“We’ve never talked about it at all,” Angelina said.
Her mother was silent, and when Angelina looked at her she was stabbed by the look of sadness on her mother’s face. But her mother said, “Well, tell me, honey. Now that you’re finally here. Tell me what it’s like for you. I told you before, I fell in love with Paolo. Your father and I were not compatible in many ways, but, honey—I fell in love. So now you tell me.”
Angelina said, “He’s a bank teller, Mom. And this place is—” She looked around. She wanted to say “squalid” again, but it was not that. It just was not—it was not lovely—and it was a strange place with its high ceilings and chairs that were worn in their upholstery.
Her mother sat up very straight. “This place is beautiful,” she said. “Why, we have the view of the water. We’d never have been able to afford it if Paolo’s wife hadn’t had money.”
“She had money?”
“She has money, some. Yes. And he’s like me, he didn’t come from much.”
Angelina said nothing.
Mary continued, “The point is this. I am comfortable with him. I am in love with him, and I am comfortable with him. Your father’s family, as you very well know, had money, and your father has been very successful. Frankly, Angelina, I don’t give a damn about money. I like not having it, in fact. Except that not having it keeps me from seeing you.”
“You’ve returned to your roots.” Angelina meant this sarcastically, but she thought it sounded silly.
“My father worked at a filling station. We had nothing. You know that. Paolo does not have money and he does not have huge ideas of how to make it. If that’s what you mean by returning to my roots.”
Angelina stared at her own feet stretched out in front of her; her ankles were thin. “Wait.” She looked up at her mother. “So he lived here with his wife?”
“That’s right. She met someone and took off, and she left him this place, and we’re glad to have it.”
“I don’t understand anything,” Angelina said finally.
“No. I don’t either.”
Mary reached for her daughter’s hand. And yet to Mary came the sudden knowledge—how stupid she had been not to see this before—that her daughter would never forgive her for leaving her father. Not in Mary’s lifetime. And Mary’s lifetime was not very long anymore. But the knowledge was terrible—and yet in Mary’s head was that twang again, she was angry—！
Please.
Angelina said, “Mom. I don’t want you to die. That’s the whole thing. You took from me the ability to care for you in your old age, and I wanted to be with you if you died, when you die. Mom. I wanted that.”
Mary looked at her, this woman with the creases by her mouth.
“Mom, I’m trying to tell you—”
“I know what you’re trying to tell me.” And now Mary had to be careful. She had to be careful because this girl-woman was her daughter. She could not tell her—this child she loved as much as she had loved anything—that she did not dread her death, that she was almost ready for it, not really but getting there, and it was horrifying to realize that—that life had worn her out, worn her down, she was almost ready to die, and she would die, probably not too long from now. Always, there was that grasping for a few more years, Mary had seen this with many people, and she did not feel it—or she did, but she did not. No. She felt tired out, she felt almost ready, and she could not tell her child this. And she also felt terror at the thought. She pictured it—lying here in this very room while Paolo rushed about—and she was terrified, because she would not see her girls again, she would not see her husband again, and she meant their father, that husband, she would not see all of them again and it terrified her. And she could not tell her daughter that had she known what she was doing to her, to her dearest little Angel, she might not have done it.
But this was life! And it was messy! Angelina, my child, please—
“You didn’t even take the money Dad owes you from the divorce—in the state of Illinois, you could have had some money.”
Mary said, “But, honey.” She paused, looking for the words. Finally she said, “When you fall in love you get into some”—Mary waved a hand upward—“bubble or something. You don’t think. But why should I have his money? I never earned a penny of it.”
Angelina thought, You’re a dope, Mom.