The Tin Box Secret - Chapter 4

Chapter 4                                        The Tin Box Secret

Heather and I walked down the block toward Petra’s house, Heather swinging her Instamatic camera from its string.  Mrs. Conner waved “hello” as she meticulously washed the window on her front door.   I could see her father-in-law sitting in his wheelchair by the bay window and staring out at us as we passed their house.  A while back, he had had throat cancer and had to have his voice box removed.  I don’t know how he communicated with his daughter-in-law, but I suppose she did enough talking for the both of them.

As we neared Petra’s house, I felt a ripple of trepidation tingle up my spine.  The high Gothic windows embedded in the Victorian façade seemed to be watching us as we approached. For twenty-five years this house had been left to languish and it was in sore need of repair. The worn roof drooped low, exposing gaps where lost shingles had long ago blown away.   Dark moss crept up the steep angles of the roof line.  Ivy grew on the tall chimney, choking the bricks as it wound its way up; the ivy’s appendages beseeching release into the sky.  This certainly did look like a house where a ghost would feel at home.  For the first time, I thought perhaps I should have listened to my father and met Petra at the library.

“I wonder which window belongs to Petra’s bedroom.” Heather mumbled.   She lifted her camera and started snapping pictures. 

“I just hope it’s not in the turret,” I replied.

Even before I knew that Petra’s grandmother had been found dead in the granny attic, this house had given me the creeps.   Miss Tandy’s simple clapboard farmhouse sat next to the daunting Victorian structure.  The cozy screened-in porch filled with piles of magazines and old newspapers was a sharp contrast to its imposing neighbor.  Miss Tandy had a hanging porch swing that she and I would sit on during hot summer days. There was always a cool pitcher of iced tea on the wicker table next to the swing, waiting for any guest who might stop by for an afternoon chat. 

Heather snapped a picture of the turret.  “What’s wrong with the turret?” Heather asked me.

“I thought you knew.  Petra’s grandmother poisoned herself in the granny attic.”

“No way!  Do you know why she did it?” asked Heather.

“I don’t know, but Petra’s mother was just a girl when it happened.  I heard that she found her mother’s body when she came home from school.”

“How horrible!  Who told you what happened?”

“It’s just gossip from the neighbors.  My mother told me about it, but it happened before my family moved here.”

“Wow.  What a shame, it’s such a cool house!  Just look at all the property around it.  I bet you could have a mean game of ‘kick-the-can’ and there are plenty of places for all the kids in the neighborhood to hide out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I tried to take my mind off of the tragic history of the house and, instead, concentrated on spending the day with my friends. 

As we walked up to the house, Petra came bursting out of the screen door.  She ran across the front lawn and collapsed in front of us in a fit of giggles.  We tried to help her to her feet but she wound up pulling us down on the grass with her.  Lying on her back, Petra pointed up to the sky, “Look at that!  It looks like Pegasus!”  Heather and I lay down next to her and looked up.  Large white puffy clouds broke the blue expanse that greeted our eyes.  Petra was pointing to a cloud that resembled a horse with wings flying across the sky.

“Wouldn’t you love to fly!” she exclaimed.

“Sometimes I dream that I’m flying above trees and buildings and I’m not afraid at all.”  Heather sighed.

I thought about my own dreams but didn’t know how to explain them.  Instead I just said, “But then you have to land. That doesn’t scare you?”

“No.  Whatever goes up; must come down!” giggled Heather.  Petra stood up and then said, “And whatever goes down; must come up!”  She pulled our arms until we were standing again.  “Let’s go inside and I’ll show you around.”

Behind the front door was a large entrance hall and, beyond that, a stairway reaching up into darkness.  But the entrance hall was full of color, as the sun found its way through the old stained glass in the large windows.  There were beautiful urns and vases in a multitude of colors decorating the hall.  Statues from ancient cities stood guard on either side of the imposing stairway and it looked more like a museum than a house.  Petra’s mom came walking into the hall from a back room that I guessed was the kitchen. Delicious smells from the oven followed her into the room. She had an apron on and was wiping her hands on it as she approached.  She put out her dried hand and said, “I’m Lydia, it’s so nice to meet you girls.”  Lydia’s touch was soft, warm, and confident as she enclosed my small hand in hers.

She had fine laugh lines around her mouth and her eyes, where the skin crinkled when she smiled.  Her large eyes were a deep dark brown and she had lush auburn curls that hung to her shoulders and framed her pretty face.  Her dimpled full-lipped smile exuded a comfortable confidence that drew me to her.

I wasn’t used to people touching me, so I looked down at her hand holding mine with uncertainty.  After an awkward pause, I stammered, “I’m Julie and this is my friend, Heather.”

Heather tilted her face up toward Lydia and let go of one of her brilliant smiles.  As Lydia released my hand, I felt bereft of the energy that had flowed from her hand into mine. Lydia took Heather’s hand in hers and said, “Pleased to meet you, Heather.  You girls make yourselves at home and when you are ready, come into the kitchen.  I already made some sandwiches, and I have some chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.”   Lydia walked behind her daughter and put her arms around her.  She caressed Petra’s hair and gently kissed the top of her head before walking back to the kitchen. When she left, it was as if the air had been sucked out of the room with her.  I felt a pain deep in my chest and a burning behind my eyes.  I looked at Heather and recognized the same agony in the rigid lines of her face.  Neither of us knew what it was like to have a mother like Lydia.

“The library’s upstairs; come with me,” directed Petra.

Reaching out to Heather, I grabbed her hand and together we walked up the stairs.  Petra explained as we reached the second floor that this was where her bedroom was but we continued to climb up to the third floor.

“Half of this entire floor is the library and that door leads out to a veranda overlooking the backyard.  The other half of this floor is my parents’ bedroom.  Above us, on the fourth floor, is the granny attic with the turret.  There’s a cool widow’s walk looking over the back of the house.  My mom says that you can see the bay from there.”

“What’s a widow’s walk?” Heather asked.

“The story is that long ago, an ancestor of mine who was a sea captain had this house built.  The wives of sea captains often had landings that they could walk on, high on the outside of the house, near the roof of their homes.  When their husbands were at sea, they could look out over the bay and watch for their husbands to return.   Being a sea captain was very dangerous in those days, and often the men and their ships were lost. So landings like these became known as widows’ walks.”

We walked into the library and saw walls lined with hundreds of books.  Relics from foreign lands were placed on display, scattered around the bookshelves and hung on the walls. There were African masks, jewel-encrusted ornaments, and lengths of exotic fabric made splashes of color throughout the room.  Soft-cushioned dark brown leather chairs were placed beside small reading tables with green-shaded desk lamps.  Petra had turned all of the lights on and a warm glow filled the large room.  I walked to one wall and gently ran my fingers over the bindings that read, Bronte, Browning, Crane, Chopin, Dickens, Flaubert, Hawthorne, and Hemingway.  A light film of dust covered my fingertips and the smell of old books filled my senses.  Walking across the room I saw books by Shakespeare, Shelley, Steinbeck, Tennyson, and Whitman.  What treasures were accumulated within these walls!

“Have you read all of these books?”  I asked in awe.

“This library has been here in this house for a long time, but my mom has always had plenty of books.  She says she can never feel at home unless there are loads of books surrounding her.  She’s been reading some of them to me since I was a little girl.  But of course, I haven’t read all of these books; although, I think she probably has!  My mom says that these books have the answers to all our questions. Like, once I asked her what it was like to live during the depression, the next thing I knew we were reading Grapes of Wrath; not my favorite book.  But just bring up a question to her and she’ll have you reading a book searching for the answer.”

“Which is your favorite?” I asked.

“Definitely, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and also, the series of ‘Little House’ books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I’ll never forget reading The Long, Long Winter with my mom.  We called it the Long, Long, Long, Long, Long Winter.” Petra started laughing and shaking her head.  “I didn’t think it was ever going to end!  But it really made you think about how it must have been back then to live without all the modern comforts we take for granted now.”

“That brings us to the topic of inventions,” I added.   She picked up a pile of books, "I found these books on inventions.  Here, let’s each take a couple and look through them.  I thought that maybe they might inspire our thought processes.”

