Part Eleven
Tazia, San Diego, 1936-1951
Chapter 39

“Lighten up on the gas pedal,” Tazia says, reprimanding the recruit driving her from Administration East to South Unit One. When he flinches, she softens. “Would you drive your mother like that?”

“No, Ma’am,” he says, blushing. Like the other young men whose job it is to transport her across the growing base—two new tracts of land and twenty-nine buildings to clean—he likes to speed and swerve when there’s no supervisor around to keep him in check.

Tazia told the new C.O. it would be more efficient if she drove herself, without waiting to be picked up, but he dismissed her with a flick of his fingers. She’s tempted to report the recruits’ recklessness as further justification, but it’s the hidebound officers and Navy regulations she’s angry at, not these boys. They’re just showing off, and without young women around, the forty-two-year-old Tazia is their only audience. She hopes that as the momentum to go to war builds, the C.O. will reconsider the best use of the sailors’ time, but she’s unlikely to win that battle.

Now, taking the bus home, her annoyance is replaced by anxiety about another upcoming battle. Sure enough, Gemma is sitting at the kitchen table, poring over a sample book of wedding invitations. It’s open to the page featuring parchment with gilt lettering.

“Which do you like better, Mama? Cream or heather paper? Gold or silver printing?”

Tazia flips back to the beginning of the book where the cheaper invitations are. “Nice plain white paper. I can splurge on purple ink.”

Gemma slams the book shut. “How many times do we have fight about this? Todd’s parents are paying.”

“The bride’s family pays for the wedding, not the groom’s.” Tazia minces basil.

“In this case, the family with the money pays.”

Tazia grips the knife handle and takes a deep breath. “I have money. Not as much as the Kanes, but I work hard for it and I want to pay for my only child’s wedding.” She begins to slice onions. Usually she does this without tears, but not today.

Gemma takes the knife, finishes the onions, and peels garlic to rub on the bread. “I know Mama, but you have to understand. Just as picking up the tab is important to you, a big to-do matters to Todd’s parents. He doesn’t care. And neither do I. Well,” she says and smiles, “only a little.”

“We’ll compromise,” Tazia says. “The Kanes can cater the meal. I’ll bake the cake.”

“I want a fancy one, with tiers. You don’t know how to make those.”

“The wedding cake is cut and gobbled in ten minutes. What does it matter?”

“You wouldn’t know. You never had one.”

Tazia stiffens. “I’ll make an Italian almond cake. In seven tiers. How many people?”

“The ballroom holds two hundred.”

Tazia looks at her tiny oven. “You said the guest list would be small, to fit in the Kanes’ backyard.”

“Maura decided she preferred their country club instead.”

Tazia crushes a basil leaf in her trembling hand. “So the Kanes will have all their friends from the club, and on your side, there’ll only be me.”

Gemma hands her a dish towel. “And friends. You’ll sit with the Sotos. They’re family.”

“Yours, not mine.” Tazia tears sprigs of parsley. “I’m paying for your bouquet.”

“Maura also wants floral centrepieces on the tables.”

Tazia throws up her hands. “I can’t.”

“Relax, Mama. I’ll ask Yolanda to make them. She’s artistic.”

“Okay, I guess. She’s your matron of honour. What did you decide about the ceremony?”

“I already told you. Our priest and the one from the Kanes’ church will officiate together.”

Tazia puts the food on the table, and plunks down on her chair. “As long as the service is in Latin.”

“For goodness sake, Mama. Did you think their priest was going to do it in Irish?”

Two days before the wedding, Gemma tells Tazia the Kanes hired a photographer. “I want good pictures,” she insists. Tazia doesn’t challenge her but brings her old Brownie and refuses to pose for the professional’s shots. “Mama,” Gemma pleads, “I want you in them too.”

“Today is about you and Todd, not me.” Tazia touches the beaded lacework she’s sewn on her daughter’s gown, wishing her own mother were here. “You look beautiful,” she whispers. “Now, go smile for the camera.”

A month later, when Gemma brings the photo album to Tazia’s house, she is not smiling. “My own mother, missing. If my father had walked me down the aisle, he’d have been proud to be photographed with me.” Tazia is silent. She wants to comfort Gemma, but the fact is she has no idea how Ayal would have felt. After twenty-five years, she can no longer claim to know him.

***

With help from Todd’s parents, the newlyweds buy a small house around the corner from Tazia’s apartment. “I’m never going to escape my mother,” Gemma half-jokes, but until she and Todd are established in their careers, it’s the only neighbourhood they can afford. Tazia sews curtains and helps them choose furniture with durable upholstery. She embroiders a linen tablecloth for when they have guests. Usually it’s their friends, but Sunday dinners are reserved for the three parents.

