The Sinner (27 page)

She rose, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

T
WENTY
-O
NE

A
POT OF VEAL SAUCE
had been simmering for nearly
two
hours on the stove, and the fragrance of plum tomatoes and garlic and
fork-tender
stew meat overwhelmed the blander aroma of the eighteen-pound turkey now
sitting,
browned and glistening, in its roasting pan on the countertop. Rizzoli sat at
her
mother’s kitchen table, beating eggs and melted butter into a warm bowl of
potatoes
that she had just boiled and mashed. In her own apartment, she seldom took the
time
to cook, and her meals were thrown together from whatever she managed to
excavate
from her cupboard or freezer. But here, in her mother’s kitchen, cooking
was
never a hurried affair. It was an act of reverence, in honor of the food itself,
no matter how humble the ingredients. Each step, from chopping to stirring to
basting,
was part of a solemn ritual, up to the climactic parade of dishes being carried
out
to the table, there to be greeted with properly appreciative sighs. In
Angela’s
kitchen, there were no shortcuts.

And so Rizzoli took her time adding flour to the bowl of mashed
potatoes
and beaten eggs, mixing it with her hands. She found comfort in the rhythmic
kneading
of the warm dough, in the quiet acceptance that this process could not be
rushed.
She was not accepting of many things in her life. She expended too much energy
trying
to be faster, better, more efficient. It felt good, for once, to surrender to
the
unyielding demands of making gnocchi.

She sprinkled in more flour and kneaded the dough, focusing on its
silky texture as it slid between her fingers. In the next room, where the men
were
gathered, the TV was tuned to ESPN with the volume at full blast. But in here,
buffered
by the closed kitchen door from the roar of stadium crowds and the chatter of
the
sportscaster, she worked in serenity, her hands working the now-elastic dough.
The
only break in her concentration came when one of Irene’s twin sons toddled
through
the swinging door into the kitchen, banged his head on the table, and started
screaming.

Irene ran in and scooped him up. “Angela, are you
sure
I
can’t help you two with the cooking?” Irene asked, sounding a little
desperate
to escape the noisy living room.

Angela, who was deep-frying cannoli shells, said: “Don’t
you even think about it! You just go take care of your boys.”

“Michael can keep an eye on them. He’s not doing
anything
else in there but watching TV.”

“No, you go sit down in the living room and take it easy.
Janie
and I have everything under control.”

“If you’re really sure . . .”

“I’m sure, I’m sure.”

Irene gave a sigh and walked out, the toddler squirming in her
arms.

Rizzoli began to roll out the gnocchi dough. “You know, Mom,
she
really does want to help us out in here.”

Angela scooped crisp and golden cannoli shells from the oil and
set
them on paper towels to drain. “It’s better if she watches her kids.
I’ve
got a system going. She wouldn’t know what to do in this kitchen.”

“Yeah. Like I do?”

Angela turned and looked at her, her slotted spoon dripping oil.
“Of
course you know.”

“Only what you taught me.”

“And that’s not enough? I should’ve done a better
job?”

“You know that’s not how I meant it.”

Angela watched with a critical eye as her daughter cut the dough
into
one-inch pieces. “You think Irene’s mother taught her how to make
gnocchi
like that?”

“I doubt it, Mom. Since she’s Irish.”

Angela snorted. “There’s another reason not to let her
in
the kitchen.”

“Hey, Ma!” said Frankie, banging through the door.
“You
got any more nibbles or anything?”

Rizzoli looked up to see her older brother swagger in. He looked
every
bit the Marine he was, his over-pumped shoulders as wide as the refrigerator he
was
now peering into. “You can’t have finished that whole tray
already.”

“Naw, those little brats got their grubby hands all over the
food.
I ain’t eating it now.”

“There’s more cheese and salami on the bottom
shelf,”
said Angela. “And some nice roast peppers, in that bowl over on the
counter.
Make up a new tray, why don’t you?”

Frankie grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top.
“Can’t
you do it, Ma? I don’t wanna miss the last quarter.”

“Janie, you fix them up a tray, okay?”

