And so it was coming closer, yes siree bob. He knew what it was, he had been there before, and then it would be over. And yet: It was taking longer than he thought it would.
You never get used to pain, no matter what anyone says about it. But now, for the first time, it occurred to him—could it really be the first time this had occurred to him?—that there was something far more frightening: people who no longer felt pain at all. He had seen it in other men—the blankness behind the eyes, the lack that then defined them.
So Charlie, a tiny bit, sat up straighter, and he stared pretty hard at that television set. He waited, hope like a crocus bulb inside him now. He waited and he hoped, he practically prayed. O sweet Jesus, let it come. Dear God, please, could you? Could you please let it come?
Mississippi Mary
“Tell your father I miss him,” Mary said, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue her daughter handed her. “Can you tell him that, please? Tell him I’m sorry.”
Her daughter looked up at the ceiling—such high ceilings in these Italian apartments—and turned to look briefly toward the window through which the ocean could be seen, then looked back at her mother. Angelina could not stop thinking how old her mother seemed, and small. And weirdly brown. She said, “Mom. Please stop this. Please stop it, Mom. It took my whole year’s savings to fly over here, and I find you in this awful—I’m sorry, but it is—this squalid two-room flat with this guy, your husband, oh God. And he’s almost my age, and we’ve just ignored that fact, what else could we do but ignore that fact? And now you’re eighty years old, Mom.”
“Seventy-eight.” Mary had stopped weeping. “And he’s not your age at all. He’s sixty-two. Come on, honey.”
Angelina said, “Okay, so you’re seventy-eight. But you’ve had a stroke and a heart attack.”
“Oh now please. That was years ago.”
“And now you’re telling me to tell Dad you miss him.”
“I do miss him, honey. I imagine there must be days he misses me too.” Mary’s elbow rested on the arm of the chair; her hand waved the tissue listlessly.
“Mom. You don’t get it, do you? Oh my God, you just don’t get it.” Angelina sat back on the sofa, brought both hands to her head, and pulled her fingers through her hair.
“Please don’t yell, honey. Were you brought up to yell at people?” Her mother tucked the tissue into her large yellow leather pocketbook. “I never felt like I did get anything. No, there were lots of things I didn’t get, I’ll agree with you on that. Please don’t yell at me though, Angelina. Did I just say that?” Mary’s daughter, the youngest of five girls and Mary’s （secret） favorite, was named Angelina because Mary knew during her pregnancy that she was carrying a little angel. Mary sat up straight and looked at the girl, who had been a middle-aged woman for years. Angelina did not look back. From where she sat in the corner chair, Mary could see the sun hitting the steeple of the church, and she let her eyes rest on that.
“Daddy yelled all the time,” Angelina said, looking down at the upholstery of the couch. “You can’t yell at me for yelling, and say I wasn’t brought up that way, when I was—I was brought up with quite a yeller. Daddy was a yeller.”
“Old yeller.” Mary put a hand to her chest. “Honestly, what a sad movie that was. Why, we took you kids to see it, and I think Tammy didn’t sleep for a month. Do you remember they took that poor dog out to the pasture and killed him?”
“They had to, Mom. He was rabid.”
“A rabbit?”
“Rabid. Oh, Mommy, I don’t want you to be making me sad like this.” Angelina closed her eyes briefly, bouncing her hand gently on the couch.
“Of course you don’t,” her mother agreed. “Did you really spend all your savings to get here? Didn’t your father help you at all? Honey, I wasn’t yelling at you for yelling. Let’s go do something fun.”
Angelina said, “Everything in a foreign country seems so hard. And the Italians seem proud of not speaking English. Did you think that when you first came here? That everything seemed so hard?”
Mary nodded. “I did. But a person gets used to things. You know, for weeks if Paolo wasn’t with me I didn’t even try and get my coffee at that place on the corner. They thought I was his mother at first. And then they found out I was his wife and I think they were sort of laughing at us. But Paolo taught me how to pay with my coins on the plate.”