She handed me copies of The Fabulous Story of How American Dreamers, Wizards, and Inspired Tinkerers Converted a Wilderness into the Wonder of the World, by Mitchell A. Wilson and The Picture History of Inventions, from Plough to Polaris, by Umberto Eco.

Petra pointed to some notebooks and pencils on one of the tables.  “Let’s jot down some ideas and see what we come up with.”

After poring through a dozen books among us, and reading about the inventions of edible tie pins, an automatic hat-tipper, bed-wetting alarms, and an electrical bedbug exterminator, we started to get really silly.

I said, “How about a soap called ‘cheese’ that’s in the shape of cheese and lasts for exactly 365 days.  You only need to buy one bar a year!”

Heather chimed in, “And the smell drives all the girls crazy like in the Aqua-Velva commercials!”  She started going wild, attacking an imaginary guy who had just used our cheese soap.

Petra laughed and looked forlornly at her blank notebook, “Maybe we should be a little more practical.  How about inventing a machine that does your school projects for you?  All you have to do is just tell it what the topic is and it gives you all the information that you need and puts it all together.”

“Far out!  Then we wouldn’t have to waste time in the library and we could play outside.  It’s spring and I want to be out there!”  Heather walked over to the window.  “Hey what’s that?”

Petra and I joined her at the window overlooking the backyard.  There was an old wooden structure perched in a giant maple tree.   It was cradled in a web of huge branches.  Tiny green buds appeared along the maple’s outstretched limbs.

Petra explained, “It used to be my mom’s tree house when she was a little girl.  It’s been a long time since it was used so my dad wants to make sure it’s safe before I climb up into it.  He said he has to add extra supports and replace some weak boards.  Maybe, after he’s finished, we can decorate it together.”

“Count me in!” I screamed.

“This is so cool!”  Heather was so excited she tripped over a chair.

“Let’s go have our sandwiches, we need fuel to think.” Petra led us downstairs.

The kitchen had an old white enamel table with cold matching chairs placed around it.  Lydia set out a tray of plastic-wrapped sandwiches and glasses of milk as we sat down.  I looked around a room that seemed to be suspended in time.  The white cupboards and big farm sink were from a different era.

Lydia saw me looking at the kitchen and said, “We have a lot of renovation to do on the house, but I kind of like this old kitchen.  Although we have to update the appliances, I think I will keep this early 20th century look.”  She looked wistful for a moment as if happy childhood memories were passing through her mind.  I started to realize that Lydia had good memories of this house as well as the sad ones.  This is where she had been a child, where she had lived with her parents.  This was her home.

We sat at the kitchen table, enjoying our lunch.  Heather asked Lydia, “Would you take a picture of us?”  “Of course!” Lydia replied.  We smiled at the camera as the flash blinded our eyes.  Just then, a man and little boy walked in.  Through the dots in front of my face, I saw the shape of a man, his dark hair frosted with gray.  He wore glasses over his huge round blue eyes and he had a handsome strong jaw and a warm smile.

Petra jumped off her stool and ran over to the man for a hug.  Putting her arm through the crook of his, she introduced us, “Hey guys, this is my dad, John Racine, and this is my little brother, Jack.   Dad, these are my friends Julie and Heather.”

“Hello ladies!” her father spoke with a dreamy French accent.   He came over to me and took my hand and kissed the back of it.  He did the same to Heather and she giggled because it tickled.  Little Jack, who was a miniature replica of his father, proudly said, “Hi, I’m Jack.”

“How old are you Jack?”  Heather asked.

He took in a deep dramatic breath and shouted, “I’m five!”  He then ran over and hid behind Petra.  She picked him up, carried him over to the kitchen counter, and placed him down on a stool.   She announced, “Jack is the sweetest boy in the world!”  She protectively placed her arm around his waist to keep him from falling off the stool.  He turned in his seat, kissed her cheek and giggled.

“I didn’t know you had a little brother,” I said.

“Yeah, well, we try to hide him in the attic but he keeps breaking out.” Petra teased.

“No I don’t!”  Jack took her seriously.  “I don’t like the attic!”

Lydia stepped in now, “You know I don’t like you teasing your brother” she admonished Petra.   Lydia picked up Jack, gave him an Eskimo kiss and placed him down in front of his sandwich and a glass of milk.

Petra shrugged, smiled at Jack, and blew him a kiss. Jack who had been glowering at Petra stopped sulking, smiled, and blew a kiss back to her.

Lydia spoke to Heather and me, “I tell Petra and Jack all the time how lucky they are to have each other.  I know sisters and brothers like to tease but . . . it’s . . . so hurtful when teasing comes from someone you love.”  Lydia tilted her head and looked pleadingly at her daughter.

“Sorry mom.”  Petra looked up at Lydia.  Lydia came over to Petra and placed her hand on Petra’s shoulder and gently squeezed her, “I know, honey.”

That was the end of it.  I couldn’t ever imagine a scene like that at my house.  For my sisters and me, teasing was a competition that we took part in daily.  As hurtful as it was, you just got caught up in the cycle.

Mr. Racine asked, “So what are you girls doing inside on this beautiful day?” 

“We’re working on a project for school.  We have to come up with a product or service to present to our English class.  We've been looking through the library at books on all sorts of inventions but we haven’t been able to come up with anything that would really work,” explained Petra.

"You said it could be a service, right?” asked her dad.

“Yeah.” We all shook our heads.

“Why don’t you develop a research service where you girls would use our family library as the source for your research?  You could offer it as a service to your classmates.”

“Dad, what a great idea!”

“Yeah, the public library is pretty far from here and the school library is closed on weekends.  We could be the local weekend library research center.”  I liked this idea; spending time around books was no hardship for me.

“Kids could pay us to look up the information they need for reports.  Then we hand them the information and they write their own reports.  We could even loan out books.”  Petra was getting excited.

Lydia frowned, “I thought this was supposed to be a hypothetical business?  I don’t know about loaning out our books for money.  You’d have to keep track of the books and what would you do if someone didn’t return a book or if a book got damaged?”  

“It is just hypothetical!  We just have to develop the whole concept.  But you’re right.  Even hypothetically we’ll just offer to do the research for them.  We could charge by the hour or by the project, what do you think?”  Petra asked.

“I’m not sure about this, it sounds an awful lot like plagiarism.” Lydia commented.                  

 “Oh, mom!” Petra admonished.

Heather cut off Petra’s protest, “I think we should develop a price list for research that takes an hour, half a day, one day, or the whole weekend.”  Lydia smiled knowingly then walked over to the sink to wash some dishes.  I decided that I would ask Mr. Cabot about whether this really constituted plagiarism.

“Good idea, let’s do it!” Petra ran up to get her notebook, and after we wrote down all of our ideas, we took the tray of cookies out to the backyard to have a picnic.

Lydia gave us a blanket and we laid it down on the grass.  The birds were singing and tulips and daffodils were blooming around the edges of the house.  The trees around us were also budding and forming the skeleton of a canopy above our heads. 

“How should we decorate the tree house?” I asked.

“My favorite color is purple,” said Petra.

“So is mine!” said Heather.

“Mine is pink!” I offered.

“Okay,” said Petra, “Then two walls will be pink and two walls will be purple.”

“Neat!” exclaimed Heather.  “How about sticking some glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling?”

“Cool!   We could use some posters too.  I have a Peter Max poster,” I offered.

“Does the tree house have electricity?” asked Heather.

“I don’t think so.”  Petra answered.  “But we can bring up battery-operated camp lanterns.”

I asked, “Do you think maybe your mom would let us use an extension cord or even string some Christmas lights from the attic window?  Then we could get electricity to the tree house.”

“Great idea!” exclaimed Petra.

We spent the rest of the afternoon planning how we would decorate it.  When it was time to go home Heather and I thanked Lydia and John for letting us use their library.  “Anytime you need to use the library, you’re welcome to come over.  And if either of you ever wants to borrow a book to read, that would be fine too.”  Lydia gave each of us a hug and said, “Come back soon for a visit.”

