Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [14]
“Carry your luggage? I’ll bring it right on the ship.” A young boy pestered them.
Nunzio ignored the child and knelt on the dock. He reached his cupped hand into the water and poured it on the back of his neck, letting it spill into his shirt. The Italian waters made their way down his back and started to evaporate. When he stood, Domenico reached up to fix Nunzio’s collar and took him by the shoulders, turning his son-in-law’s face toward his own. “Our blood is your blood. No country can separate you from your family.” At the gangplank, Domenico told him, “Go, go, I expect you to be a big man in America. Don’t forget you are a maestro.”
Giovanna reached in her bag and handed Nunzio the ball of yarn from the tablecloth. All she said to him was, “I’ll be here.”
Nunzio gripped her so hard that she forever had a scar where his nail had dug into her neck. She called the scar “Nunzio’s good-bye.” Domenico separated them. Nunzio walked up the gangplank and went to the ship’s rail above where Giovanna stood. He held one end of the string and threw the ball down to her.
The noise around them became deafening; people shouted, horns blew, and donkeys brayed in a whirl of motion. In the midst of this chaos, Giovanna and Nunzio stood perfectly still, staring into each other’s eyes, each holding tight to the string. Another horn blew shriller than the rest. Smoke billowed around them as lines were untied and the ship’s motor roared. Giovanna and Nunzio did not move, only the string began to unwind when the Spartan Prince slowly pulled out of port. The string stretched between them, becoming longer and longer as the ship became smaller. When the ball was at last unwound, the string left Giovanna’s and Nunzio’s hands at the same moment and drifted into the sea.
Cedar Grove, New Jersey, 1963
Everyone remembers that day. I just remember it a little differently. I was in the first grade, seated alphabetically, staring at the bulletin board. The second grade teacher walked into the room and whispered into my teacher’s ear. My teacher, who was old and very upright, slumped back onto her desk and covered her gaping mouth. It took a few minutes, but in a shaky voice, she told us to put our heads on our desks because the president had been shot. From our lowered viewpoint, we could catch glimpses of Mrs. Robinson pacing and whimpering. The principal’s voice came over the loudspeaker. It didn’t boom like usual. “Children, President Kennedy was shot and he has died. School is dismissed so that you can all go home and mourn with your families.” We didn’t quite get it. Mrs. Robinson had to tell us to leave.
My best friend, Thea, and I ran home to tell our mothers. As we ran into the circle at the dead end, there was a big black car, a funeral parlor car, in our driveway. I remember asking Thea if she thought they brought the dead president to my house. My mother was sitting with a strange man. I ignored him to announce the president’s death to my mother. Instead, she told me that my great-grandmother had died. She said my Big Nanny died at the same moment as the president. I spent the remainder of the day trying to figure out if my great-grandmother’s death and the president’s death were connected.
My mother and grandmother took me to the wake. I overheard them say, “It will be fine; she barely knew her.” They didn’t realize how well I remembered brushing my Big Nanny’s long gray hair, how holding her enormous silky hands always made me feel safe, and how I had memorized her face as she said words to me in Italian that I didn’t understand.
I studied my great-grandmother, her coffin, and the red roses that spelled M-O-T-H-E-R from the kneeler in front of the casket. She looked like a fairy princess with a rosary knotted in her fist. Her dress sparkled. It was blue, the same color as her eyes, the blue that they painted heaven in church. I absentmindedly