When she had been very little, Stellina had asked Nonna why she didn’t have a mother like the other children. Nonna had said that Stellina’s mother left her with her Daddy because when she was born her mother became very sick and had to go to California to try to get better. Nonna said that her mother had been very sad to leave her, that she had promised if she ever got better she would come to see her. But Nonna also told Stellina that she thought that might never happen, and that she personally believed that God had called Stellina’s mother to heaven.
Then, just when Stellina was starting kindergarten, Nonna had showed her the silver chalice she had found in Daddy’s closet and explained that her mother’s uncle, a priest, had given it to Stellina’s mother, and that she had left it for Stellina. Nonna explained that the cup had been used to celebrate Mass and was blessed in a very special way.
The cup became a talisman for Stellina, and sometimes when she was just going off to sleep and was thinking about her mother, wishing so much that she could see her, she would ask Nonna if she could hold it.
Nonna teased her about it at the time. “Babies give up their security blankets, Stellina. Now that you’re a big girl and going to school, you decide you need one,” she had said. But she always smiled and never refused to let Stellina hold the cup. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, and frequently in a mixture of both, she would reassure this wonderful little girl, the only real gift her otherwise worthless nephew had given her. “Ah, bambina,” Nonna would whisper, “I will always take care of you.”
Stellina didn’t tell Nonna that when she twined her fingers around the cup, it was as if she could feel her mother’s hands still holding it.
On Sunday afternoon, as she watched Nonna sew the blue veil she was to wear in the pageant, Stellina had an idea. She would ask Nonna if she could take the cup to the pageant and pretend that as the Blessed Mother she was giving it to the Baby Jesus.
Nonna protested. “Oh, no, Stellina. It might get lost, and besides, the Blessed Mother had no silver to give to the Baby Jesus. It wouldn’t be right.”
Stellina didn’t argue, but she knew she had to find a way to persuade Nonna to let her bring the cup to the stable. She knew exactly the prayer she would say when she brought it there: “If my mother is still sick, please make her well, and please, please ask her to visit me just one time.”
At Manhattan ’s 24th Police Precinct, Detective Joe Tracy expressed keen interest in the fact that Lenny Centino had once again resurfaced. He remembered Lenny from an investigation he’d been involved with a few years back. He hadn’t been able to tie him directly to the crime, which had involved the sale of drugs to minors, but he was certain that Lenny was one of the guilty parties.
Tracy’s partner pointed out that the rap sheet on Lenny was minor league-just a few breaking and enterings, penny-ante stuff-but Tracy was convinced that it was only because Lenny had not been caught.
“Sure, he served a little time,” Tracy argued, “juvenile detention twenty-five years ago, record expunged, but in my opinion he only learned new tricks of his trade. He was arrested a few times, but never indicted. We never could pin anything definite on him, but I always was sure he was distributing drugs to high school kids. I remember how I used to see him pushing his kid in her carriage all over the West Side. I heard later that the kid was just a cover-up-that he stashed his stuff in the carriage, right there with the baby.”
Tracy tossed his slim folder on Lenny Centino back on the desk. “Well, now that he’s back, I’m going to keep my eye on him. If I see him with that little girl, I may just bring him in. He’ll make a mistake eventually, and when he does, I intend to be there.”