“Why me? It’s not like he’s doing anything
useful,”
Rizzoli pointed out.

But Frankie had already left the kitchen and was probably back in
front
of the TV, chugging his beer.

She went to the sink to rinse the flour from her hands, the
serenity
she’d felt only moments earlier now gone, replaced with a familiar sense of
irritation. She cut cubes of creamy fresh mozzarella and paper-thin slices of
salami
and arranged them on a platter. Added a mound of roast peppers and a scoop of
olives.
Any more than that, and the men would ruin their appetites.

God, I’m thinking like mom now. Why the hell should I care
if they ruin their appetites?

She carried the platter into the living room, where her dad and
her
two brothers sat like slack-jawed lunks on the couch, glassy eyes staring at the
TV. Irene was kneeling on the floor by the Christmas tree, picking up cracker
crumbs.

“I’m so sorry,” Irene said. “Dougie dropped it
on the carpet before I could catch it—”

“Hey, Janie,” Frankie said. “Can you move outta the
way? I can’t see the game.”

She set the platter of antipasti on the coffee table and picked up
the tray which was now contaminated with toddler germs. “You know,”
she
said, “Someone
could
help Irene watch those boys.”

Michael finally looked up, eyes glazed over. “Huh? Oh, yeah .
. .”

“Janie,
move,
” said Frankie.

“Not till you say thank you.”

“For what?”

She snatched up the plate of snacks, which she’d just set
down.
“Since you didn’t even notice . . .”

“Okay, okay. Goddamn it.
Thank
you.”

“You’re
welcome
.” She set the plate down
again,
hard, and headed back to the kitchen. In the doorway she paused and looked back
at
the scene in the living room. The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a
mountain
of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess. The
three
men planted in front of the TV were stuffing their mouths with salami. The twins
were spinning around the room like two tops. And poor Irene painstakingly
searched
for every stray cracker crumb as strands of her beautiful red hair came loose
from
her ponytail.

Not for me, thought Rizzoli. I’d rather die than let myself
be
trapped in this nightmare.

She fled into the kitchen and set down the tray. She stood there
for
a moment, taking deep breaths, shaking off a terrible sense of claustrophobia.
Aware,
at the same time, of the fullness pressing down on her bladder. I can’t let
it happen to me, she thought. I can’t turn into Irene, worn out and dragged
down by grubby little hands.

“What’s the matter?” said Angela.

“Nothing, Mom.”

“What? I can tell something’s wrong.”

She sighed. “Frankie really pisses me off, you know
that?”

“You can’t think of a nicer word?”

“No, that’s exactly the word for what he does to me.
Don’t
you ever see it, what a jerk he is?”

Angela silently scooped out the last of the cannoli shells and set
them aside to drain.

“Did you know he used to chase me and Mikey around the house
with
the vacuum cleaner? Loved scaring the shit outta Mike, telling him he was gonna
suck
him into the hose. Mike used to scream his head off. But you never heard it,
because
Frankie always did it when you were out of the house. You never knew how nasty
he
was to us.”

Angela sat down at the kitchen table and gazed at the little
nuggets
of gnocchi dough that her daughter had cut. “I knew,” she said.

“What?”

“I knew he could have been nicer to you. He could have been a
better brother.”

“And you let him get away with everything. That’s what
bothered
us, Mom. It still bothers Mike, that Frankie was always your favorite.”

“You don’t understand about Frankie.”

Rizzoli laughed. “I understand him just fine.”

“Sit down, Janie. Come on. Let’s do the gnocchi
together.
It goes faster that way.”

Rizzoli gave a sigh and sank into the chair across from Angela.
Silently,
resentfully, she began dusting the gnocchi with flour, squeezing each piece to
make
an indentation with her finger. What more personal mark can a chef leave but her
own angry fingerprint, pressed into each morsel?

“You have to make allowances for Frankie,” said Angela.

“Why? He doesn’t make any for me.”

“You don’t know what he’s been through.”

“I’ve heard more than I ever want to hear about the
Marines.”

“No, I’m talking about when he was a baby. What happened
when he was a baby.”

“Something happened?”

