Cast Me Gently (23 page)

“I’m lucky,” Teresa said with a sympathetic shake of her head. “No pressure. They’re content to have one unmarried daughter at home to help out as long as at least one of us is reproducing.”

Ellie came into the kitchen. “I just met your mom. She’s so sweet.”

“Yeah, that’s my mother,” Bernie said with a forced smile.

“What?”

“Italian mothers and daughters,” Bernie said. “It’s a love-hate relationship.”

Ellie laughed. “I think that’s all mothers and daughters.”

Bernie snuck a meatball from the bowl waiting to be carried out to the table. “So Rob and Karen are coming every Sunday now?”

“Most,” said Teresa, spooning the risotto into a bowl.

Anita came into the kitchen to check on the sauce. “Ellie,” Anita called from the stove. “Come and taste the sauce. See if it needs more sugar.”

Bernie sidled over to Teresa and said in a low voice, “And they’re okay with Ellie?”

Teresa shrugged. “Seem to be.”

“Unbelievable,” said Bernie. “You are so lucky. Ellie here, and Robbie and Karen back, too. You are so goddamned lucky.”

Teresa glanced over at Anita and Ellie. “I know. It’s like some kind of dream.”

God, how stupid could I be?
Teresa would ask herself not even an hour later.

Everyone had sat down at the table, which was a little different now, as Robbie refused to sit until Sylvia and the aunts did, which initially left everyone standing around in confusion.

“That training is paying off,” Karen had whispered to Teresa when they first started coming back to the house for Sunday dinners, and Rob helped carry bowls of food out to the table, stunning Lou and Gianni into silence. He held the chair for Karen and for his mother, insisting the aunts sit and stop circling the table.

The noise dropped to a hum as everyone began eating—“the only time this house is quiet,” Teresa often observed—when Sylvia said to Mrs. D’Armelio, “Well, Angela, are you getting tired of Teresa?“

“Why would I be tired of Teresa?” Mrs. D’Armelio asked innocently.

“All the time she’s been spending over there,” Sylvia said.

“Today’s the first time I’ve seen Teresa in weeks.”

Teresa froze. Around her, the rest of table conversation continued undisturbed, but she could feel the sudden chill emanating from her mother’s direction.

Bernie, her instincts honed from years of lying to her mother, jumped in, saying, “Mom, don’t be silly. I told you Teresa’s been coming over late so we can shoot the shit.”

“No,” Mrs. D’Armelio said, shaking her head as she twirled spaghetti onto her fork. “I’m sure I’d have heard her. You two can never be quiet.”

“That’s very interesting,” Sylvia said icily.

Teresa refused to look up, certain beyond a doubt that her mother was watching her and would instantly see the truth in Teresa’s eyes.

“What the fuck?” Bernie hissed to Teresa a short while later when they escaped to the kitchen. “You told your mother you were staying with me? Why the hell did you invite us over today?”

“I didn’t even think about this,” Teresa moaned. “I’m not used to lying.”

“Well, you’d better learn fast,” Bernie said as Ellie came into the kitchen. “Tell her we went out for drinks to talk and didn’t get in until late, and that’s why my mother didn’t hear us. You two are in for a shitload of grief from Sylvia. You,” she pointed at Ellie, “you stick to me like glue until we get the hell out of here.”

“Why?” Ellie asked in bewilderment.

Teresa nodded. “Just do it. We’ll explain later.”

Ellie was obviously confused at the immediate change in atmosphere. Teresa knew she had no idea what had happened, but the tension was palpable. Teresa wouldn’t meet her questioning glances, and Bernie made sure Ellie stayed away from Sylvia and Teresa for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to leave, which Bernie arranged as soon she could.

“We’ll give Ellie a ride home,” Bernie said as her mother thanked Sylvia and Lou for having them over. “Come on, Mom.” She gave Teresa a last glance as she herded them out the door.

“But I didn’t get to say—” Ellie began, pointing toward Anita.

“Not today,” Bernie said in a low voice. “We need to get you out of here.”

Teresa saw Bernie push Ellie out the door. She wanted so badly to run after them, but all she could do was watch as Ellie turned for one last look before the door closed.

“Mom,” Bernie said once they were safely in the car, “I’m going to drop you off and then take Ellie home.”

Ellie sat silently in the back seat while Bernie drove to her house. She gave Mrs. D’Armelio a wave as Bernie got out to unlock the house for her mother. “I don’t understand,” she burst out when she got into the vacated passenger seat. “What’s the problem?”

Bernie glanced at her. “My mother, God bless her, outed you two today.”

Ellie heard the unaccustomed gravity of Bernie’s voice. “You mean—?”

Bernie nodded. “Teresa’s been telling her mother she’s been staying with me when she’s spent the night with you, and my mother blew that to hell. Sylvia will not let this drop.” She shook her head. “Shit. This is not going to be good. I’m sorry for both of you.”