Heather and I walked home past Mrs. Connor who was now weeding the garden in her front yard.  “Hi girls, did you have a nice time today?”  “Oh yeah, it was a great day!” Heather gushed.

“You spent all day in there, what’s the inside of the house like?”

I nudged Heather to walk faster, “Sorry, we have to get home.  No time to talk right now.”  I whispered to Heather, “Don’t even start with her, all she wants is gossip.”

Miss Tandy was rocking on her porch swing.  She called, “Hello girls!  Enjoying the nice day?”

I spoke loudly so that she could hear, “Hi, Miss Tandy! It’s nice out today, but I can’t wait for summer!”

“Me too, be sure to stop by for some iced tea!”

“Okay, see you soon,” I replied.

We got to my house first and I ran up my front steps, “See you in school on Monday,” I called.  Heather waved goodbye as she continued on her way home.

Inside, my mother was getting ready for dinner.  I watched her as she set the table and I thought about my family.  My parents provided us with a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on our table, and a good education.  So much more than Heather had.  And yet, still I felt so numb?  What more did I want?  But now that I had glimpsed the kind of love that families could share, I felt cheated.  It was hard to acknowledge this because I felt guilty about not appreciating what I did have.  Many nights I sat at the table and pushed the vegetables around on my plate and was told that “children were starving in China!"

I washed my hands and went to sit at the kitchen table. My father sat down, took off his belt and laid it across his lap.

“Mary, your mother told me that we’re almost out of shampoo again.  Are you still washing your hair twice each time you take a shower?  If you insist on doing that, then I’m going to take the cost of the shampoo out of your allowance.” My dad was annoyed with Mary.  Mary tried to explain that she had read the directions on the shampoo bottle that said you were supposed to wash your hair twice each time.  But considering that her allowance was only 25 cents a week, it would take two months to pay for one bottle of shampoo.  So she gave in and said, “I’ll only wash my hair once from now on.” 

My mother tried to change the subject as she placed the chicken cutlets on the table, “So how was everything at Petra’s house?”  

“Petra’s parents are really nice and she has an adorable little brother named Jack.  We decided to use a service for our English project.   We can use Petra’s library to do research for the kids in class.  By the way, Lydia said I could borrow books from the library to read.”

“Really?”  My dad was impressed.  My love for reading had been inherited from him.  One time he said to me that the worst thing that could happen to him would be to lose his sight.  He couldn't imagine not being able to read anymore.

Mary said, “You’d better clean your room before you start borrowing books.  You’re bound to lose them in that mess.”  Annoyed, I glared at her.  Why did she have to bring that up?  I was having such a great day, but now she had to ruin it for me.  I looked at my father to see if he was going to add to Mary’s criticism.

Angie added sarcastically, “More books!  That’s just what you need!  Like you don’t spend enough time buried in the ones you have.”  I felt like it was a physical blow.  This is what we did to each other.  In order to save ourselves, we threw each other to the lions.  Angie shook her head in disapproval and then reached for the bread across the table, “Juliana, you’re a cross-eyed bookworm.”

Every night, I automatically kissed my mother and father on their cheeks before heading up to bed.  It was expected and it was necessary.  Inspired by Petra’s family, tonight I felt bolder than usual.  My parents were watching television in the recreation room.  My mother was sitting on the couch and my father in his recliner.

I walked over to my mother and put my arms around her in a hug.  She pushed me away with a nervous uncomfortable laugh and rubbed her arms as if to rub off my touch. Flustered, she said “Good night and don’t read too late, we are going to ten o’clock mass in the morning.”  She dismissed me and looked back at her show. 

After that, my courage abandoned me.  I dutifully walked over to my father and kissed his cheek.  As I walked up to my bedroom, I brushed quickly at my eyes so that Angie wouldn't see the tears.   I wondered how I could feel so lonely when I was surrounded by my family, but the fact was, I did.  I said to myself, at least you have them, Heather doesn't really have anyone.  But in spite of that knowledge, I felt the emptiness engulf me.

The Tin Box Secret - Chapter 3

Chapter 3                                                                 The Tin Box Secret

My father sat in his chair reading aloud from the newspaper about the student protests that were sweeping the nation.  They were protesting against the war and organizing demonstrations for civil rights.  There were women burning their bras to protest the need for equal rights of the sexes.  There were marches in the south urging equal civil rights for all races.  College campuses had been turned into platforms for the anti-war movement.  At Howard University, the students had seized the administration building; students took over another building at Bowie State College in Maryland, and there had been an eight-day sit-in at Columbia University.  After thousands of students marched on the White House in Washington D.C. chanting, “L.B.J., L.B.J., how many kids did you kill today!” peace talks had finally begun between the U.S. and the North Vietnamese.  My father stopped reading and shook his head, "What is this world coming to?"

I jumped at the chance to talk to him about what was going on in our own town.  "Dad, even here people are protesting. Walk-outs and sit-downs organized by the girls in our own high school, finally made the administration give permission for girls to wear pants in both the high school and junior high.  There are strict rules to follow, the pants can only be slacks, no blue jeans allowed.  We were warned that any girl arriving in school with a hole in her slacks, a hem that was dragging on the floor, or pants torn in any way, would be suspended from school."

"And are you telling me you are wearing slacks to school now?" Dad was surprised.

"Mom bought me two pairs of bellbottom slacks, one is orange and the other is a lime green plaid.  But the younger kids in elementary school still aren't allowed to wear pants."  After I said it, I realized I probably shouldn't have told him.  Now he would know that mom had taken the bus to go shopping for us.  He wasn't going to like that.  But before he could say anything, Mom called us in to dinner. 

Angie came downstairs to join us, excited to tell us something.  "I heard you talking about us not being able to wear pants.  Well, that all changed today!' she announced.  

"It was so unfair!  The sixth grade girls didn't care because in September they'll be in junior high.  We had to do something or we'd be walking to school again next year wearing those ugly itchy woolen leggings under our jumpers!"

Angie related the events that had occurred earlier in the day.  She had organized the fifth grade girls to march down to the principal’s office.  I wish I could have seen Mrs. Munson’s face when the fifth grade girls entered the office and demanded an audience with the principal.  Mrs. Munson was Principal McGuire’s secretary, but she was also Karen Munson’s mother.  And Karen also happened to be one of the fifth grade girls standing in front of her desk demanding to see the principal.   When Principal McGuire came out of his office to see what the commotion was about, it was Karen who spoke up first. 

I had a hard time trying not to laugh.  Her face was so serious and she flung her arms about in excitement as she retold the story.  Angie continued, “The girls stood behind us and Karen told Principal McGuire, ‘We should have the right to wear slacks in school!’  Then I said, ‘This is an injustice!  What’s good for the high school and junior high girls should be good for us too!’” 

"Angie, you're so dramatic!" I exclaimed.

“Then it was the best, we all started chanting, ‘These are the facts!  We want to wear slacks!  These are the facts!  We want to wear slacks!’” Angie held her head high, proud of being one of the organizers of this protest. 

“What did he do?”  Mary asked, amazed at our spunky little sister.

“Well, Mr. McGuire told us that he had to speak with the superintendent before anything could be done.  But later he called all the fifth and sixth grade girls down to the multi-purpose room and announced that we too would be allowed to wear slacks to school!”  

My mother shook her head at this.

Caught up in the lively dinner conversation, I jumped in next, wanting to share my story of the day.  “You have to hear what happened in our English class today.  I have the coolest English teacher!   Today Mr. Cabot had us all lie down on the floor in the aisles between our desks.  He told us to close our eyes and think calm thoughts.  Then he had us stretch and then relax each part of our bodies, starting with our toes and slowly making our way up to our neck and head.  It was so cool!  Then he said to think of something beautiful.  I thought of the bay.  I imagined there were two seagulls gliding down and then soaring up toward the sky again.” 

Angie started to giggle, “Now who's being dramatic, Juliana?” I ignored her and continued, “He said, stretch, relax, we repeated the motions over and over.  I was dying to have Dr. Martin walk by and have him peek into the classroom, I don’t know if he would have thought that it was as cool as we did.”  

