“Mamma,” she says. “Papa.” She looks at each of them, and then back to the middle of the table, where the serving dishes are still half-full. And she thinks of how Antonia might say this, might talk about the relationship she and Saul had built, the subtle ways they have learned to care for one another, the surprise of it all. And then she says, “Saul and I are going to have a baby,” which is as abrupt, as tactless, as unlike Antonia, as anything she could imagine.
Frankie gasps, and then grins: this will be something momentous, and she knows she will be both a spectator and, somehow, implicated. This is juicy. This is unheard of.
Rosa says, “Don’t say that. What in Heaven would possess you to say something like that,” but before she has finished her sentence she realizes Sofia is not making it up, and she falls silent and then turns to Joey and says, “Say something!”
Joey does not say anything.
“Sofia, this is absurd,” says Rosa. “He’s not Catholic. What are you thinking? How can you build a life this way? Where will your child go to school? What will you do on Christmas? Why aren’t you answering me, Sofia, say something!” Rosa’s panic rises like a bird trapped in the room, flapping in chaos against the furniture, the windows.
“I don’t know, Mamma!” says Sofia. And her voice is loud, too, and it is clear, and everyone looks back at Sofia, back to where her center of gravity has pulled them all into orbit. “We didn’t plan this. We didn’t plan—I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. But, Mamma, he’s interesting, and he’s kind, and he loves me, and I don’t care if he isn’t Catholic or if we’re doing things out of order. I don’t care!”
“Giuseppe Colicchio,” Rosa says, turning on Joey, “unstick your damn tongue! Talk to your daughter!”
But Joey’s eyes are on Saul. His face is unreadable. His gaze is a needle, pinning Saul where he sits in his chair, like a specimen on a corkboard. He is silent for a moment, and when his voice comes it is clear and calm.
“You will get married,” Joey says. “I’m going to speak to Father Alonso and he will perform the ceremony even though you”—he looks at Saul—“are not Catholic. Well, you can become Catholic. It will be a special favor to me. To us. You can take the name Colicchio. I’ll arrange for it to be no problem.”
Saul is on his best behavior, and as such feels himself smiling and nodding at Joey’s words before their meaning organizes itself in his brain. He understands that Sofia’s mother is smiling; that Sofia herself looks happy, or at least surprised. He hears Joey Colicchio tell him he is to give up his name, his language, and his heritage. He understands he is being given something immense in return. “Thank you,” he hears himself say. Thank you?
“Papa, I,” begins Sofia. Papa, thank you for not killing the man I love. Papa, I can’t bear to see you looking at me with a sad face anymore. Papa, it’s been years—when did I stop being your girl?
Papa, you can’t possibly expect Saul to give up everything.
“Papa, this is crazy.” But it is not Sofia who has spoken; it is Frankie, her neat frame next to Rosa on one side of the table. Her bright eyes alight.
“This is not a discussion,” says Joey, automatically, almost before he registers that he is talking to Frankie, his smallest baby. Frankie, who was born after four miscarriages and had to be sliced out of her mother as the sun rose, who cried and cried the first months of her life, soothed by nothing, but who, once she grew accustomed to the world, found comfort in the tastes of new foods and the laughter of her sister and has hardly cried since. “This is not a discussion,” Joey repeats.
“Of course it is,” says Frankie. “This is unfair, Papa. You haven’t even asked Sofia and Saul what they want.” She says this matter-of-factly, like she says everything. The truth of it weighs down on all of them. No one has asked Sofia and Saul what they want.
Saul is overcome by the urge to say something amenable, like, it’s fine, or, really, I don’t mind, but he is silent. How can he know which moments he has control over the direction of his own life, and which moments he has no choice but to surrender to bigger forces? He is good at keeping his head above water; good at thriving in whatever unexpected circumstances he finds himself. But here, in the moment of decision, Saul realizes he does not know how to make the choices that will steer him in one direction or another.
“Enough!” says Joey, and for the first time his voice cracks slightly, out of his control. “This is not your affair. You will sit there and you will not speak. You will not. You will not make the impossible situation your sister has put this family in any worse. You will not question my judgment. Is that clear.” Frankie is silent. “Is. That. Clear.”