Ellie sat silently beside her as she drove, feeling as if she were back in the car with Mrs. Locke after talking to Father Patrick.

“It would be a good idea for y’uns to plan to not see as much of each other for a while. Give this time to blow over.”

Ellie felt a shiver run down her spine. “You don’t think…?” She couldn’t even voice the rest of that horrible question.

“I think,” Bernie said quietly, “Teresa is going to be forced to make some hard choices.”

She pulled up at the curb in front of Ellie’s building. They sat there for a long moment.

“Thanks, Bernie.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Ellie.”

Ellie got out of the car and waved to Bernie as she drove off. Tears stung her eyes. She trudged up the stairs and let herself in. KC trotted out with little meows of welcome. Ellie scooped her up in her arms and heard a rap on the living room door. Ignoring Sullivan’s knock, she buried her face in KC’s fur, wondering when, or if, she’d see Teresa again.

“Do you want us to stay?” Rob asked in a low voice.

Teresa glanced in Sylvia’s direction where she was wrapping some leftovers for Francesca to take home. She knew nothing would happen until everyone left, and she shook her head. “Gonna have to face it sooner or later.”

“Call us if you need us,” Karen said, squeezing Teresa’s arm.

Anita, too, seemed to know something bad had happened. The other aunts were set to go, and still, Anita stalled, finding things to clean up in the kitchen.

“Anita, let’s go,” called Luisa. “My feet are killing me. I want to get home.”

“Go,” Teresa said from the sink where she was scrubbing a pan.

“What’s wrong?” Anita asked worriedly.

Teresa couldn’t meet her eye. She only shook her head. As much as her godmother loved her, she wasn’t sure even Anita would forgive this if she knew.
Why should it need forgiveness?
But in their world, Teresa knew this was unforgiveable—more than Rob’s divorce, more than his remarrying, more than anything else they’d never conceived of.

“You’d better go,” she said to Anita.

Anita stood torn for a moment, wringing her hands, and then, reluctantly, went to get her coat. A moment later, Teresa heard all the aunts taking their leave. She continued to scrub the pots, and her heart pounded as she knew the inevitable was coming.

It was always inevitable, wasn’t it?

Even Gianni seemed to sense some drama in the air. Normally the first to leave, he was hanging on, waiting to see what shit was about to hit the fan.

“You and Angelina need to go,” Sylvia said from the living room and Teresa heard them leave a few minutes later.

At last, the house was empty, just Teresa and her parents. She placed the last pan in the dish drainer and dried her hands. No sense putting it off any longer.

She went out to the living room where Lou was pretending to read the paper. Teresa knew he didn’t know what the problem was, but he was waiting for the explosion they all could feel building. Sylvia sat on the edge of her chair, her jaw set. Without a word, Teresa sat and waited for the storm to unleash itself.

“How could you?” Sylvia said at last.

Deciding to test just how far her mother’s imagination had taken her, Teresa said, “How could I what?”

“Don’t you dare!”

Sylvia jumped to her feet, her breast heaving. “How could you do this to us? After the way you were raised? After everything we gave up for you? To send you to school? Give you a future? This is how you repay us?”

Lou lowered his paper. “What are you—?”

“Her!” Sylvia shouted, pointing at Teresa. “Her and that whore! It’s bad enough you’re damning yourself to hell, but you’ll drag all of us into your shame with you!”

Vaguely aware that her father had stood, Teresa got to her feet as well, stunned at the accuracy of her mother’s instincts. Her brain froze—all thoughts of any kind of logical argument, any kind of appeal to her mother’s love for her—all of it suddenly was distilled into just one thought, the only thing she could articulate.

“I love her.”

So quickly Teresa didn’t see it coming, Sylvia stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face. All three of them stood, paralyzed, as the sound of that slap seemed to reverberate through the room. Sylvia’s face crumpled and she dropped into her chair, her hands covering her face as she cried.

“What did we do wrong?” she wailed, rocking and crossing herself. “Why is God punishing us like this?”

Lou bent over her, one arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Teresa raised a trembling hand to her cheek. Neither of her parents had ever struck her.

“Ma, please,” Teresa pleaded, but her father stepped between them.

“I think you’ve done enough,” Lou said.

Teresa backed away and then turned and ran upstairs to her room, slamming the door. She sat on her bed. Across the room, her face in the dresser mirror stared back at her, her left cheek glowing red. She was too shocked to cry. She’d known, if it ever came to light, her mother’s reaction would not be good, but nothing could have prepared her for this.

“What now?” she whispered to her reflection, but there was no answer, only the sound of her mother’s wails from downstairs.

CHAPTER 23

“Would you like some
pie to go with that? You look like a coconut cream man to me.”

