The day that mamma and Tony went missing, I was the one to walk Aria home from school to an empty house. I was the one who searched every room and called mamma’s name out the open back door. I was the one to give Aria a snack of cheese slices and saltine crackers, and I was the one to find mamma lying in the creek with baby Tony still and blue in her arms. To this day, I won’t wear blue, because it reminds me of the last time I saw my baby brother and the last day I considered mamma my mother.
The police and an ambulance came. Mamma was unconscious but not dead. Father Theodore says I need to repent for saying it, but sometimes I wish she’d died that day too. For the past ten years, we’ve had to scrimp and save and give up our hopes and dreams in order for mamma to stay in Mount Mercy Sanitarium. I had to work while going to school, and we pay more for her lodging and care every month than we do for the three of us.
Papà says she’s sick and we need to understand. We take turns visiting her once a month, and I can tell every time he goes he hopes she’ll be better, that he’ll be bringing her home again. I used to secretly hope the same when I’d visit, that the doctors would find a miracle cure for whatever haunted my mother and she’d come home. I think I could forgive her if she’d sung to me when I had the measles or if she’d taught me how to put on lipstick or curl my hair or made even one single meal on the little white stove she’d begged papà for.
“Viviana! Your coffee is getting cold.” Papà’s voice shakes the house. Every time he shouts, I flinch. I don’t like yelling of any kind. I’ll do essentially anything to keep his irritation from boiling into fury.
Aria doesn’t seem to mind as much, though she’s naturally more adept at staying small when papà expands to fill a space with his loud voice or easily triggered displeasure.
“It’s not like he beats us,” she always says when I get agitated.
And she’s right. He’s not a monster.
Since we lost Tony, he’s never once raised his hand or reached for his belt, and when he sees me recoil during his temper spells, he usually calms down and apologizes.
“Thank you, papà,” I say, taking a long sip. The coffee is thick and bitter, and scalding hot.
“Sit down and drink. You’re making me nervous. You’re like one of those windup dolls that keeps moving and never stops. Moving. Moving. Moving. Then you run out of power, go to sleep, and get up and do it again the next day.” We speak only Italian at home. I’ve tried to get papà to learn more English, but he claims he knows enough to work and to talk to the men at Amos Plastics, and that’s all he needs.
“I have to catch the bus, papà. I can’t be late.”
“I don’t like you on the bus, Viviana. It’s not safe.” He rubs the cast on his left leg. It’s propped up on the kitchen chair, his cane leaning against the sink. I know it’s hard on his ego to be immobilized, but what hurts more is the drop in income. It’s the only reason he allowed me to get an office job.
Granted, he has no idea that the office is on the army base or that I’m working with Italian prisoners. If I’d asked him for permission, he would’ve given me a definitive no, but not for the reasons most would think. Papà isn’t against his fellow countrymen being detained; he’s ashamed of their part in the war. And he’s afraid of the ramifications for innocent Italian immigrants like us trying to build a happy life in America.
“Papà, I’ve been riding the bus to Marian for school the past two years. Columbus is only a few miles farther, just the opposite direction.”
“Stay away from army men. Don’t talk to them. I see them on the bus; you know.” Oh Lord, if he only knew how many military men I talk to every day at work and at the USO. But he doesn’t know, and I’m not planning on telling him anytime soon.
“Even if they talk to me, papà, I don’t talk to them.”
“Good girl. Lonely men with no family nearby are not safe suitors for my daughter. Don’t trust them. Never will.”
“I’m not looking for suitors, papà. I’m just going to work. Besides, I could take the car if you gave me permission.” I take another long sip of coffee.
“No.” He slashes his hand in the air. “The engine is not reliable. If you break down, how am I going to find you?”
“I know how to work with the engine, papà. You taught me.” I try to sweet-talk.
“And . . . and the gas is too expensive.”
“But I’m making more money now. Besides, I could drive Aria to school and you to work when your leg is better.” Aria is fifteen and does the mile walk to the high school with no complaint. But unlike my father, who thinks hardship will make his children more grateful and productive, I want Aria to experience some softness in life. I’ve been more like a mother to her than a sister. I changed her diapers when mamma forgot and combed out her tangled hair when mamma took to her bed or disappeared for days.
He ignores my reasoning and continues. “And . . . you’d put too many miles on it. Your mamma will cry when she comes home and sees her car with thousands and thousands of miles on it.” He’s waving his hands now. I know as soon as he brings up mamma, it’s time to stop trying to convince him. At times, I think he’s as delusional as she is.
“Yes, papà,” I say, and kiss him on the head. He still has a headful of hair, and though it’s more gray than brown, he looks at least ten years younger than his fifty-six years. He could easily find someone to marry if he were a free man. But divorce is a sin, and no one believes that as deeply as papà.
“The bus is safer for work.”
I nod, not wanting to fight anymore and leave Aria to pick up the pieces before she walks to school. Why God gave us two broken parents, I’ll never know. But with men fighting and dying overseas, I shouldn’t wallow in my personal woes.
Aria comes in from the backyard, her cheeks red, hands covered in dirt and caked under her nails. With summer creeping in, my sister will spend more and more time outside tending to her garden. She got mamma’s green thumb, seeming to pull life from the dirt. I think she finds as much escape in the tidy rows of beans and cabbages as I find singing into a microphone. Even though she’s a junior in high school, she seems younger, preferring saddle shoes and cotton dresses or a pair of mamma’s old coveralls.
“Bye, Viv,” she calls out in English, wiping her hands on a towel by the sink. “Don’t forget we have confession tonight.”
“Ah, yeah, confession.” I nod knowingly. I should be concerned with how easily Aria fibs around papà. We do go to confession at least once a week, but we also use it as an excuse to go into town. Aria usually sneaks into the cinema, and once a month I go to my singing lesson with Carly.
“Basta! In italiano!” Papà shouts. “Niente inglese in casa” is one of his rules, and like any other edict in the Santini house, we can only get away with breaking it for so long.
I quickly shift back into Italian.
“Confession tonight, papà.”
“Yes. My good girls.”