“You have to show him respect in his house.”
“What has that man ever done to deserve any respect?” The pall of her loathing for her father expanded to engulf her sister. How could she be such a worshipful cow, even after all that had happened? “These are innocent little children, Tina—Mickey’s children, and mine! We must do anything we have to do to protect them.”
“But youcan’tkill Papa.” Tina’s voice was full of fear. “Not your own father.”
Stella sneered at her sister in disgust. “After what he’s done to those babies, the old man can go straight to hell, and I don’t care if he’s my father.” A dark thought prickled in the back of Stella’s mind—Tina was over here at number 4 all the time. Could it have been possible she knew, too? Or had an inkling? Stella was so upset by this thought that she dismissed it quickly, but some suppressed resentment inside her bubbled up and before she could stop herself she said, “If you were amother yourself, you’d understand. You owe your life to your children, not to your father.”
Tina’s eyes fell to her lap as she tried to digest this—probably tried to pick through whether Stella was right or just being mean. The sting of childlessness hadn’t lessened in twenty years of knowing, in twenty years of pouring her heart and attentions into Stella’s children to make up for not having any of her own. Stella had no business attacking her. Tina wasn’t the enemy here. But she was an easy target, and in that moment Stella hated her for mouthing back the same platitudes that had allowed Tony to carry on his monstrosities for the last five decades.
What was said was said, and Stella was done talking. They sat in silence on the porch, Stella gripping the knife, until Tina finally stood and brushed off her lap. “Well, Stella, you be careful,” she said sourly. Tina was probably thinking, Well, she’ll get whatever she has coming this time. Stella didn’t say anything as her sister walked away.
YOU’RE WAITING TO HEARthe story of how Stella almost choked to death that July day in 1970, I know. We’re almost there now.
***
ASSUNTA USED TO SAY THATsitting flat on granite or concrete was what caused hemorrhoids. Stella didn’t know if a doctor had told her mother that or if it was received folk wisdom, but she’d repeated it often. Stella kept hearing her mother’s voice as the house’s shadow stretched over the porch and the concrete under Stella’s bum grew cold.
It was perhaps six o’clock when Antonio trudged up the cement sidewalk he had laid along the driveway. Stella pulled herself awkwardly to her feet so that she could intercept the old man at the back door. Her legs balked and then rejoiced at restored blood flow. She realized she was still wearing the powder-blue slippers.
As she moved, the carving knife she’d had hidden in her skirt was exposed and must have flashed in the sun. Antonio’s eye was caught by the glint. “What’s that, Stella?” He seemed weary as he trudged up the stairs.
She was shaking—why was she shaking? There was nothing she wanted more in her life than to have this man no longer be part of it.
Stella raised the knife so that he could look it in the eye. “You want to know what this is?” she said. “I will show you everything you need to know about it in a minute.”
His laugh sounded tired. There he was, so old but still so big, looking grimy in his grease-stained Red Sox cap.
“Are you gonna kill me, too, Stella?”
She didn’t know what he meant by “too,” but she didn’t want him thinking she was arbitrarily dramatic. “If you don’t stay away from those girls,” she said. The vision came back, the skinny bare legs. She fought off the nausea. “Yes. Yes, I will kill you myself if you don’t stay away from them.”
He was coming toward her. Her heart sped up, pounding—what if he attacked her? Would she actually be able to use the knife on her own father?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Stella.” He was stepping around her and pushing open the door. “It’s none of your business.”
How could it be she had no power over this man? He was old and broken, but he still walked past her like she wasn’t even there. Her heart was already defeated, had retreated into itself as if he had made all the decisions for her, again. She wanted to go home and lick her wounds—had to remind herself that the confrontation wasn’t over, she hadn’t lost yet.
She didn’t have the passion for it, or the energy, but in the end it’s only about the action itself, not what’s behind it. She made her hand move forward and pressed until she felt the tip of the knife bury in the crotch of his pants. She had no way of knowing if the sharp tip met with scrotum or was halted by the prophylactic thickly stitched seam.
“Whoa!” her father shouted.
“Go ahead,” Stella said. “Give me an excuse to cut off your balls.” She pushed a little harder and he yelped just like their little dog Penny. “Any excuse, old man. You can’t learn to mind your own balls, I don’t know that you need them. That would solve your problem and mine, wouldn’t it?”
“You crazy bitch!” Antonio swung at her and tried to move away, but the doorframe stopped him. “Mother Mary, save me from this crazy bitch!”
His voice cracked, and Stella took a step back, suddenly paralyzed by misgiving. He was her father, after all. Her awful, filthy father. An animal who wasn’t fit for a barn, who had stolen from her, piece by piece, her home, her country, her dignity, her teeth, her mother, her freedom, who had made her into this wretched rag of a middle-aged woman.
She couldn’t do it.
“Never again,” Stella said. Her weakness sat like a stone in the bottom of her heart. “You hear me? Never again.”
“Go to hell,” he told her, ducking into his kitchen and shutting thedoor. She watched him through the glass as he watched her back, wary. Then he shuffled off in the direction of his room.
Her chest aching, Stella headed back across Alder Street, toward the pink-orange sun that was settling into the treetops behind her house.
THE TELEVISION WAS ON,but all the other lights in the house were off. No one was home but the little dog, Penny, who leapt off the doormat, where she was curled, and wagged maniacally, licking at Stella’s calves as she tried to enter the house. The boys’ dirty dinner bowls were piled in and around the sink. They never could learn to rinse out their own bowl. How many hours would that one little thing have saved her over her life?
None of her sons—or her daughter, for that matter—were anywhere to be found. A Friday evening, suppertime—where could they be? Bernie was most likely at her friend Patty’s. The little boys, Artie, Richie, and Mingo, were surely at Tina’s. Mingo was Tina’s favorite and he practically lived over there; he often didn’t even come home to sleep. The teenagers were probably racing their buddies’ dirt bikes in the empty strip of road behind the high school.