“This Mr. Cabot sounds like a hippie to me.”  My father said with disgust.  “This is what we are paying taxes for?  This is teaching?”

At the same time, Angie reached for more mashed potatoes and my father took his fork and stuck it into the back of her hand.  She cried out and quickly pulled her hand back and gave me a nasty look.  My father ordered, “Don’t reach. Ask if you’d like more.”

Dinners at our house were supposed to be “family time.”  But my father sat at the table with his strap laid across his lap waiting for any of us to misbehave.  Sometimes he would fold the strap over and hold the ends in each hand and then snap the strap to make a menacing sound of warning. I decided to eat the rest of my meal in silence. 

In my thoughts I reminisced alone about the unusual events that had taken place that day.  After our lesson in relaxation, Mr. Cabot said, “Your new assignment this week will be to develop a product or service and then present your idea to the class.  Explain why you think the rest of the class should buy your product or use your service.  After the projects are presented, the class will vote on which product or service they would most likely use.  You will be working with a partner, so please choose one and spend the rest of the period brainstorming.”  Everyone started looking around the classroom for a partner.  Then Mr. Cabot said, “Julie, I’d like you to partner with the new girl.” 

I looked at the new girl.  She dressed different from the rest of us, more colorful, even the material of her clothes seemed different.  Mr. Cabot waved her over to us before I could protest. 

She came over to my desk and Mr. Cabot introduced us.  “Petra, this is Julie, she’ll take good care of you.”  He said with emphasis on the word “good” as he squeezed my shoulder.

Not knowing what else to say, I blurted out, “Hi.”

“So, what do you think?  I don’t even know where to start.” I added as Mr. Cabot walked toward some other students.

Petra smiled, “I think it’s going to be fun!  And I’m really glad that Mr. Cabot asked us to work together.  Since I don’t know anyone in our class yet, I was nervous when he said we’d have to work with a partner.”  There was this soft hint of an accent when she spoke that made we wonder where she was from. 

“Maybe we can get together on Saturday at the library to do some research.”  I suggested.

“Isn't the library pretty far away?” 

“Yeah, it’s about two miles north of here.” 

“Well,” she said, “Maybe we could meet at my house instead.  My mom’s family has had a library in the house for ages.  And my parents just added a bunch more, the room is jammed with books about everything.”

“That would be great!  Then we wouldn't have to go all the way to the library.  Where do you live?”

“On Willow Lane.” 

“Hey, that’s where I live!” 

“Do you know the old Victorian house?” 

I warily shook my head yes. 

“Well, that’s my house.”

“Are you Lydia Menlo’s daughter?” 

“Yeah.  But her name is Lydia Racine now.”  Cautiously she asked, “How do you know my mother?” 

“Well, I heard my mom talking with some of our neighbors after church a few weeks ago and they mentioned that she had moved back into her mother’s house.” 

Petra seemed to be weighing what I said.  “Did they say anything else?” 

“Well, they said she had a daughter around my age.”  After a moment’s hesitation I thought it was best to get it out in the open and let her know what I knew.  “And my mother told me that your grandmother committed suicide in the house when your mother was a girl.” 

Petra tilted her face down and closed her eyes.  I think she was trying not to cry.  I felt really bad and touched her hand. 

She frowned and said, “My mom doesn't like to talk about it.  I've asked her questions but she says she doesn't know what happened.  She moved away shortly after and hasn't been back until now.  I’m worried that now that she’s back, it will upset her again.” 

I thought again about the potholes along the Belt Parkway and how they kept being reopened, and then I said, “Well, if it does upset her, at least now she will have you to take her mind off of it.” 

Petra reached out her arms and hugged me, “And now, I have a new friend!”

Later, Petra joined Heather and me as we walked home. 

“What does your dad do?” Since Heather never knew her own father, she had an obsession with everyone else’s fathers.

          

“He’s the curator at The American Museum of Natural History.” 

Heather gushed, “Wow!  Groovy!”

“What did he do before you moved here?”  I asked.

“He worked at Le Museum National in Paris.  I was born in Paris.” 

Heather screeched, “Cool!” 

“So Julie, do you think we could work on the project tomorrow?”

“Sure.” But I wasn't at all sure that my dad would let me go to her house. Tomorrow was Saturday and I hoped that my parents didn't have any plans that included me.

When we got to Heather’s house I said, “How’s everything been with your mom?” 

“She’s been going to work, so that’s good.  But she’s also been out a lot at night.  I guess things could be worse.”   She walked to her front door and said, “Well, I’ll see you guys on Monday.  It was nice meeting you Petra.” 

“Hey, look, if you want to come and hang out with us while we work on this English project, you’re welcome to come over on Saturday too.” Petra offered.

“That would be great!  Just let me know what time, okay?”

“All right, see you tomorrow,” I said.  Heather entered her house with an extra bounce in her step. 

Petra and I wrote each other’s phone numbers on our hands.  As I wrote down my number on her palm, I explained that our phone was on a party line.  “One of the people we share the party line with is our neighbor, Mrs. Conner.  Just a warning, she listens in on everyone’s conversations.” 

Petra started laughing, and with a devilish gleam in her eyes, she said, “Well then, we’ll have to give her something to listen to, won’t we?”

Now as I sat at the dinner table alone, I pushed the Lima beans around on my plate and tried to hide them in the mashed potatoes.  My mother was cleaning up the dinner plates. My father had already finished his dinner and was sitting in the living room in his recliner, reading the Daily News.  My sisters had gone down to the recreation room to watch T.V.  Only I still sat at the dinner table trying to swallow the detested Lima beans while I tried to think of a way to ask my dad if I could go over to Lydia Menlo’s house tomorrow.   Finally, my mother grew tired of waiting for me to finish, so she put her finger to her lips to warn me to be quiet.  She took my plate and scraped it into the garbage, before adding it to the dirty dishes in the sink.  She handed me a dishrag and I started to dry off the wet dishes and put them away.  We worked in silence; familiar with the routine, we performed our duties with efficiency.  I watched her red hands caress the dishes and wondered what it would be like if she ever touched me with those hands.  The familiar ache welled up inside of me.  The urge to reach out and touch her was strong, but I knew from experience that she would shrug it off with a nervous laugh.  So I held the rag, warm in my hand, and concentrated on the plate that she had just washed.  When we finished the dishes, I walked into the living room to talk with my father.

“Dad, I have an assignment for English that I need to work on.  My partner on the project is Lydia Menlo’s daughter.  She said that I could come over tomorrow, if it’s okay, and we can start doing some research.”

“I don’t want you over there.”

“Dad, please.  I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

My dad snapped, “I said I don’t want you over there and that’s it!” he shouted. 

“But why?  We have to do this project together for school!”

“Fine, then go to the library.”

I looked down the hall to the kitchen at my mother and pleaded silently for help.  She just shook her head.  My mother had less say in our house than I did.  Well, I decided that I wasn't giving in this time.

I gathered all of my courage and defiantly raised my voice, “I am going to Petra’s house tomorrow!”

You could have heard a pin drop, it got so quiet. 

Then he erupted, “What kind of name is that, ‘Petra’?  What kind of family are they?  I don’t like it!” 

He stood up and started unbuckling his belt, but this time, I walked right over to him.  I stood as tall as I could and said between gritted teeth, “You can hit me with that.  But I’m telling you, I’m going anyway.”  

          After a long moment, my father sighed.  He sat back down in his chair and moved his right hand through what was left of his hair.  For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him.  He looked so defeated.

More calmly this time, I explained, “She has all the books and information that we need at her house.  If we do the work there, then you don’t have to drive me all the way to the library and then come back and pick me up a few hours later.  I’ll just be right down the block.” 

Slowly a slight smile came to his face.  Perhaps, in some small way, he admired my courage.  He shook his head, took a deep breath and said, “What am I going to do with you?”  Silence again.  Then finally, “Okay.  But I want you home by five o’clock sharp!” 

