The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (185 page)

It was
Signora
Siragusa’s aches and pains that got Prosperine out of my house. Arthritis had begun to bow the old woman’s legs and knot her fingers so badly that she could no longer run the boardinghouse without help. The
signora
and I made a little arrangement. Prosperine would cook and clean there in exchange for a bed in the attic and a dollar a day, which the
signora
paid directly to me on Saturday mornings. At last I would get back some of the money I had spent feeding and clothing her, and a little compensation for putting up with her, too. (I gave Prosperine a dollar a week for tobacco and other necessities and kept five.)

Now I only had to look at Prosperine’s ugly face on Sunday, her day off. Ignazia and the child and I would go off to Mass and Prosperine would walk over from Pleasant Hill and let herself in with the key. (That murdering
pagana
never went to church. Why bother? She knew where
her
soul was going after this life!) By the time Ignazia and I returned to the
casa di due appartamenti
, there she would be, sitting at my kitchen table, her stockings rolled down to her skinny ankles. Puffing on her pipe and helping herself to a glass of wine from the jug I kept under the sink. She never lifted a finger to help my wife with the afternoon meal. She just sat there like a little queen. Ha! That one was more like a pimple on the
culo.

At first, Ignazia had balked at the extra work Prosperine’s leaving had put on her. She was lonely without her friend, she said. But even Ignazia saw that things were better with the other one gone during the week. Concettina began to smile at me and to talk—sometimes so many words strung together that she was almost making a speech! She was a pretty girl, except for that rabbit’s mouth of hers, and that hair as orange as a pumpkin. Some nights before I went to work, I rocked her on my knee and sang to her the little songs my mother had sung long ago to my brothers and me. When I sang, I sometimes saw a glimpse of Mama’s eyes in the girl’s eyes. Guglielmo could have been right about the red
hair—my mother’s people had been from the North. It was not something Ignazia and I ever talked about. . . . Strange how those little melodies would travel back to me from the Old Country whenever I sat the girl on my lap. Some nights I’d go to work and sing them
in my head all through my shift.

Ignazia liked to peek at us from the doorway when I sang to Concettina. Once or twice I even caught that wife of mine with a smile on her face. Sometimes, when she bathed the girl, I heard the two of them singing Mama’s songs together. They had both learned them from listening to me—my mother’s songs from my wife’s and the child’s mouths. A little thing like that could give me peace for an hour or an afternoon—could convince me that Violetta d’Annunzio had been put in the ground in Palermo—was suffering the torments of Hell—and that Ignazia was only my Ignazia.

I tried to complete the penance that had been assigned me—to sit and write about my life as Guglielmo had advised, but always I was too busy. A page here, a page there, with a week or two in between. I did not like to bring up the old stuff—Papa’s death at the mine, Uncle Nardo’s control over my fate, the loss of my father’s gold medal. . . . What was the good of reliving all of that? I bought a strongbox and locked up those few pages I had written—a
siciliano
knows better than to leave things like that lying around.

Sometimes after Mass or after a meeting about the new school, Guglielmo would ask me how my project was coming and I’d shrug and maybe fib a little and say I had written more than I had. What harm was there in that? I was a busy man, after all. Once I told the
padre
I was halfway to the present in the examination of my life. “That’s wonderful, Domenico,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready and the two of us will examine it together.”

When the new school was finished, the archbishop came down from Hartford for the dedication. I invited my cousins Vitaglio and Lena up from Brooklyn. They came on the train to New London with their brats, the seven of them loaded down with bags and
packages and luggage for their overnight stay. My house was like Grand Central Station that Saturday night! Lena and Ignazia cooking and yakking away in the kitchen, Lena’s
bambini
squealing and chasing each other and Concettina from room to room. . . . Vitaglio and I played
bocce
ball up in the backyard and got a little drunk on the homemade wine he had brought up from the city. At bedtime, Vitaglio kissed Lena goodnight and I kissed Ignazia. Then he and I went upstairs to bed. Before he got between the covers, Vitaglio went down on his knees to pray.

