Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [152]
Rocco came up behind Giovanna and put his arm around her waist. “I can’t sleep either. Let’s go downstairs and play cards.”
Giovanna smiled. “You set up the table, and I’ll be down in a minute.”
A moment later, Angelina was in the room. “Mamma, I can’t sleep. It’s too hot.”
“Come here by the window with me.”
Angelina was too big for her mother’s lap, but she sat on it anyway. Giovanna ran her hands through her daughter’s hair.
Below on the sidewalk they could see Rocco setting up the card table and pouring two glasses of wine.
“Mamma, will you rub my back like you did when I was little and had nightmares?”
“In a minute. First I want to give you something.”
“What?”
“I know you are responsible, so I am going to ask you something important. I want you to promise me that when I die, you will put this in my coffin.” Giovanna reached into the pocket of her dress and handed Angelina the Saint Anthony medal that Lucrezia had left her.
Angelina looked at the medal and then at her mother. “Mamma, you’re scaring me. Why are you saying this?”
“Nothing is going to happen to me, Angelina. You won’t have to do this for many, many years.”
Angelina looked at her mother with tears welling in her eyes. “Promise me you’ll never die.”
“I promise I’ll never leave you. That’s the reason I want you to bury me with Saint Anthony.” Giovanna put her hand over Angelina’s, which now clutched the medal. “When I’m gone, if you need me, or if your children need me, or even their children, you’ll always know that I am there. You see, Angelina, people who love one another always find each other somehow.”
EPILOGUE
HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, 1985
“Nanny, why is Uncle Anthony called Cakey?”
“Because when he was a kid, he liked cake. Aren’t you hungry?”
As soon as I graduated college, ignoring my mother’s disbelief that I was moving back to the ghetto, I rented an apartment in Hoboken that Uncle Cakey helped me find. Uncle Cakey had also shown me the best places to shop, and now, five years later and a regular, I had visited each and every one to prepare the feast that was in the kitchen.
“I made shrimp scampi.” I put another tape in the video camera.
“How did you know how to do that? You don’t cook.”
“I used a recipe.”
“They have recipes for that?”
“Nanny, do you remember when I was about twelve, we were watching this movie and you got really upset. That’s the day you told me about the kidnapping.”
“Don’t put that down. I’ll make you stop.”
Although Nanny had begun to share memories, this was one topic that remained off-limits. I finally realized she was still afraid. I left the video camera and sat next to her on the couch. “They can’t get us, Nanny.”
“No, no, I don’t tell nobody. I don’t even tell my friends. You shouldn’t tell. That’s the way it is.”
“Nanny, I shut off the camera. I just need to know.”
“They were so mean and lazy. What they did was wrong. They shouldn’t have done that. I was just a little girl.”
I watched my grandmother transform before my eyes. The bossy eighty-year-old shrunk into her blouse. Her huge hands didn’t flail around excitedly anymore; they clutched at her sides or covered her mouth as she spoke. I could barely breathe as my grandmother talked about the kidnapping in detail for the first time. I would gently ask questions when she slowed down, but I avoided looking at her because I felt like she would snap out of what resembled a trance.
“…Our neighbor Limonata took me to her brother; he had a butcher store. Maybe it wasn’t her brother, I don’t know. Then she said