“Thanks Daddy.” I went over to him and gave him a light kiss on his cheek.  His smile broadened.  I’m not sure what changed his mind, maybe it was the memory of how out of control he had been the last time he hit me.  Maybe it was simply that he had seen a bit of himself reflected in my own stubbornness.  Whatever it was, I felt like a slight wind of change had just blown through our house.

The phone rang and my mother answered it in the kitchen.  She called, “Juliana, it’s for you.” With a surge of pride born out of the small victory, I picked up the phone.

Petra was on the line, “Hi Julie!  Can you come over tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but I have to be home by five.”

“Okay, so how about you come over around eleven and my mom will give us lunch.”

I could hear Mrs. Conner’s nasally breathing on the party line and I heard Petra giggle as she realized what the noise was.

Then Petra added, “I hope you’re not afraid of ghosts! Because, you know, our house is haunted by my grandmother!”

A gasp escaped from Mrs. Conner’s lips as she hastily hung up the phone.

        
I laughed as I pictured Mrs. Conner hastily closing the curtains to hide from the ghost of Petra’s grandmother.

The Tin Box Secret - Chapter 2

Chapter 2                                                            The Tin Box Secret     

On Sunday morning, my sisters and I pulled on our best dresses, over slips made of stiff itchy lace and headed for church.  We sat in a pew toward the back and near the aisle so that we could get out quicker at the end of mass.  My mom took out two pieces of Dentyne gum from her pocketbook, popped one in her mouth and asked me if I’d like a piece.  The spicy cinnamon taste bit my tongue as I watched her chew with her freshly painted bright red lips.   The wrinkles in her skin were covered over by tan colored cake makeup that stopped at her chin; her throat below the line of makeup was pale and ghostly by contrast.  I thought that if I were a man, I wouldn't want to kiss a face full of makeup.  It almost seemed to be a layer of protection between my mother and anyone who might try to get close.  A mask, used to hide who she really was from everyone else, including her own children.

She wore a real fox stole.  The whole head of the fox was on one end and the tail was on the other.  The beady glass eyes of the fox looked up blindly toward the ceiling of the church.  Angie was showing off her brand new white muff.  She made a show of it so that everyone sitting around us would see how pretty she looked.  Angie looked like a little angel.  Her small heart-shaped face featured wide open eyes and a sweet bow of a mouth when she smiled.  By contrast, Mary and I wore somber black veils that blended in to our nearly black hair.  I imagined that we looked like mysterious Spanish Contessas.  Usually, we fought over who would get to wear the white veil, but today it was on Angie’s head because it matched her new muff.

Overheated bodies, pressed up against each other, gave off the sickly sweet odor of sweat.  It mingled with the smell of incense burning at the altar, causing me to feel lightheaded and a bit sick to my stomach.  Just before mass started, the O’Reilly family filed in.  They had twelve kids and they took up an entire row.  To the astonishment of other parishioners, their mother let them bring books, small toys and candy to church to keep them occupied. 

My attention was drawn to the aisle as the palms were passed out and my sisters and I went to work making crosses out of them.  Of course, Mary’s came out the best.  Angie had some trouble getting hers to stay in its form, so Mary helped her tie it together. There was a small commotion at the very back of the church, I turned around to look in that direction.  Donny was standing along the wall with his family.  Church was very crowded today on account of its being Palm Sunday.  His great-grandfather, Silas Finster, stood angrily at the end of a pew; his eyebrows pressed down to make a frightening scowl.  A woman seated in the row opposite him, poked her husband and whispered to him.  With that her husband stood up and gave the old man his seat.  Even though the pew was already jammed, the woman moved to her left to leave as much room as possible between herself and the old man.

I looked back at Donny and saw that his eyes were shaded and staring at the floor.  His father, who was standing behind him, put his hand on Donny’s shoulder.  His touch made Donny grimace.  It also made him look up briefly and, once again, he caught me watching him.  He gave a small smile in an attempt to hide the dark mood that I saw shadowed in his eyes.  The overheated church pressed in on me and my stomach started to churn. 

Masses that had always been spoken in Latin, had, for the past few years, been translated into English.  This was something that my father still disapproved of.  It was difficult for him to accept change.  The priest’s voice droned on, saying mass.  I drifted away into my dreams once again.  I saw a small black bird, trapped in a net.  Its wings beat furiously trying to free itself.  But with each attempt, the net closed more tightly around it.  Tears beaded up at the corners of my eyes.  My mother shook me awake and I felt the headache return again.

After mass, I followed my parents out of church.  Miss Tandy, an elderly woman who lived on our block, was talking to another of our neighbors, Mrs. Conner, a widow who lived across the street from her.  Mrs. Conner stopped my mother and said, “Did you hear that Lydia Menlo has moved back into her parents’ house?   She’s even brought her family to live there too!  The daughter looks to be about the age of your older girls.”  She pointed to Mary and me as she shook her head in disapproval.

My mother looked surprised and asked, “Where has she been all of these years?” 

Miss Tandy explained, “I heard she married a professor that she met in Europe.  Now he's working in New York City, so they decided to move into her old house.” 

In a small voice my mother whispered, “Well, it’s been a long time; maybe we’d all be better off forgetting about the past.”  She brushed off the neighborhood gossip.   

My father was about to cross the street and was losing his patience waiting for my mother, he motioned toward her to get moving.  She started walking toward the street, pushing Angie to walk in front of her.  My mother politely waved goodbye to the ladies and wished them both a Happy Easter.

At the corner, across from the church and next to the funeral parlor, there was a candy store where my father bought the Daily News every week after the 10:15 mass.  He was a man of habit who liked to keep to his routines.  We took turns coming with him into the store and today it was my turn.  On the counter was a box of chocolate ice cubes, sweet creamy chocolate blended with hazelnut, my favorite candy!  I might have been able to convince dad to buy me one, but I had given up chocolate for Lent.  One more week until Easter and then I would have all the chocolate I could eat!

Directly after church, we drove to Brooklyn.  The road that connected my parents’ house to my grandparents’ was aptly named the Belt Parkway, as it connected the generations of our family and the dysfunction that had been passed down through the years.  The roadway was rough and the car bounced every time it hit a pothole.  Curious about them, I asked, “Daddy, why are there so many potholes on this road?”

Daddy loved to explain the workings of the world to us so he relished the question. “A lot of cars travel this road and the constant use wears down the surface.  Then during the winter, snowplows sometime break up the road and the salt that’s laid down eats at the surface and weakens the road even more.  It’s expensive and takes a lot of time to repave the whole road.  So, instead, the city just patches the potholes every year.  Since the filling is really only a temporary fix, the potholes tend to reopen again and again.  Until they decide to do it properly, and take the time to repave the whole road, they’ll just have to keep on refilling the holes.”

I thought about what an inconvenience it would be if they ever decided to shut down the whole road to repair it correctly.  It probably took a lot less downtime to just keep on refilling the potholes, but I also realized that if they just took the time to do it right, once, they’d be saving themselves, and us, a lot of grief.  I guessed potholes were just something people learned to live with, as long as they could still get to where they were going. 

The bumper-to-bumper traffic was slow going.  Since I had the privilege of going with my dad to buy the newspaper, I had agreed to sit in the middle seat.  Now, I tried to keep my mind occupied so that I wouldn't think about the hot hump in the center of the car floor.  It burned through the bottom of my patent leather shoes and if I moved my feet to the side, it would scorch my ankles as they rested against it.  So I tried to hold my feet stiff on the top of the hump, lifting them occasionally to gain a short respite from the heat.  My head still ached and the smell of gas that always lingered in the car was making me feel sick.  One look at me and both of my sisters opened their windows wider.

Last night, my sisters and I had gathered around the color television to watch the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz.”  I don’t think I even realized that we were watching it in black and white until Dorothy opened the door and all the color of Munchkinland flooded in.  Color televisions had come a long way since the one that Martha’s family had owned.  Our new T.V. didn't have the rainbow of colors around the edges like hers did.  I knew that television technology must have improved in the past few years and that this was supposed to be an improvement, but I thought it was a shame that they had gotten rid of the rainbows.