“What are you asking God for?” I joked. “A million dollars? Two million?”

“I’m not asking Him for anything,” he said. “I’m thanking Him for good food and wine, good health and
famiglia
.”

He got up off the floor and into bed, sighed, and went immediately to sleep. I reached over and extinguished the lamp, then lay there in the dark. The ceiling above me looked as black and vast as the Atlantic Ocean had looked on those long nights of crossing to America. I felt again the despair I had felt during those endless nights of passage. I thought about all that had happened since—what I had accomplished and what had come to me. Tears dripped down the sides of my face and into my ears. Lying beside me, Lena’s husband snored away. I was not much for praying—had given up all that after I left the seminary school to become a mason. But somewhere in the middle of that night, I rose from bed and went down on my knees. I thanked God for the same things Vitaglio had thanked him for—health, home,
famiglia
—and for helping me rid myself of the Monkey, too.

Next day, it seemed like every Catholic in Connecticut was there at St. Mary of Jesus Christ Church to witness the dedication of the new school! After the Mass and the ribbon-cutting, there was a special banquet and speeches in the church hall downstairs. (Guglielmo wanted me and Ignazia to sit at the head table, so that’s where we sat, right next to Shanley, the mayor.) This
pezzo grosso
gave a speech, that
pezzo grosso
gave one. Someone read a
telegramma
from no less a dignitary than the Governor of the State of Connecticut! Father Guglielmo was the last to speak.

“Stand up, Domenico,” he said. “Stand up, please.” So I stood. Every eye in that hall was upon me.

Without the help of Domenico Tempesta, Guglielmo said, the new parish school would not have been built. “We are forever grateful to this man.” Then four of the children from the new school came forward, giggling in spite of the looks the nuns gave them. They handed red roses to Ignazia and gave me a little box. “Open it, my good friend! Open it!” Guglielmo told me. He was giggling like those foolish schoolgirls!

Inside the box was a red ribbon tied to a
medaglia
(silver-plated, not gold). Stamped onto one side was the cross of Jesus Christ and the Lamp of Knowledge. Engraved on the other side were these words: “To Domenico Tempesta, With Sincere Appreciation from the Students of St. Mary of Jesus Christ School.” That’s what it said.

The archbishop stood and came forward. He took the medal from the box, lifted it over my head, and hung it around my neck. Then everyone stood up, gave me
ovazione in piedi
. Vitaglio and Lena, the Tusias, even some of the workers from American Woolen who had come—all of them off their chairs and onto their feet. Their hand-clapping made so much noise, I thought maybe the church would fall down!

Ignazia stood up, too. And the girl. Ignazia was holding that bouquet of roses they’d given her. The week before, I had handed her eight dollars to get herself a little something extra for the dedication ceremony. She’d bought material for a new dress for Concettina and a velvet hat for herself—bright red one, same color as those roses and the ribbon around my neck! I turned and looked at my wife. She was the prettiest woman in that crowded hall . . . standing there, clapping and blushing, wearing her new red hat. Then she put the flowers on the table and took the girl’s hands—made Concettina’s little hands clap, too.

“Papa! Papa!” Concettina said. “Hooray for Papa!”

I was all right until I heard that. Then I had to blow my nose and leave the hall for a few minutes. “Speech, Mr. Tempesta!” people called from the crowd as I tried to get out of there for a minute or two. “Make a speech! Make a speech!”

But all I could do was thank them and wave and blow my nose.

Ray and I sat side by side in the wood-paneled office of Fitzgerald’s Funeral Home, banging out the details: closed casket, no calling hours, private burial.

“Funeral Mass?” the undertaker asked. He had an overly helpful manner, seriously bad false teeth. The Fitzgeralds had retired since Ma’s death—had sold this guy their business and their name.

“Funeral Mass?” I repeated. Ray’s yes and my no came out simultaneously.

“He was
religious,
” Ray said.