Tazia alone is also invited midweek. Although she does most of the cooking, these relaxed meals are a respite from work. The new Commanding Officer, Commodore Byron McCandless, is stiff and demanding. “One of the recruits got caught saying the C.O. had a mast up his ass,” she says over risotto croquettes one night. After two jelly glasses of Chianti, she’s a little tipsy.

Gemma giggles. Todd starts to refill their glasses. “Sweetheart,” she says, “let’s have the good wine.” A year into their marriage, earning more, they can splurge. Todd is either indifferent to nice things or self-conscious when his clients can barely afford food, but Gemma’s eyes shine with each new vase or fluffy towel they buy. Tazia is happy for her daughter but worried for herself. She doesn’t want to be the poor relation whose child belongs to another class of people.

“Your mother prefers the cheaper stuff.” Todd winks at Tazia. “Me too.” Gemma tosses her head and gets herself a better bottle and a stemmed wine glass from the cabinet. When she returns, Todd proposes a toast. “Here’s to the simple life.” They laugh and drink.

Gemma is next. “Here’s to Todd winning the deportation case and my being assigned the article about the exploitation of civilian aircraft workers.” Again, they clink glasses.

“Here’s to the growing success of your careers.” Tazia takes a gulp, then adds, “Followed by a growing family.”

Gemma splutters and lowers her glass.

Todd calmly takes another sip. “Great risotto, suocera” he tells Tazia, helping himself to seconds. “Wait until you taste the apple barley pudding Gemma made for dessert.”

Tazia pushes away her wineglass. She’s had too much. “Did Maura teach you to make the pudding?” she asks Gemma quietly. Her daughter is trying to control her rapid breathing.

“Are you kidding?” Todd rubs his wife’s shoulder. “My mother doesn’t know pudding from parsnips. It was our cook’s specialty. When Gemma found out I missed it, she taught herself to make it.” Gemma leans her cheek against Todd’s hand. Tazia thinks how much they love each other. Again, she’s happy for her daughter, and this time only a little wistful for herself.

Dinner ends smoothly. Todd heads for the living room to review briefs for tomorrow’s court case, while Tazia and Gemma wash up. When the last plate is draining, Gemma throws the sponge in the sink. “Stop pushing me, Mama. It’s our business when we have kids.”

“I know,” Tazia says. “I’m sorry.” She wrings out the sponge. “It’s just that you and Todd can afford to start a family now.”

“Money isn’t what’s stopping me. I want to have a career. It’s hard enough for women as it is. It will be harder once I become a mother. My time won’t be my own.”

“I’m sure Todd’s parents will help pay for a babysitter.”

“I still want to be home for dinner and on weekends and go to every school play and recital. I refuse to be the kind of mother Maura was and foist off raising my children on others.”

“Todd turned out okay.”

Gemma looks at him through doorway. “Yes, he’s a miracle.” She and Tazia sit. “I want to be like you, Mama. No matter how hard you worked, you always had time for me.”

“Until you didn’t want me around anymore.” Mother and daughter grin. “I know you don’t want to make my mistake, becoming a mother too young, but I worry you’ll get too old.”

Gemma rolls her eyes. “I’m only twenty-six. Besides, most of our friends are waiting to get married and start families. The Depression is slowing everyone down.”

“All the same,” Tazia persists, “you better get started soon if you want a big family.”

“Suppose Todd and I only have one? Will you be satisfied?”

Tazia thinks of her sister and brothers, her parents’ siblings, the many cousins. Everyone needed to run an olive farm. “One child was enough for me. One grandchild will be too.”

Gemma looks at the new refrigerator and pressure cooker in her tidy kitchen. “Sometimes I worry I won’t be able to manage even one child and make it as a reporter.” Tears slide down her cheeks. “How did you do it all?”

Todd comes into the kitchen, sits between them. “You won’t be alone. I’ll be there every step, even changing diapers.” He folds a dish rag into a lumpy triangle. “I won’t vanish. Promise.”

Gemma nods, but her forehead wrinkles. Tazia trusts Todd more than her daughter does. A man born rich who chooses to defend the poor isn’t self-centred like Ayal, or heartless like Virgil. Todd Kane is a white-Irish Elvan. Tazia smiles. Todd will be a good father.

***

Gemma is twenty-seven when Frankie is born, ten years older than Tazia was when she had her. Although she had Veronika, Tazia had missed her mother during the pregnancy more than at any time before, or since. Gemma peppers Tazia daily with questions. “Is it normal to feel this tired?”

“Yes, at the beginning and the end.” Tazia remembers winter days when she wanted to nap inside a packing crate beside Paulie, and summer days when it felt like she was carrying a boulder in her belly. Stolen moments with Elvan were the only time she forgot her discomfort.