“Did you hear that they are postponing opening day?” my dad asked.   “I guess maybe they’re afraid to have too many people gathered together right now.”  Over the past week there had been constant coverage of the riots happening all over America.  The riots were following the assassination of the Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King, on April 4th.  With the Reverend’s life cut short, there were a lot of angry people out there.

My dad was not happy that the baseball season was being postponed because of the assassination.   He was a big Yankee fan and had waited all winter for baseball to start again.  Sunday afternoon meant Yankee games and Ballentine beer.  Once in a while, on a hot summer day, he would let me have a sip of his beer.   I didn't really like the taste, but the cold liquid felt good going down my throat.  Sometimes he would roll out the small black and white T.V. into the screened-in patio for us to watch.  The occasional breeze would cool the sweat that drizzled down the backs of our necks.  Summers on Long Island were hot and humid, but summer was still a while away; April was just getting started.

“It’s not like he was the President or anything.”  My father shook his head.  “What is this world coming to?”

We exited the parkway at Bay 8th Street and headed down the local roads to my grandparents’ house.  I loved to look at the Italian pork stores, little groceries, and bakeries along the way.  When I saw them, I could imagine what it was like to be in Italy.  I realized that I didn't know that much about my family history and decided that maybe it was time that I asked some questions.  

We drove past the house with the big concrete flowerpots at the base of the front steps.  We had to circle the block a few times to find a parking spot.  There was a long driveway to the left of the house that led to the garage, but for some reason, no one ever parked in it.  In the hot summer months, we had our family dinners in the garage.  Fresh vegetables came from the garden next to the garage. The little garden had a small white picket fence surrounding it and a path of flat stones, winding through the summer vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, and squash.  In the center of the garden was a fig tree.  Years ago, my grandmother had brought a sprig of the tree from her parent's house in the old country and planted it here in New York.  Its mother tree was probably still standing in a garden somewhere in Sicily.

The front door was rarely used.   Instead, we walked down the driveway to the side door and climbed the stairs.  I could smell the mingled aromas of fresh coffee brewing and the sauce cooking on the stove.  My grandmother’s voice, with her thick Sicilian accent, greeted us as we opened the door from the hallway stairs, “Com’a in, Com’a in. Put’a your coats on’a d’bed.”

We kissed our grandparents, aunts and uncles as we walked through the kitchen to the bedroom and then added our coats to a pile that smelled of mothballs.  Next, we headed for the front porch.  Some of our cousins were already there, watching Uncle Lou putting quarters in his mouth and then, miraculously, taking them out of his ear a second later.  Sometimes he folded his cigarette backward into his mouth with his tongue and then pulled the cigarette out of one of our ears, still lit!

My grandfather had shuffled from the kitchen and now sat in his rocking chair in the corner reading his Italian newspaper.  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a silver snuffbox.  He clicked it open and, with his thumb and pointer finger, grabbed a little snuff and placed it to his nose and breathed in.  Although he had been in this country since he was a young man, Grandpa spoke very little English.  Grandpa was what the adults called “senile.”  One time, a few years ago, my cousin Denise and I asked him if he knew who we were and if he knew how old we were.  We were shocked out of our shoes when he said our names and told us that we were eleven.  That’s when I started wondering if he was as senile as everyone thought he was.

My cousin Denise was the only child of my Aunt Mary and Uncle Lou.  She was fourteen and they lived upstairs in an apartment at the top of my grandparents’ house.  Although they had had their share of trials and sorrows, they were the most loving parents that I knew.  They would do anything for Denise and no matter what trouble Denise got into, they always seemed to look the other way.  I wondered if my life would have been different if they had been my parents.  My Aunt Mary worked in a factory in New York City.  Sometimes she brought home costume jewelry or a nifty new utensil to use in the kitchen; but best of all, sometimes she brought home small toys.  Today Aunt Mary had brought Yo-yos for all of us and we each took one from a dog-eared box upon entering the porch.  We spent much of the afternoon playing with our Yo-yos and trying to accomplish tricks.  My cousin, Georgie, was really good at it and took every opportunity to show off.  Georgie was Uncle Giorgio and Aunt Teresa’s son.  He was thirteen and Denise and I tried to avoid him as much as possible. 

“Dinner’s a’ready,” my grandmother called.  Sunday dinner was held around their huge mahogany dining room table.  Sometimes there would be a kids’ table set up in the living room.  But today it was just my Aunt Mary’s family, my Uncle Giorgio’s family, my Uncle Tommy, my grandparents and us, so we could all fit together at the big table.

After the antipasto and the macaroni, meatballs, sausage, pigskin, and braciole, we were all filled to our eyeballs. The girls and women around the table stood up to clear the table while the men and boys sat back in their chairs and loosened their belts in preparation for the next course.  Everyone knew that you should never serve just one type of meat to an Italian family, someone might not like it and, after all, you didn’t want people to go home hungry.

After clearing the table, I sat back down and waited for my grandmother and aunts to bring in the meat.  I heard my father say, “The neighborhood is changing.  Mom and dad should move.”

Uncle Giorgio replied, “You’ll never get them to move again.”

“Sooner or later, they’re going to have to move,” my father replied.

Curious about the past, I asked, “Did you live in this house when you were children?”

Uncle Giorgio said, “No, Grandma and Grandpa didn’t move here until 1952.  By then Uncle Tom and I were the only ones left at home.  But even we were old enough to work and everyone chipped in to buy this house.”

Dad added, “When we were small we moved from one tenement to another, we never stayed anywhere for more than a couple of years.  Life was tough during the Depression.”  A look of despondence settled on his face.

Aunt Mary walked in from the kitchen, “When we were just children,” she said, “your Uncle Joe and your father used to shine shoes for pennies.  Everyone did what they could to help put food on the table.”  She smiled at the memory, “And then there was your father’s voice.  He was always singing.  He would sing on the corner and people would put money in his cap just to listen to him sing!”

My father smiled.  “One time I was on an amateur hour on the radio and I won first prize.  It was $25!  It was supposed to be for singing lessons.”  He whistled.  “That was during the Depression."  He shook his head sadly, "That was a lot of money in those days.”

My grandmother brought in the pork and said, “They told’a him he should’a take da voice’a lessons, but we need’a da money.”  She placed the heavy tray on the table and wiped the kitchen towel over her face that was wet with sweat, and what looked like tears.

My father said, “So I gave mama the $25 dollars and that was the end of my singing career.  Instead I got a job digging ditches where they had begun construction on LaGuardia Airport.”

My grandfather got up and started pacing back and forth, back and forth.  My grandmother yelled at him in Italian, “Siedo qui!”  Telling him to sit down.  He was agitated and he argued with her in Italian.  He grabbed his hat and his cane and started walking toward the kitchen.  This caused a slight disruption until my father and uncles could get my grandfather to sit back down again at the table.

My father interpreted for him, “He wants to take a walk!”

“Where’s he going to go?”  Uncle Giorgio asked.

“I donn’a know?  He always want to’a take’a walk’a.  He’s’a got’a ants’a in his pants’a.”  My grandmother explained.   

The table settled back down to the business of eating and my father started telling a story.  “When we were little, six of us boys had to sleep in the same bed.  Tommy was a baby, so he slept in the top drawer of the dresser.  Grandpa made us sleep with our bare feet sticking out past the end of the blanket so that when he came home from work he could inspect them.  If they were dirty, he’d smack the soles of our feet with his cane!  What a way to wake up!”  Then he joked, “It’s amazing that your Uncle Giorgio can still walk!”  Everyone started laughing.

Aunt Mary walked back into the room carrying a plate of stuffed artichokes.  “It was really hard during the depression for papa to get any work,” she chimed in.  “Even if there was a job available, there were often signs on the shop doors that said, ‘Negros and Italians Need Not Apply.’”

“Why did they come to America?” asked Mary.

