EPILOGUE

On the second Sunday of Advent, with the fireplace at long last opened and a fire lit, Claire prepared macaroni puttanesca while Red Torneo sat, propped up with dandy pillows, and ate unsalted popcorn in Claire’s noisy rocker.

“What I don’t understand,” he said, smacking the dog (Red hated all dogs), “is where was that guy Andrew while all of this was going on?”

Claire stood still for a moment, remembering. It seemed such a long time ago. “Andrew”—she licked her fingers to test the ratio of capers to garlic to Gaeta olives—“was knocked out on the kitchen floor. Stefan met him here because he figured Dharma had her jewelry here. He’d searched Andrew’s house and hadn’t found it. Then Stefan had given Andrew a mickey. Right there, as a matter of fact.” She pointed to the spot on the floor where Floozie had taken refuge. Far enough away from Red Torneo’s range. Remembering, the dog got up and moved herself over again. The little chicken. That whole night of chaos she’d hidden from everything in Michaelaen’s big closet. Stefan had kicked her first, and good. So she’d hid. No Lassie she, they all acknowledged.

No, thought the dog, but still here to think about it.

“Where the hell is Johnny?” Red growled.

“Don’t get so excited. He’ll be back before the pasta’s in the pot. He always is.”

Red nodded approval. Johnny wasn’t hanging at the track anymore, at least. He was selling his share of the horse on Tuesday. At least Wiggins could breed her. Get something out of her. Effing horse almost lost them the house. Johnny was always gettin’ mixed up in these schemes. Too much energy. Red looked around the great big kitchen. Woulda been a shame if they’d lost this place. “You know, your husband, he ain’t too bright.”

“Oh, yes?”

“I mean, he goes out and leaves a broad like you all alone with a handsome lookin’ fella like me.”

“Shut up, Red.”

“Mommy?”

“Wash your hands. Dinner in fifteen.”

On that night, when everything had happened, Red Torneo’s heart had stopped in a craps game down in Brooklyn. The guy next to him had stopped playing, taken a good long look at Red, leaned right over, and threw the dice back in for a seven.

Well, the ambulance had come. The paramedics had jolted him back to life, but when Johnny had heard that one from the other men, it gave him something to think about.

So now, Claire figured, not only were they an AA and Al Anon family, but a Gambler’s Anonymous one as well.

“I’m not dependent on nuthin’ but my family, now,” Johnny would boast, his eye on the clock.

Red shuffled the cards he always carried in his pocket. “So, what happened to all them jewels? In that tin box?”

Claire emerged from the pantry carrying a nice head of Boston lettuce. “They’re being sold. Iris is handling it. The money will go to a fund for sexually abused children. It was Dharma’s idea and Andrew and Carmela agreed.” She looked up and smiled. “Though I believe Andrew agreed under protest.”

Red shook his head sadly. “I can’t get over how Stefanovitch jumped off that bridge there up in the woods. I mean, hey, what a way to go. I don’t care what you did, being driven off a bridge by a snarlin’ pack of bloodthirsty dogs—” He held his cheek.

“Yes,” Claire said.

“And then bleedin’ to death. Christ.”

“Yes.”

“Sad about the other fella, though. That there Pakistani fella.”

Claire clattered the dirtied bowls into the sink and filled it with warm suds. She still couldn’t talk about that, about Narayan.

There would be another letter in a day or two from Swamiji. He hadn’t gone to Berkeley after all. He hadn’t had the heart without dear Narayan. Perhaps next year. It had been difficult for him, the trip to Benares with the body. Standing with Narayan’s distraught family at the Ganges. He wasn’t going to say it hadn’t been difficult. And yes, beautiful. There had been a splendid grace as well. Having Zinnie along with him had—well, he didn’t know how he would have gotten through it without Zenobia. He wanted Claire to know that he was doing all right, though. Coming along. He didn’t want her overwrought and worried about him now. Now that she had other things on her mind.

“Anthony!” she shouted, “call your Aunt Zinnie and Michaelaen and see if they’ve left their apartment yet. If they’re still home, tell them I’ve already put the macaroni in.”

“Awright, Ma,” he said.

Claire put an English muffin on a small plate, spread cream cheese across it, and put some of that nice plum preserve with the slivovitz on, too. She pulled the teabag out of the good teacup, the Aynsley Pembroke, she’d like that, and wound it and squashed it around a spoon.

Dharma came in and headed straight for the refrigerator. “Wait a minute,” Claire said to her. “Take this up to Carmela and tell her if she doesn’t eat it, she’s got to go live with Mommy and Daddy and the dogs. Oh. Take a napkin.”

Dharma made a face at Anthony and minced, in charge and show-offy, out of the room with the tray.

Johnny’s car honked and came sweeping up the driveway.

“He’s here!” Anthony whooped, not bothering to turn off the tap, and he flew out the back door.

“You let him get away with that?” Red crooked his thumb at the door and glowered at the water left running.