Later in the pregnancy, Gemma calls in a panic. “The baby hasn’t kicked since yesterday.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Tazia calms her. “Like us, babies have active days and quiet ones.”

“But what if something’s wrong with it?” Gemma persists. “Did my father’s family have a history of some disease that could kill babies?”

“Not that I know of,” Tazia says cautiously. In fact, she has no idea.

“Don’t know or won’t tell?”

“He never mentioned any such thing to me, nor did anyone in his family.” Technically, this is true, Tazia thinks, and for now it’s enough to quiet Gemma, who calls an hour later to complain that the baby’s kicking is making it impossible for her to meet a deadline at work.

A week later, Gemma again demands to know more. “Was my father afraid I’d be born a freak? Did he leave while you were pregnant because he couldn’t bear to see how I’d turn out?”

“Gemma, no more questions that I can’t answer.” Tazia is by now as exasperated as her daughter. “I’m healthy. You came out healthy. Your baby will be fine too.”

And so he is. Gemma, wrapped up in Frankie’s immediate needs, stops being a pest about the past. Todd, true to his word, changes diapers. Patrick and Maura buy a full layette and fancy birth announcements. Tazia fantasizes sending one to Ayal. She studies the baby for any resemblance to him, but she no longer remembers his face, only his cleverness.

Frankie’s eyes are deep green, like his parents.’ They follow Tazia as she croons Italian lullabies and feeds him bottles so her daughter can return to work. When he is sated, Tazia wraps him in Gemma’s baby blanket and, in a rush of love, gives him the rattle Elvan carved long ago.

Gemma strokes the blanket. “It’s so beautiful, I hate to use it. Frankie will spit up on it.”

Tazia laughs. “Your spit-up made it more beautiful. So will his.”

“Did I play with this rattle when I was a baby?” Gemma shakes it gently.

Tazia nods as Frankie turns toward the sound, fingers curling and uncurling in rhythm.

“It looks handmade,” Gemma says. “Where did you get it?”

“Someplace in Chicago.” Again, Tazia speaks a kind of truth. She worries her face will betray her, but Gemma is looking at her child, not her mother.

Todd’s parents also bring gifts, expensive ones, when they come for Sunday dinner. There are toy trucks and airplanes, little blue suits, a tricycle before Frankie can even crawl.

“I wish I could buy him nice things,” Tazia says, “but this is the best I can do.” She hands the baby a small rag doll she stitched with a goofy face and springy red yarn for hair. Frankie puts it in his mouth and gurgles a happy stream of saliva.

Gemma hugs Tazia. “What you give us is priceless, Mama, cooking us dinner every night and doing our laundry. I couldn’t do it without you.”

Frankie drops the doll. Tazia picks it up and pretends it is talking. “Hello, caro uno. Are you happy to see your nonna?”

The baby babbles back. Gemma laughs. “I wish Todd’s parents played with him like that. Especially Patrick. You’ll be a real grandmother, but he’ll never really get to know a grandfather.”

Tazia waits for a burst of recrimination, but there is none. Since becoming a mother, Gemma fusses more over her child’s future, less over her own past. “Then I’ll have to be both Nonna and Nonno,” Tazia says. If she can drive like a man, she can learn to throw a baseball.

***

One Sunday, after the Kanes leave and while Gemma naps, Tazia and Todd play with Frankie, now a year old. He uses the coffee table to pull himself up and stretches a chubby arm toward the shiny teething ring that Patrick and Maura brought earlier. Todd tugs it just out of reach. The baby slides closer, holding tight to the table’s edge. Now Tazia moves it two inches. Frankie lunges for it and falls down. They wait for him to cry, but he gets up and sidles toward the toy, still leaning heavily against the table. This time he grasps it and whoops with glee. Todd claps too and Tazia, joining the celebration, knows she was right to think he’d be a wonderful father.

Gemma emerges from the bedroom, cranky from having her sleep interrupted. Her lips open in an exaggerated yawn. Tazia braces herself for a whiny “Pipe down,” but before Gemma closes her mouth, Frankie lets go of the table and takes a step toward his mother. They hold their breath. He takes another step before he falls down, at which point the three adults cheer. Frankie, startled, begins to cry. Tazia lets Gemma scoop him up; Todd embraces the two of them.

“It’s okay, Sweetie,” Gemma soothes Frankie.

“Mommy and Daddy got excited because you walked,” says Todd. “Nonna too,” he adds.

Tazia smiles, then retreats to the kitchen to finish the dishes. As much as she’s thrilled to be included in this moment, she knows that these milestones belong to Gemma and Todd. She allows her heart to ache, a little, that she never got to celebrate Gemma’s firsts with Ayal. People say bringing up a child alone must be hard because there is no one to help shoulder the problems. They don’t know that the greater grief is not having another parent with whom to share the joys.