My aunt replied, “When papa lived in Italy he was like a professor of music, they used to call him ‘maestro,’ which means, ‘teacher.’  He married nana there; she was much younger than him.  Everyone told him that in America the streets were lined with gold.  In Italy, times were hard.  No one had money to pay a teacher.  His mother was a widow and lived with one of his older sisters who had never married.  He was responsible for their welfare and for that of his new wife.  So he decided to try to make a better life in America.  He gave his mother all the money he had and left his young wife with her as he joined the crew of a passenger ship working in the boiler room.  This way, he did not have to pay for his passage.  He was planning all the time to jump ship when it docked in New York harbor.”

My sister Mary gasped, “You mean Grandpa came here illegally!”

Nana waved her hand in dismissal and said, “That’a was’a long’a time ago.”   Then to her daughter she said, “What you have’a to tell them’a that’a for?”  Her fingers flipped under her chin in a gesture that showed she was not happy with my aunt.

Ignoring her, Aunt Mary continued anyway, “Working in the bowels of the ship was long, hard, dirty work.  The boiler rooms were terribly hot, the living quarters were cramped, and the food was meager.  The trip to America was cruel and backbreaking for papa, but he came to America to find a better life.”  She looked sadly at the old man sitting at the head of the table; he seemed oblivious to our conversation as he gazed off unfocused on anything in the room.  She shook her head, “Once here, he did odd jobs.  He was most often a tailor or a shoemaker.  He sent for his wife and, as the years passed, he had her and seven children to support.  It was a struggle to keep the family going.”

“And he still’a had’a to send’a da money to his’a mama in Italy!” Grandma said a bit angrily.

Uncle Tommy asked, “Wasn’t there a story about boys throwing rocks at papa?”

My father sighed, “One day, papa was walking home from work and some boys blocked his way.  Teenagers, hoodlums,” he explained.  “One of them picked up a rock and threw it at him.  The other boys picked up rocks too, threw rocks and yelled at him, saying ‘Go home, Dago!’ No one wanted the Italians here.”

There was a long silence that followed.  Although I had heard some of these stories before, for the first time I thought about how difficult it must have been to grow up under these conditions.   I started to see my father in a new light.  I knew his father hadn't been the most loving man, but I hadn't realized how difficult things were back then.  Life had been hard for him.  As difficult as my own childhood seemed to me, it appeared that it was better than the one my father had known.

Besides my Uncle Giorgio and my father, there were five other brothers, Joseph, Nick, John, Angelo and Tommy.  I had never met Uncle Nick.  There had been some fight between him and my grandparents long ago and no one ever spoke of him anymore.  I knew that he had two little girls who were my first cousins, but I had never met either of them.  And my Uncle Angelo had died when I was little.  I only had a few memories of him.

Uncle John and his wife, Lucia, had a daughter, Gina, and a son, Johnny, who was very “active.”  Johnny’s nose was always running and it was hard for him to sit still anywhere for long.  My cousin Georgie teased him and called him “retarded.”  Gina was a year younger than me and when we spent time together we really had a lot of fun.  But I didn’t get to see her very often.  I think her parents didn’t always come to family events because Johnny was so unpredictable and difficult to control and this annoyed grandma who didn't have a problem blaming them for Johnny's actions. 

Uncle Joe was the oldest of my father’s brothers, and he and his wife, Amelia, who was not Italian, had three children, Frankie, Sal, and Lucy.  Frankie was married now and had a baby of his own.  Sal was away in the Navy and Lucy worked in New York City as a secretary. My Uncle Tommy was still a bachelor and lived at home with my grandparents.

We ate the main course and I marveled at how my grandmother could gnaw at the meat with most of her teeth gone.  When dessert was served, out came the coffee, pastries, pies, cakes, cookies, and anisette cookies and biscotti.  Nana liked dunking the anisette cookies in her black coffee.  Dad’s favorite was the seeded cookies.  Personally, I loved the cannoli!

After dessert, Denise and I took a walk around the block to work off all that food.  I remember when Denise, Gina, and I were about five years old, we used to make believe we were cooking dinner by putting leaves in a bowl and mixing them together with a spoon.  Uncle Angelo would play along with us and make believe that he enjoyed the dinner we had prepared for him.  He had been in France during World War II and had never married.  Like my father, he loved to sing.  But he would always have difficulty breathing and get into coughing fits that scared me.  One of his favorite songs was, “Alouette.” The song had sounded so beautiful when he sang it.  But after he died I found out that the song was about plucking the feathers off of a lark that was about to become someone’s supper.

        

Denise sometimes spent a week in the summer at my house or I might spend a week upstairs in her apartment at my grandparents’ house.  We were really close when we were little, but as we became teenagers, we had grown apart.  She had trouble at school and her parents were recently forced to move her into a new school.

I looked at my cousin and wondered how things had changed so much between us.  I missed the old days when conversations between us had come so naturally.  “So, how’s school going?” I asked. 

“There’s this one guy that almost makes spending time in school worthwhile.  He’s a bit older than the rest of us and he has a really groovy car.”  She took out a cigarette and started to light it.  I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk.

“Would you like one?” she asked.

“Um, no.” was all I managed to say.

She laughed at me and said, “You know, it really doesn’t stunt your growth.”

We walked on in silence and I watched her puff on the cigarette.  I wondered how she could have forgotten how Uncle Angelo had struggled for each breath before he died of tuberculosis. She and I had even made a pact at his funeral that we would never smoke.  Time even changed promises.

Denise asked me if there were any guys that I liked.  I thought of Donny and I could feel butterflies in my stomach but I just said, “No, no one special.”   Donny was a conundrum.  Conundrum was one of my vocabulary words.  It meant “a problem with no satisfactory solution.”  There was a dark side to him that both fascinated and frightened me.

After she finished puffing on the cigarette, she threw it on the sidewalk and stepped on it.  Then she took a small piece of paper out of her pocket and started to chew it.  She explained, “It gets rid of the smell of smoke in your mouth.”  I didn’t believe that a little piece of paper could do that, but when we got back to my grandparent’s house, no one seemed to smell the smoke.

That night as we headed home on the Belt Parkway and I watched the streetlights glare off the window, I wondered about how times changed.  About how something could be so important to someone at one point in time and yet at another, it could seem childish and insignificant to that same person.  I thought about the conversation that my mother had had with the neighbors earlier at church.  Angie had fallen asleep so I whispered to Mary, “Do you know who Lydia Menlo is?”  “No, I have no idea but it sounds like a bit of a mystery doesn’t it?”

From the back seat I tapped my mother on the shoulder, “Mom, who’s Lydia Menlo?”

“Well, you know the big house next to Miss Tandy’s house?”

“Yes.”  I pictured the old rundown Victorian with the overgrown front yard.

My mother lowered her voice when she noticed that Angie was asleep, “Lydia grew up in that house.  But when she was about your age, her mother committed suicide.  They say she drank tea laced with poison.  It was Lydia who found her mother’s body when she came home from school.  We didn’t move into the neighborhood until years later.  By then, Lydia and her father had moved away and the house was closed up and left to rot.  But the story of her mother’s suicide is something people still whisper about.   I guess Miss Tandy and Mrs. Conner are surprised that Lydia decided to move back into a house with such bad memories, especially when it’s in need of so much repair.”

Miss Tandy was a kind old lady who was also known as the “magazine lady.”  She subscribed to every magazine you could imagine.  Every time I needed to cut out pictures or articles for school, my mother would send me down to Miss Tandy’s house for magazines.  She kept piles of them and newspapers on her porch and she told us that anytime we needed some, we could just come in and take them.

Lydia Menlo’s old Victorian house seemed to hold a lot of secrets.  My whole life, I had heard stories that there were ghosts walking about in that empty house.  Some people actually claimed to have seen lights turn on and off in the middle of the night. Which was crazy since everyone knew that the electric wasn't even on in the house.  My father’s car swerved to avoid a pothole and a shiver ran down my spine.

I thought about how life was like a road and how sometimes along the way, potholes opened up.  I guessed you had to learn either to fill those potholes or navigate around them.  If you didn't, you’d keep falling in and never get anywhere. 

Lydia Menlo and her family intrigued me.  I had a feeling there was more to the story then my mother was telling me.  I decided to find out more about them and the tragedy that had taken place in the old house.

