-34-

She walks slowly through the old Belmont area, not far from the Bronx Zoo. Beneath the El, sunspots dot the street like measles. Small shops edge a square, which includes the bar where she and Celia met the day the bombing of the draft board was announced. Miles has been topic number one in the press. The coverage hasn’t been friendly. She prays he doesn’t see any of it.

Celia cautioned her to say nothing about Miles’s arrest. But who’s to say her mother doesn’t already know? Johnny would be on it ad nauseam. Didn’t he warn Josie that no good would come of all this militancy? Shit. She doesn’t want to deal with Johnny, not in her head and not in person. She’ll spend an hour there and hope to leave before either Johnny or Terry returns home. She’s only here as a favor to Celia, who was supposed to visit their mother and asked her to go instead. She wanted to say no, that she had other . . . but how could she? Celia’s exhausted, every day something else about Miles that has to be dealt with.

Entering the old gray brick elevator building, she remembers the first and only time she was here before. It was after Johnny and Terry moved in. Then the rooms were empty of furniture except for a bed and table. Then she was still in school, a freshman, and leaving home to find another way of life was only a fantasy. It’s nearly impossible to hold in her head all that has happened since. Richie once wrote that in Vietnam every day was a lifetime. She can’t say that, but her days have been filled with so many experiences it would take a book to list them all.

The apartment is on the sixth floor. She walks through the heavily furnished rooms: motel-type paintings on the walls, doodads stalking one another on multiple shelves, windows covered in drapes that dull the light, and not a book in sight, though glossy magazines are everywhere.

The kitchen is brighter than the other rooms; perhaps it’s the overhead light or the Swiss-dotted window curtains. A round wooden table with six chairs centers the room. As soon as she sits, her mother places dish after dish of food in front of her. Cooking for Terry and Johnny, who both work, must keep her mother busy, but feeding her youngest, is that a sign of welcome? It’s difficult to know. Her mother finds explanations exhausting, which she learned at a young age. It was her father who answered questions, though with few words to spare.

To her surprise, her mother brings a cup of espresso to the table and joins her.

“I miss Pa,” Josie says.

Her mother nods as if to say, Of course.

“You must miss him a lot.”

Once more her mother nods but dismissively.

She cuts a thin slice of the thick lasagna, wonders if her mother will ask her anything about her life: how she is doing or what kind of job she has or even if there is anyone special in her life. It’s possible these questions about her have been asked of and answered by her siblings.

Her mother pushes the bread basket closer to her. “What about Richie?”

“He’s doing okay. Manhattan is easier for him to get around in. My friends visit him, so he has company.” She feels the need to defend her choice to remove him from the Bronx.

“Good.” Her mother looks thinner, narrower, less robust than she once was.

“Ma? Are you okay living here with Johnny?”

“What else should I do?”

“I guess you could move in with Celia.”

“One child or another, it’s the same. It’s their house, not mine.”

“But you can’t live alone.”

Her mother shrugs.

“You need to say what you want. Otherwise others will make decisions for you.”

“Johnny’s a good son.”

“Of course he is. But none of us know what’s in your head.”

“What do you mean? I’m not crazy.”

“No, no. That’s not what I’m say—”

“You don’t know anything about what’s in my head.”

“Tell me.”

Her mother pushes the salad platter closer to her.

“Lasagna’s delicious, Ma.”

“Good.”

“So, tell me what’s in your head.”

“Josie, too many questions come out of your mouth. Always. The world doesn’t owe you answers.”

“I want to know more about you.” Is this true?

Her mother laughs, but it’s a harsh sound. “How would your life get better knowing more about mine? What’s the point of so much talking? The same in the old country, empty words, not worth the breath it took. No different here. Maybe worse, because everyone wants to hear what they want to hear. I get tired of it.”

Her mother’s face, still round, is heavily creased, her once-dark hair mostly gray.

“Pa talked about the old country. But you never do.”

“What’s to talk about?”

“You grew up there. You must—”

“It was bad, poor, wet when it should’ve been dry, cold when it should’ve been hot. Complaints, that’s all that happened there.”

“But you and Pa fell in love.”

“Love. Americans think that word is an answer to everything. Not for me. Not for Pa either.”

“But you loved each other,” she says again, needing it to be so.

Her mother doesn’t flinch from her gaze. “Why do you have to know this? What is so important about our lives? We grew up knowing nothing except what we found out for ourselves. All this information everyone here wants, as if it will fill the belly or pay the rent.”

She sounds angry, even cheated. Josie hadn’t heard that before. She recognized her father’s sadness in his nostalgia. But in her mother she only ever saw stoicism. She isn’t sure how to respond. Except it’s so rare for her mother to offer any insight into herself.

“You sound angry. Are you—”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you and Pa live together happily?”

For a moment her mother looks past her. “Living here was a joke, a joke on us. No matter how hard we worked . . . always the scrimping, nothing to hold on to for tomorrow but worries. Your father wanted lots of children. Not me. It’s what he knew. It’s how it was in the old country. Have more and more children; each child brings its own luck, people said. But there was no luck there and no luck here. Your father was one of fifteen children. My mother died when I was ten. My father remarried. There are sisters I never knew, because I was already here. It’s wrong, how life is handed out. All we could do was to keep on keeping on. Pa was tired. Me too.”

Is her mother revealing a truth or disposing of it? “You never talked about your feelings before.” Her response hesitant, measured. She’s afraid to undercut or disturb this strange moment of sharing, if that’s what it is.

Her mother says nothing. The espresso cup empty, at any moment she’ll get up and leave the table.

“I wanted to tell Pa about what I’ve learned about his and my lives. But he died before I could do that. Do you want to know how I spend my time?”

Her mother’s eyes open wide, as if she was expecting to be handed bad news.

“Ma. I realize I haven’t visited. But I’ve been involved—”

“I’m not mad at you,” her mother suddenly says.

“But I should’ve made time to—”

“A mother who expects too much from children will be disappointed. You have your own busy lives. I never went back to see my father in the old country. Then he was dead. I was alive and bringing up my children. It’s how it goes, all of life, like the hands of a clock, in only one direction.” She gets up and begins to clear the table.