“He was crazy,” I snapped back. “It’s
over.
”

It was False Teeth who brokered the compromise: priest at the graveside, a simple private service. The only other sticking point was what to do afterward. “Most people have a little something,” the undertaker said. “But you don’t
have
to go that route. You do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“It’ll be around noon by the time it’s over,” I pointed out to Ray. “People will
expect
something.” I told him I’d order some food from
Franco’s, go over to Hollyhock Avenue early and help him set up stuff—that over at my place, even a small crowd would be packed in like sardines. Ray gave grudging approval to the plan and I sat there thinking, hey, he
grew up
in that house. Our grandfather
built
that place. Why
shouldn’t
we have it there?

When I got home, I made a list: people who’d been decent to Thomas over the years—had treated him like a human being. The names and phone numbers fit on an index card. That was hard, making those calls—asking one more thing from the few people who’d already “anted up” on Thomas’s behalf. I saved the two hardest calls for last.

“
You have reached Ralph Drinkwater, tribal pipe-keeper of the Wequonnoc Nation. If this is Tribal Council business . . .
”

I closed my eyes, stammered the particulars to Ralph’s machine: 11:00
A.M.
, Boswell Avenue Cemetery, a twenty-minute service. “No big deal if you can’t make it,” I said. “It’s just that . . . Well, if you
want
to come . . .” Hanging up, I asked myself what the hell I was shaking for. I’d just been talking to a goddamned answering machine.

But I wasn’t lucky enough to get the machine when I called Dessa.
He
answered. The potter. “Eleven?” he said. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Anything else we can do?”

I closed my eyes. Thought: yeah, stop saying
we
. “Uh-uh. Thanks. Nope.”

There was a three- or four-second pause where “Goodbye” should have been. Dan the Man was the first to break the silence. “I . . . I lost one of
my
brothers,” he said. “Six years ago now. Motorcycle accident.”

He’d lost
one
of his brothers? I wasn’t even
whole
anymore.

“My brother Jeff,” he said. “He and I were pretty tight, too.” I closed my eyes. Promised myself this would be over in another ten seconds. “Gone for good: it’s tough, man. Out of the five of us, Jeff was the only one who’d ever pick up the phone, find out if you were still breathing. . . . Well, you hang in there. That’s all I’m trying to say. You want her to call you back when she gets home?”

No need, I said. She could if she wanted to.

After I hung up, I ripped up that index card list of names
and numbers. Tore the pieces into smaller pieces. At least that part was over. Halfway across the kitchen, I stopped, doubled over by it.

Gone for good.

If your twin was dead, were you still a twin?

It was sunny the morning of the funeral—warm for April, but windy. Someone had planted red and white tulips in front of the headstone. Dessa, maybe? I knew she came out to the cemetery pretty regularly to visit Angela’s grave, across the street in the children’s section. Not me. For me, that cemetery was like a land-mine field. Angela, Ma, my grandparents. And now my brother, too.

“JESUS, MEEK AND HUMBLE, MAKE MY HEART LIKE UNTO THINE.” CONCETTINA TEMPESTA BIRDSEY, 1916–1987 RAYMOND ALVAH BIRDSEY, 1923– THOMAS JOSEPH BIRDSEY, 1949–

The headstone was midsized, salt and pepper granite. Ray and Ma had bought the plot right after she got sick, I remember. She’d called me afterward. Said they figured I might marry again—that I’d probably want to make my
own
arrangements—but she needed to have Thomas taken care of. She was going to have Thomas buried with
her
.

The wind kept swaying those tulips, bending them one way, then the other way, ding-donging the heads together. A late frost would zap those mothers.

False Teeth had said six pallbearers was the usual but that we could make do with four. That’s what we did: made do. Ray, me, Leo, and Mr. Anthony from across the street. The casket was heavier than I thought it’d be. Toward the end, Thomas had outweighed me by fifty or sixty pounds. All that starchy food and sedative. All that sitting around down at Hatch.