A Eulogy to my iPhone 5

You introduced me to the world of Apple, to having a computer in the palm of my hand, assessable at every and any moment that you were needed.  You filed away my memories through your ability to record my photographs, videos, and notes.  Like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, I came to love you in spite of my fear of you.  You insinuated yourself into my life and took control of my every movement.  Somehow you became both my guardian and my warden.

What would life have been like without you?  What if I could not be in constant reach of my children, husband, and a myriad of friends, relatives, and acquaintances?  What would it have been like to be free?  I cannot remember a time without you, even though you have only been in my life for two years.  Your predecessors, my dumb phones, were able to be in my possession without needing my constant attention.  But you would not have that!  You demanded attention and in return, you gave me peace of mind and a false sense of security.  Without a second thought, you left me in a Bagel shop.  How was I to know that it would be the last time I was to see you?  We enjoyed a nice lunch with my children, then, as the garbage from our leftover meals was piled on to the tray that you lay on, you slipped into the trash can, and out of my life.

If that were not bad enough, you broke your promise to me.  You promised me that I would be able to track you down if you got lost . . . or if I got lost . . .  in this wide cruel world.  But when I turned on you app, "Find My iPhone," I was greeted with the response, "This Device is Offline."  So I am left to imagine your demise.  Perhaps you fell into a pool of discarded soda?  Perhaps you were crushed by a load of stale bagels?  I want you to know that I searched for you in a metal dumpster, in 19 degrees Fahrenheit, on the coldest morning since last winter.  But alas, you could not be found.  I know not your fate, but I must go on.  I have one thing to thank you for, thank you for waiting the full two years so that I am now eligible for an upgrade without penalty.  

Gee, I wonder what the new iPhone can do that you couldn't do?  Can't wait to find out!

Cousins: Filling the Hole in our Heart (DNA Connections)

If I calculated this right, I have four siblings (other than me), thirty-seven first cousins and, many many second cousins (or first cousins once removed if you want to get technical).  So with all these first cousins, and the fact that we span about forty years in age, perhaps it is not surprising that there are some that I have never met.  The fascinating part of being cousins is that we share DNA that has come down through thousands of generations.  Each generation imparted half of their DNA to the next generation, however, not always the same half.  I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen 2x grandparents, thirty-two 3x grandparents, sixty-four 4x grandparents, 128 5x grandparents, 256 6x grandparents, 512 7x grandparents, 1,024 8x grandparents, and so on. So now that I have started down the path of DNA testing, I am finding my 5th to 8th cousins.  Simply fascinating!  Now, I have been working on my family tree for about twenty years and I currently have 2,813 people in my family tree, spanning 275 years from the oldest to the youngest.  I have not yet been able to get further back than about the year 1740, but hopefully, someday I will.  I can't always connect on paper, exactly how I am related to all of my DNA cousins, but with DNA testing, I can jump ahead of my paperwork and work backwards.  "Okay, so now I know we are related, let's see how" instead of "who am I related to?"

When we look at old family photo albums, we see people we bonded with as children.  No matter how many years have passed, no matter how many miles now separate us, we are bonded by that childhood and common experience.  But not everyone gets to know their biological family.  I believe knowing who you are is a basic desire that we all share. While I did grow up in my biological family, I still had a need to find my roots in Italy because I wanted to know "who" and "where" I came from.  When my grandparents came to America, they brought traditions with them, but they left their family stories behind.  Perhaps it was such common knowledge to them that they assumed it wasn't important to pass on.  Perhaps it was too painful to talk about.  Perhaps they came here to intentionally leave it behind . . . families are not always perfect.  But for whatever reason, this void has left me with a desire to know, to research, to discover.  And as a writer, I want to know more than their names, I want to reconstruct their stories.

In the early 1990s, I wrote letters to Italy to find the relatives of my mother's father.  I was able to connect with his half-brother, Luigi.  Luigi was only two years old when his oldest brother, Angelo, my grandfather, came to America, so he didn't really know him.  My grandfather, Angelo, died when I was only ten months old, so I didn't really know him either.  Yet here we were, the two of us,  separated by the eighty years that had passed since my grandfather had left Italy and the thirty-some odd years since his death, sending letters to each other to try to discover who he was.  We each provided pieces of the man we shared in common, and together we found our family bond.  In one letter, Luigi, who was in his eighties at the time, told me that I had "filled a hole in his heart."   It was exactly how I felt about him.

Most of my first cousins and their children were lost to me for a while, life had gone on for each of us, separately, but they have been restored to me through the magic of Facebook.  Even more amazing is that I have been able to find cousins whom I never knew existed.  Connecting people who share my DNA has become a passion of mine.  Each person has a piece to the puzzle.  With each additional person, the whole picture becomes clearer.  Who we are? . .  . Who and Where we came from?  I have been told that if you go back far enough, we are all cousins.  I think that thought devalues who cousins are to each other.  When the DNA gets infinitesimally small, there is no value in it.  I want to know why I have so many facets to my personality.  I want to know why I look the way I do.  I want to know why I feel the way I do.  The answers to these questions are in two places.  The first I already know, it is in my immediate environment, where I grew up and who raised me.  This is part of who I am, either through the acceptance of it or the rejection of it.  But there is also an innate part of me that was passed down through generations.  I want to discover their names and their stories.  I want to know who they were, so that I can better understand who I am.  If you discount this by saying, it doesn't matter to you, then count yourself one of the lucky ones.  The rest of us have holes in our hearts,

and some of us need them filled more than others . . .

(Go to dna.ancestry.com to find your answers.)

The Year 2000 Was Once The Future

I remember a time, it must have been around 1969 or 1970, when my sister and I were young.  We were huddled together in bed, talking to each other, late into the night. Perhaps it was New Year's Eve?  I remember that I was eleven and she was fifteen and we were imagining the future and calculating how OLD we would be in the year 2000.  We realized we would both be in our forties and all I thought was, "I am going to be old! All the good parts of my life will be over!"

In the 1970s, the book by George Orwell, 1984, was still about the future then, and we read it in school.  An image of large television screens everywhere, attached to the inside and outside of every building, comes to mind when I think about that book.  A man is watching everyone from the television screens, 24 hours a day.  His name is "Big Brother."

"2001: A Space Odyssey" came out in the movies in 1968, but I wasn't old enough to see it then.  I did see it a few years later and I wondered about the future of space travel.  "The Jetsons" was one of my favorite cartoons . . . I still would like a hovercraft.  I used to imagine, while sitting on the Belt Parkway on our way to Brooklyn, how cool it would be to have a hovercraft.  To be able to lift off the ground and pass all the cars stuck in traffic below.

In 1977, while in a Creative Writing class in college, I started my first novel.  It was a Science Fiction novel about a group of people living on a Space Station in the year 2011.  I never finished it, but since that is no longer the future, I suppose that ship has sailed.

In the 1980s, I became fascinated with Nostradamus and Revelations and the predictions for the new millenium.  The destruction of the old wicked world and the beginnings of the thousand years of peace.  The predictions were both terrifying and hopeful.  And then, in the 1990s, the Gulf War ensued and I thought the predictions were coming to pass.  But we survived.

When the year 2000 was finally approaching for real, I filled my bathtub . . . just in case.  "They" said all the computers might shut down and everything that we relied on would just stop.  I had two small children, so I wasn't going to take any chances.  Luckily, much of the world entered the new millenium before New York did, so by the time midnight came, I figured we were pretty safe.

2015 will come tonight.  I never dreamt or thought about 2015 in my life.  It is beyond my imagination and yet it is about to be here.  We don't have hovercrafts that we can ride to work in yet, "man" has not physically travelled beyond the moon, we have old space stations that are ready to be retired, and Big Brother is watching us, but not from large television screens, he's watching us from our phones.

I wonder what years do my children dream of?  What do they imagine for their future?  I've learned two things for sure, their future will come sooner than they think and being in your forties, isn't old. Here's to the New Year!  Wishing for John Lennon's Imagination of a world at peace to finally become a reality.  It is time for our thousand years of peace.   Have a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year!