Ellie couldn’t help but smile as Louise hurried off to get the pie, bringing back a second plate for the man’s wife. “Our apple pie is the best in town. If you don’t agree, it’s on the house.”

Louise slid into Ellie’s booth. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

“Who said anything is going on?”

Louise cocked one eyebrow. “I know you better than that, missy. You never could hide it when something’s wrong.”

Ellie flushed. She couldn’t tell Louise the truth—at least, not all of it. “It’s Teresa.”

“Did you have an argument?”

“Not us.” She weighed her words. “Her family is kind of closed. Her mother didn’t like her spending so much time with me, and they had words.”

She guessed they’d had words. She hadn’t heard anything since the day Bernie dropped her off at her apartment. No calls, no notes, no nothing. Two weeks of nothing. She didn’t dare call the store or the Benedetto house. She kept hoping Teresa might bring a deposit to the bank, but none of the Benedettos had been by. She blinked hard as Louise studied her.

“Family can be hard sometimes,” Louise said. “As much as we love them, they can drive us crazy.” She nodded toward the cash register where her daughter, Patty, was ringing up a customer. “She decided I was working too hard, and won’t leave me be.”

As Ellie looked over, Patty glanced their way, frowning. She finished ringing up her customer and came to the booth. “Mama, are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“I don’t need anything, except to be left alone to take care of my customers,” Louise said.

Patty squeezed into the booth next to her mother. “Did you tell Ellie?”

“Tell me what?” Ellie asked.

“You didn’t, did you?” Patty turned to Ellie. “She didn’t tell you she had a heart attack.”

“What?”

Louise waved a hand in irritation. “It was not a heart attack.”

“The doctor said the chest pain and shortness of breath was probably a mild heart attack.”

Ellie reached for Louise’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was nothing to tell,” Louise insisted. “He just said I need to take more time off.”

“What he said,” Patty interrupted, “is that she has to take at least two days off completely each week. But is she? No, she is not.”

Patty pursed her lips, obviously curbing the other things she wanted to say.

“I need to be here to keep an eye on things,” Louise said.

“But if he said you need to take it easy, you should be,” Ellie said. “What would we do if anything happened to you?”

“That’s what we said,” Patty said. “Have you asked her?”

“Asked me what?” Ellie looked from Patty to Louise.

Patty glanced toward the register and saw that a customer was waiting. “You ask her or I will,” she said as she scooted out of the booth.

“Ask me what?” Ellie repeated.

Louise looked down at Ellie’s hand in hers. “Patty thought it might be time I need to hire someone to help me manage this place. Someone I trust. Someone like you.”

“What? Don’t you want Patty to take over?”

“She doesn’t mind helping out,” Louise said. “But she’s busy with her children and doesn’t want to be here all hours.”

Ellie’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but no sound came out.

“Before you give me an answer, I want you to think about it,” Louise said. “You know sales and customer service. I could teach you to cook, but you don’t even need to do much of that. Julius and the others have been with me for years. They’re not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Ellie stared down at their clasped hands.

“This could give you more freedom than you’ll ever have at the bank,” Louise said.

Or it could trap me in Pittsburgh forever.
But Ellie didn’t say it. She couldn’t, not after everything Louise had done for her.

As if reading her mind, Louise said, “I don’t want you to do this for me. Only if it’s what you really want.”

Ellie sat there, not knowing what to say.

“I know you weren’t expecting this when you came in here,” Louise said. “I’m going to tell you what my mama told me, Ellie Ryan. Life does not always give you what you want, but it usually gives you what you need.”

Mrs. Schiavo had a cup of strong coffee and a doughnut waiting for Teresa when she came back inside with the empty bread tray.

“Sit down, Teresa.”

Wearily, Teresa sat. Mrs. Schiavo waited a moment as Teresa took a sip of her coffee, leaving the doughnut untouched on the plate.

“You look… what’s the word… terrible,” Mrs. Schiavo said bluntly. “You’re not sleeping, are you? What’s wrong?”

Teresa looked at Mrs. Schiavo with eyes that stung and burned. “I’m fine, Mrs. Schiavo.”

“Ha! I am an old woman, Teresita. I know unhappy when I see it and you are unhappy. Can you talk to your mama?”

Teresa scoffed.

“Ah,” Mrs. Schiavo said, nodding. “Your mama, she is the trouble. Yes?”

Teresa nodded.

“My mama, too. When I want to marry my Eduardo. She say, ‘NO!’”

Teresa looked up. “What did you do?”

Mrs. Schiavo reached over and took Teresa’s hand in both of her gnarled ones. “I say to her, ‘Mama, I love you, but I love Eduardo more. I am going to marry him.’ And I did.”

“What did your mother do?”

Mrs. Schiavo smiled, her eyes disappearing in the crinkles. “My mama, she try not to love Eduardo, but he was a good man. He bake for her every day, something different, something special. He say to her, ‘You are the mama of my wife, and that makes you my mama, too.’” She cackled as she remembered. “He was so handsome, my mama, she come to love him like a son.”