“Ma! Daddy got a big load of wood in the trunk!”

Claire clicked her tongue. She’d wanted to go with him to get it. She shook her head, resigned. Johnny always did things as he pleased. Red made as if to get up. “Don’t you move,” she boxed him in. “That’s all I need. Another heart attack.”

Johnny appeared at the doorway. His eyes were steeped with anxiety at the solemnity of his very own wood for the fire.

She laughed. “Wait, I’ll help.”

“Oh, no, you won’t.” He looked her up and down. “Kinkaid’s out here.” He lined his forehead at her. “We got enough for supper?”

Red rolled his tongue around his cheek. He couldn’t stand Kinkaid. As soon as the two of them got together, though, they rigged up a game of gin rummy.

Mary and Stan barged, red-faced, through the double Dutch doors. Mary wore her inevitable small tower of white bakery boxes. Johnny, Kinkaid, and Stan each carted their great manly piles of wood.

“Looks like birch,” Mary admired. “Nothing burns prettier than birch.”

“Burns too quick,” Kinkaid said.

Johnny tore apart a loaf of semolina bread from the counter and stuffed a bite into his mouth.

“Wash your hands,” Claire said.

“Wash your hands. Wash your hands,” Anthony mimicked. “Wash your hands.”

Johnny smacked him on the head. “Don’t make fun of your mother!”

“Don’t hit him!” she yelled.

“What can I do?” Mary rolled up her sleeves.

“You can put those spoons around the table, would you, Mom?”

“Hang on! Make that louder!” Stan rushed to the radio. “That’s Tchaikovsky!”

Johnny sat down and started right in scarfing big black salty olives.

“Save some for the rest, will you?” Claire scolded, passing him the hot cherry peppers anyhow.

“Wait till you hear this,” he told them all. “Soon, we won’t be having any more of these petty, contemptible money worries.”

Petty? Claire’s antenna went right up. Contemptible? Pretty hoity-toity terms for Johnny. Right away she knew something was up. “What’s up?” She stood at his elbow with a dish of sliced tomatoes.

“Now, don’t go sayin’ nuthin’ until I’m through, all right?” He stopped, his eyes going from face to face, waiting for their undivided attention. “I got this honey of a deal. You all know that old pipe-cleaner factory? They made it into condos and none of them sold? Well, say hello to the new owner. Of the whole thing! Well, I mean, not yet. But soon. Real soon.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Well. Me and Andrew. See, we got it all figured out—”

“Anthony! Shut that television off and come to the table.”

Carmela, the poet from her tower, deigned to come down and have a look in on what was going on. Claire pushed her into a seat before she could think about how it would look. She had to be hungry, up there rewriting her play since days and days, insisting still that art be more important than people. Claire had thought she would give up writing altogether, what with the offhand, sidestepping reviews of her play as the mere backdrop to real tragedy it had been. And then no one had understood why the lead singer had taken off, not to return, more than halfway through the performance. By the time the whole story came out it was anyway the next day and, in New York, who cared anymore?

Carmela, however, was made of sterner stuff. She plodded on. She wept, very late, when she thought no one could hear her. Claire knew she did because she would hear her as she made her own insomniac rounds around the quiet house, headed always towards the broad front window and the tree, that elderly peach tree that stood there still under the broken street lamp, grizzled and too old, waiting with life all the same in the dark. She would catch her breath. Claire laid a calming hand across her softening middle. Winter would pass and spring would come. There would be peaches on her peach tree. On her and Johnny’s peach tree.

Dharma sat down carefully now beside Carmela and took her hand in her own small one and held it. Carmela sniffed but Claire noticed that she didn’t pull away.

One good thing: Claire wouldn’t have to deal with Portia McTavish for a while. She’d up and decided “an actor’s life for me,” enrolled herself at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and moved in with her older sister Juliet, who had a two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village.

“Zinnie and Michaelaen are late,” Claire complained.

“As usual,” said Mary.

Claire wanted to get them all out of here and the dishes done early, so she could take a ride down to that old synagogue by the beach. There would never be enough light, now. The days were so short. Never mind. She would drive down tomorrow. Grillo, the sculptor, had turned it into some sort of gallery and she wanted to go have a look. Maybe she would shoot it for her book.

A car door slammed. “Must be them.” Anthony ran to the door. Suddenly Floozie got up and charged the door, yapping and snarling.

“Must be Fred,” Stan said.

“Yup,” said Johnny.

“Mr. Dodd is with him, Mom,” Anthony warned. He knew better than to ruin the surprise and let on they’d brought Mr. Dodd’s old upright piano. And in an orange trolley.

“What else is new?” Mary made nonchalant eyes at Red Torneo and nudged her Stan with a hearty elbow.

Chairs scraped into place, Anthony ran down the stairs to go, quick, to get the ginger ale, and Tchaikovsky stopped the minute they all sat down and the Seaman’s Furniture ad began.

Up the block and over the woods, a lone red cardinal flew.