February 1979
Derby, Connecticut
As soon as she heard her Aunt Rose’s voice, nine-year-old Sofia leaped out of bed and rushed to the head of the stairs, but right when she was about to squeal with delight, she froze.
Looking down from the second-floor landing, Sofia saw her aunt, still wearing her coat and holding her purse, collapse into her mother’s arms and burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” her aunt said to Sophia’s mother.
For a second, Sofia’s heart clenched in fear. Her dad was dead.
But her mother laughed, startling Sofia.
“I’m surprised the old witch made it as long as she did.”
It wasn’t her dad. Then who?
“Dio mio!” Aunt Rose said, making the sign of the cross. “You shouldn’t talk that way about the dead.”
Sofia sank onto the top stair. Someone was dead and her mother was glad.
“That woman made my life hell. Even to the very end, she made sure to bitch about how awful her life had been and how her children had made it worse.”
Aunt Rose had shed her coat and was now bustling about in the kitchen filling the coffee pot and wiping her eyes.
“I always liked her,” she said quietly.
Sofia’s mother pulled up a chair and lit a cigarette. This time she spoke in a low voice. “She was a good actress. She was nicer to strangers than she was to her own family.”
They must be talking about the crabby old neighbor who lived across the street. Whenever her kids came to visit there was yelling and even once the sound of breaking glass. Sofia’s mother used to roll her eyes and turn up the radio in the kitchen.
Rose hugged her mother again. “I know you had a difficult relationship. I think you are just in shock.”
Sofia watched wide-eyed as her mother relaxed into the hug. Her mother who never hugged or kissed Sofia. Who swatted away her own husband’s hugs and kisses. But then her mother pulled away abruptly.
“I’ll get the biscotti for our coffee.”
Sofia stayed quiet on the stairs, eavesdropping on her mother and aunt, pressing her forehead against the cold wood bannister.
The women smoked and sipped coffee and dipped biscotti into their cups.
After a while, Rose spoke. “Are you having a funeral?”
Her mother shrugged. “I suppose.”
Sofia could think of no good reason why her mother would have a funeral for the neighbor. She didn’t even like her.
Rose stubbed out her cigarette in Sofia’s favorite ashtray, the ceramic rectangle one with the Eiffel Tower on it.
“Have you told Marco?”
“He won’t care. He hated my mother more than I did.”
It hit Sofia like a punch.
Grandma Malena was dead.
She burst into tears and hid her face in her nightgown to muffle the sound. Her sweet grandmother who had been in that care home for the past two years. Dead. It was the second person Sofia had known who died. The first was baby Angelo. The sweetest, happiest baby in the world. Sofia would never forgive herself for his death. Even though the judge had said it was an accident, her mother had told her the truth—it was Sofia’s fault.
Now, below her, her mother said something that made her freeze.
“Maybe Sofia should go live with you like Marco said.”
Sofia’s face felt icy. Her father had wanted her to move in with Aunt Rose? Because of Angelo?
“You know I love Sofia like my own daughter,” Rose said. “My door is always open.”
Holding her breath, Sofia waited for her mother’s response. She craned her neck to see. Rose was staring at her mother, but her mother was concentrating on rubbing a spot on their scratched table. Finally, she shrugged. “It’s a little late for all that, isn’t it? He’s dead now.”
“It was not the child’s fault,” Rose’s voice was firm. But then she looked up, right at Sofia. For a moment, terror streaked through Sofia. Would her Aunt Rose say something, tattle on her for spying? But her aunt looked away as she spoke. “Sofia is always welcome in my home. That baby’s death was not her fault.” Her voice was firm.
The words made her cry even more. Tears streamed down her face and she held her breath waiting for her mother to say, “Yes. Sofia can live with you. Go get her right now.”
Please. Please. Please. Sofia looked at the picture of Jesus with the flaming sacred heart on his chest. Please. Please. Please.
Then her mother spoke. “No. The girl is difficult. Maybe dangerous. They say it was an accident, but you didn’t see her face when I found them. She is better off with me. I wouldn’t burden you with her.”
Sofia tried to remember that night. She’d pushed it down for so long. But now she strained, closing her eyes to remember.
She’d fallen asleep with Angelo in her arms. She’d heard him crying in the night and like, always, her mother had ignored his cries. Sofia had taken to getting up, warming the milk on the stove and feeding him herself in his nursery. She loved rocking him by the light of the nightlight, watching his rosebud lips drink and his eyes intently focused on her. It was the best thing in the world.
But that night, she’d fallen asleep in the rocking chair holding him.
Waking she’d seen her mother on the ground over Angelo’s tiny body. Then her mother looked over at her with hate in her eyes. “You killed him?”
“What?” Sofia blinked and then horror shot through her. She threw herself on the floor by Angelo’s body. His body was still. She put her head to his chest. Nothing. The worst pain she’d ever felt clutched her heart, wrapped in absolute terror. It couldn’t be. She was still dreaming.
But soon the police were there, questioning her. It was only later that a judge determined that Angelo’s death had been an accident. That she had accidentally dropped him out of the rocking chair.
“You were sleepwalking,” her mother told her. “I heard you yell and when I came in, I found him like that. You were very angry. You fought me and hit me. You need to control your temper.”
Sofia didn’t understand how she could have slept through that. How something like that could’ve happened at all. If she’d been sleepwalking then how had she ended up back asleep sitting in the rocking chair?
Now, only a few years later, watching her mother and aunt, Sofia felt tears running down her face. She missed her little brother more than anything in the world. She would never have hurt him on purpose. Never. She would have killed herself if he could live.
Sofia didn’t wait to hear anymore. If she couldn’t move in with Aunt Rose, then nothing else that was said mattered. She stood and ran to her room, throwing herself on her bed and burying her face in her pillow. She sobbed for what seemed like hours until at one point, she realized instead of sadness, she felt anger. Fury. So much so that she pounded her fists into her pillow until her knuckles hurt.