“I don’t think that will happen for me,” Teresa said wistfully.

Mrs. Schiavo peered at her. “Your mama, she love you. Love, she can make us do things we never thought we would.”

Sudden tears stung Teresa’s eyes. “I have to get back.”

Mrs. Schiavo wrapped the doughnut in a napkin and patted Teresa’s arm.

Back in the empty drugstore, Teresa angrily wiped away the wetness on her cheeks.

“She hasn’t said a word?” Bernie had asked just the other day when she came by the store.

Since her outburst, Sylvia had adopted a policy of total silence on the topic of Ellie—a tactic that was the last one Teresa had expected. Her mother usually argued and nagged and hounded until she got what she wanted, but this strange avoidance of any arguments had Teresa knocked off-balance.

“She’s just kind of pretending Ellie doesn’t exist,” Teresa said. She had told Bernie about the argument after everyone had left the house that awful Sunday. “She hasn’t said one word to me about her.” She busied herself with the espresso machine, hoping the noise would drown out any bits of their conversation her mother might overhear.

“Jesus, this is bad.”

“She’s also not leaving me alone for a minute,” Teresa added, glancing back toward the office where her mother was fussing with the ledger. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s coming in early and staying late. I know it’s to keep me from calling Ellie. I hear her get out of bed if I get up to pee during the night. I can’t even sneak downstairs to call.”

“So you haven’t talked to her at all?”

Teresa shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Listen, Bennie. Sylvia’s going to force you to be the one to bring it up, and she’s betting you won’t have the guts for a confrontation. She’s hoping you’ll just let it go, and everything will go back to being like it was. If you really love Ellie, you are going to have to stand up to your mother.”

Teresa blanched. “You didn’t hear her. The things she said.”

“Seriously.” Bernie leaned over the coffee counter. “What’s the worst that could happen? She kicks you out? So, you come live with me, or move in with Rob and Karen for a while. Or you and Ellie actually live together like two grown-ups. Jesus Christ, it’s your life. You gotta stop letting your mother treat you like you’re sixteen.”

Teresa thought about that conversation now as she counted the store’s cash drawer. She had been thinking about it every minute of every day since she and Bernie had spoken. Bernie was right. It was time.

“Hey.”

Ellie blinked as Sullivan snapped his fingers in front of her face.

“What?”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“Sorry.” She shifted on the couch to face him. “What were you saying?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I was boring myself. So, where were you?”

Ellie shrugged. “Just trying to decide what to do about Louise’s offer.”

“Free food. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”

Ellie laughed. “It would to you. I’m just afraid, if it wasn’t working out, I’d never be able to tell Louise I was quitting. And what about travelling? How can I take two weeks or a month off when Louise is supposed to be taking it easy?”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“Not yet,” Ellie said. “But I guess I should.”

“Why don’t you start spending some time there, learning more about the diner? Kind of like an intern. Then you’ll know whether you’d like it.” Sullivan’s stomach growled. “How about we go down there now?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Let me grab my wallet. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

A few minutes later, they were on a bus.

“Where’s Teresa been?” Sullivan asked, giving her a sidelong glance. “I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

Ellie turned to look out the grimy window at the passing sidewalk below them. She hadn’t confided in him, but Sullivan wasn’t stupid. He knew Teresa had been spending several nights a week with Ellie, and, suddenly, she wasn’t. Sullivan was a good guy, but he was a guy. “I guess she’s been busy at their store.” She closed her eyes, remembering how somber Bernie had been about the pressure Teresa was going to face from her mother. Ellie had hoped Teresa would find the courage to stand up to Sylvia, that this time, Ellie would be the prize worth choosing….

Ellie was up to her elbows in flour and piecrust when Louise came into the diner’s kitchen, followed by Patty.

“Doesn’t look like you need me at all,” Louise said, taking in the piles of freshly cut apples waiting to fill the crust.

“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “I think I measured everything according to your recipe, but the proof will be when the customers eat it.”

“Well, bake it up and we’ll have a piece of pie to celebrate,” Louise said.

“How was the doctor’s visit?” Ellie asked as she spooned a sugar and cinnamon mixture over the apples.

She looked up when there was no answer. Patty crossed her arms over her chest.

“You gonna tell her? Or am I?”

Louise gave a wave of her hand. “He said there’s a blockage.”

“He said,” Patty said, “that she has two blocked arteries and needs bypass surgery.”

“What?” Ellie nearly dropped the measuring cup. “You have to have surgery?”

“Maybe,” said Louise.

“Mama, there is no maybe about it,” Patty said. “He said your arteries are over eighty percent blocked. If you don’t have a bypass, you will have a full-blown heart attack.”