“It still gives me the chills, how his head hit the
floor.”

“What, did he fall out of the crib?” She laughed.
“It
might explain his I.Q.”

“No, it’s not funny. It was serious—very serious.
Your
dad was out of town, and I had to rush Frankie to the emergency room. They did X
rays, and he had a crack, right there.” Angela touched the side of her
head,
leaving a smear of flour in her dark hair. “In his skull.”

“I always said he had a hole in his head.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not funny, Jane. He almost
died.”

“He’s too mean to die.”

Angela stared down at the bowl of flour. “He was only four
months
old,” she said.

Rizzoli paused, her finger pressing into soft dough. She could not
imagine Frankie as an infant. She could not imagine him helpless or vulnerable.

“The doctors had to drain some blood from his brain. They
said
there was a chance . . .” Angela stopped.

“What?”

“That he might not grow up normal.”

A sarcastic remark automatically popped into Rizzoli’s head,
but
she held it back. This, she understood, was not an occasion for sarcasm.

Angela was not looking at her, but was now staring down at her own
hand, clutching a lump of dough. Avoiding her daughter’s gaze.

Four months old, Rizzoli thought. There’s something wrong
here.
If he was only four months old, he couldn’t crawl yet. He couldn’t
climb
out of his crib, or squirm out of his high chair. The only way for an infant
that
young to fall is to be dropped.

She looked at her mother with new comprehension. She wondered how
many
nights Angela had awakened in horror, remembering the instant when she’d
lost
her grip, and her baby had slid from her arms. Golden boy Frankie, almost killed
by his careless mother.

She reached out and touched her mother’s arm. “Hey. He
turned
out okay, didn’t he?”

Angela took a breath. She began dusting and pinching more
gnocchis,
suddenly working at record speed.

“Mom, of all of us, Frankie’s the toughest one in the
bunch.”

“No, he isn’t.” Angela set a gnocchi on the tray
and
looked up at her daughter. “You are.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You are, Jane. When you were born, I took one look at you,
and
I thought: This one I never have to worry about. This one’s gonna fight
back,
no matter what. Mikey, I know I probably should have protected better. He’s
not so good at defending himself.”

“Mike grew up a victim. He’s always gonna act like
one.”

“But not you.” A faint smile tugged at Angela’s
lips
as she gazed at her daughter. “When you were three, I saw you fall and hit
your
face on the coffee table. You cut yourself right there, under the chin.”

“Yeah, I still got the scar.”

“The cut was so bad you had to get stitches. You were
bleeding
all over the carpet. And you know what you did? Guess what you did.”

“I screamed a lot, I imagine.”

“No. You started hitting the coffee table. Punching it, like
that!”
Angela whacked the table with her fist, sending up a puff of flour. “Like
you
were furious at it. You didn’t come running to me. You didn’t cry
about
all the blood. You were too busy fighting back at the thing that hurt you.”
Angela laughed and wiped her hand across her eyes, leaving a streak of white on
her
cheek. “You were the strangest little girl. Of all my kids, you made me the
proudest.”

Rizzoli stared at her mother. “I never knew that. I had no
idea.”

“Ha! Kids! You have no idea what you put your parents
through,
either. Wait till you have your own, you’ll see. That’s when
you’ll
know what it really feels like.”

“What what feels like?”

“Love,” said Angela.

Rizzoli looked down at her mother’s worn hands, and suddenly
her
eyes burned and her throat ached. She rose and went to the sink. Filled a pot of
water in which to cook the gnocchi. She waited for the water to heat, thinking:
Maybe
I don’t really know what love feels like. Because I’ve been too busy
fighting
it. Just as I fight everything else that might hurt me.

She left the pot on the stove, and walked out of the kitchen.

Upstairs, in her parents’ bedroom, she picked up the
telephone.
Sat on the bed for a moment, holding the receiver, trying to gather up enough
nerve
to make the call.

Do it. You have to do it.

She began to dial.

The phone rang four times, and then she heard the recording, brief
and matter-of-fact: “This is Gabriel. I’m not home right now. Please
leave
a message.”

She waited for the beep and took a deep breath.