bedroom she was to share with Iris. The new bedroom that contained a bunch of cardboard boxes and Iris’s blue valise, but not their bunk bed.

  “Well, he did fix it, Lily,” Iris said, “just not for us.” She still couldn’t believe their bunk bed had been assigned to William and Charles, with plans to add a third tier to accommodate Ricci, without anyone telling them so, let alone asking for their consent. But there was no use complaining about it now. “This bed’s not so bad, though. You’ll see.” Iris spread a once white sheet over the worn mattress of the double bed, making sure the edges were even on top and bottom, and on both sides, then proceeded to tuck it all around, and secure it in place with neat hospital corners, just like Auntie Rosa had taught her.

  “But I won’t be able to bounce you with my feet anymore!” Lily whined.

  “It’s just as well,” Iris said, unfolding the top sheet and tucking it nice and tight along the sides and bottom, just the way she liked it.

  “But I’ll never be able to sleep without you above me. What if something falls on top of me and crushes me?”
/>
  “If it does, it will crush us both.”

  “But it’s not fair! That bed was ours!” Lily wailed. She was right. Your bed was all you had, in their family; it was not simply the place you went to sleep, it was the only place you could go and finally be alone. To think, to cry, to pray, to read, to study, to dream. And now she would be sharing hers with Lily. A hot ball of anger rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back down, just like when she almost puked but stopped herself in time.

  “Stop crying and hop in,” Iris said, wishing her mother could have at least found some pillows for them. Maybe tomorrow.

  “I don’t wanna!” Lily sniveled.

  “It won’t be so bad, Lily. You’ll see.” Maybe it wouldn’t. “You take that side, by the window. I’ll sleep by the door.” Lily obeyed, and Iris climbed in next to her. They both lay on their backs, side by side, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling. Lily’s body trembled as she whimpered, making the bed shake and shiver. “Come here,” Iris said, opening her arm. Lily snuggled close, and said, “It’s not fair!”

  “No, Lily, it’s not. But that’s the way it is. I have an idea, though.”

  “What idea?”

  “How about I tell you a story?”

  “What kind of a story?”

  “A story about two sisters who live in a fairyland.”

  “A fairyland?”

  “Yes, a fairyland, where everyone says things like, ‘May I please?’ or ‘Would you mind?’ before they do anything at all that might bother the sisters, and no one takes things from them just because they’re older or stronger and no one can stop them.”

  “OK,” Lily said, slipping her thumb into her mouth, and parking her index finger alongside the slope of her runny nose.