She is careful not to turn her head in her sister’s direction so she can’t see her or her pervert husband, Rocco. Fifty years have passed, but she can only remember his selfish lies and his wandering eye. Happy Anniversary to them.
“They will rot together in hell,” she tells her son Richie when he brings her a Diet Coke.
“Sh, Ma,” Richie says. “Be nice for one day, will you?”
THEY HAVE A FIFTIETH-ANNIVERSARY PARTYfor Stella and Carmelo the next year, but it’s much smaller, just dinner at a restaurant.
STELLA GETS VERY ANGRY IN THE SPRINGTIME,when she becomes stuck in the memory of baby Bob kicking in her belly that gray spring of 1948 when the world was crushing her and he was her only ally. She channels her anger into physical activity. When Carmelo is out helping at his son Guy’s restaurant, Stella finds a pair of hefty garden shears and uses them to fell Carmelo’s grape trellises, the gooseberry bushes, and the young peach tree.God only knows how she hacked through that trunk,her children will say.Who knew Mommy was that strong.
Why would she do such a terrible thing?they ask each other, and reply,She’s not right in the head. What can you do.
LATER,STELLA CUTS DOWNCARMELO’Stwo beautiful fifteen-foot fig trees. No one’s ever seen figs like that before or since,purtroppo.
IN THE FALLSTELLA GETS ANGRYagain when the crisp weather reminds her of Montreal, and she carries the feeling of cold marble against the pit of her stomach. She burns all the photos in the kitchen sink. Carmelo comes home from the bar to a house reeking of carbonized plastic. Smears of black and gray smoke have ruined the apple-patterned kitchen wallpaper, which Carmelo will have replaced.
STELLA’S SONTOMMY SITS IN FRONT OF HER,a folding chair drawn up to her armchair, his knees touching her knees. He moves his mouth like he’s talking. Stella can’t tell if she’s going deaf or if he’s teasing her.
STELLA’S OLDEST GRANDDAUGHTER GRADUATESfrom high school. She will go to one of the best universities in the country. Stella won’t recognize its name, and no one will ever successfully explain the big-city job the granddaughter eventually gets. But Stella will proudly attend all her graduation parties, and happily pose for pictures wearing the granddaughter’s flat tasseled cap.
Her other grandchildren will become mechanics, hairdressers, nurses, bankers, auditors, graphic designers, restaurateurs. One will become the principal of an elementary school. One will own a country club, another a funeral home, another a car wash. One will go to Hollywood and act in movies produced by J. J. Abrams, Jodie Foster,and the Coen brothers. Stella won’t recognize those names, either, but she’ll enjoy watching her granddaughter’s face, thirty feet tall, on the screen at the movie theater.
CARMELO IS CROSSING THE PARKING LOTat the post office when he is hit by a car—an eighty-nine-year-old driver who presses on the gas instead of the brake.
He survives. After he is released from the hospital with three broken ribs, his children wait for his postconcussion confusion to clear up. It never does, and eventually they realize he has also suffered a massive stroke.
HER DAUGHTER,BERNADETTE,takes Stella in her blue car to Lyman Orchards. Stella used to take her children there in the summer. You pick whatever is in season—strawberries, apples, pumpkins—then pay by the pound. Today they pick blueberries.
Stella picks and picks. She is so fast—she was always faster than Tina when they were younger, picking chestnuts, harvesting olives, selecting tobacco leaves. Well, Tina’s not here; Bernie didn’t invite her. Something else for Tina to be jealous of.
Stella has a straw hat, lavender, with a flopping brim that covers her face. The sun doesn’t bother Stella; she is tough. She picks till her plastic barrel is full to the top. When she stands to look for Bernie she sees her many rows of bushes away. Stella waves; she has to wait for her daughter to come over, because the barrel is too heavy for Stella to lift.
Oh, Ma! What did you do?Bernie laughs. She can barely carry the barrel down the hill to the farmhouse, where they tip the berries into plastic bags and weigh them. Bernadette is rubbing her forehead.I had no idea she would pick so much,she says to the girl at the cash register.Can’t I write you a check?The girl has an orange bandanna tied over her head, knotted at her neck, the way Assunta used to wear a cloth to cover her bald patches.I’m so embarrassed. No ATM?
In the car on the way home Bernie stops at a drive-through, hands Stella a lemon ice in a paper cup.
TOMMY TAKESTINA ANDROCCOon a trip to Italy and France to see the old relatives who are still left alive.
Mingo is staying with Stella and Carmelo while Tommy’s away. His wife has left him and he has been released from rehab, supposedly clean. All Mingo has to do is keep an eye on Stella, make sure she gets her medicine and doesn’t try to harm her husband.
But it makes her so mad to see Carmelo sitting there in his chair, stupidly watching television. Now when she sees him so weak, like a baby, the fifty-seven years of their marriage evaporate and she can only think about the time he overpowered her—as fresh in her brain as if it had happened this morning, she can still feel the stockings pulling taut against the soft flesh of her thighs, even though her thighs are now fluffy with age, and she hasn’t worn nylons in twenty years. It makes her so angry she wants to hurt him, and now she can.
What are you doing lying on the floor, Dad?Mingo asks when he gets home from wherever he was—my guess would be the bar. But Carmelo is incoherent. He has a large bruise on the back of his head.
Stella is sitting in her chair crocheting.
Mommy, what happened to Daddy?Mingo asks.
He did a bad thingis all Stella has it in her to say to her son.
STELLA DOESN’T FINISH THE BLANKETSshe crochets anymore. She makes half a blanket but then loses interest and starts a new one. While she crochets Tommy sits next to her and unravels the neglected blanket, rerolling the yarn for her to use again next time she loses interest.
ROCCOCARAMANICO HAS A STROKE AND DIES.The dying part takes him three days. He is intubated and can’t talk, but he’s not readyto go. He flaps his arms and tries to communicate with all the nieces and nephews who come see him.
You’re our second father,they tell him, crying. Many of Assunta’s grandchildren got her crying gene. They sit vigil with Tina at the hospital bed until he finally goes. Then there is the two-day funeral.
Tommy brings Stella to the wake, which makes everyone nervous. She stands in the receiving line—the deceased’s beloved sister-in-law—accepting condolences. She lets this go on for three hours before she starts telling people,He wanted to marry me, not her,pressing mourner’s hands,and she is going to rot in hell for her jealousy,at which point Richie bundles her into the car and drives her home.
LOUIE’S KIDNEYS GIVE OUT.Queenie is inconsolable. She loses sixty pounds.
