Aunt Honey? Can we come in?”
When she opened her eyes, she saw the last person she expected. The last two, in fact.
It was Corrado and his grandson.
“Goodness—have you been standing there long?”
“It looked like you were napping.”
“No, I was just . . .” Honey smoothed her hair. For the first time in ages, she longed for the imposture of a wig. “Come in, come in.”
The visitors entered slowly, as if testing the ice on a lake. Her nephew attempted a smile, but the boy’s face remained circumspect. Vittorio was five now, maybe six. He wasn’t a stranger. Honey knew him from the Sunday dinners she’d occasionally shared with the Fazzingas. Over the last few years, she’d seen them at least a dozen times. It hadn’t been a matter of forgiveness, but rather the irresistible call of blood.
Honey had actually been hoping that Corrado might visit, especially after what she’d learned from Jocelyn.
But, in accordance with the old rules, she and Corrado never spoke of such things. Over the years of their reconciliation—though perhaps that was too strong a word—the two of them had made no real effort to excavate the past. And it was far too late to begin. Nonetheless, it was a relief to know that her nephew hadn’t taken Lee Czernik to Connecticut.
“Just the two of you?” asked Honey, propping herself up before the unlikely duo—the large dark man running to fat, and the slight boy whittled from a paler branch of the family tree.
“Yeah, just us,” Corrado said. “Rina sends her best.”
Honey wasn’t surprised that Rina hadn’t come. For Rina, it was a matter of forgiveness; it seemed that she could never look at Honey without seeing something she couldn’t forgive in herself. Their relationship was complicated—but they’d made do, on the occasional Sunday, with wine and small talk. At the hospital, over plastic cups of water, it would have been harder to keep the truth at bay. The Sunday dinners were a bid toward civility, a well-mannered truce—but the soil was too shallow for any real intimacy to grow.
Besides, Honey had attended those dinners more to see Vittorio than for anything else. He was very bright, and as was often the case with bright children, slightly odd. Rather like me, she often thought.
Corrado shepherded the boy into the room—the little face wary, eye contact withheld. Honey knew him well enough to understand it was necessary that she make the first move toward conversation.
“Have you missed me, dear?”
Vittorio made a noncommittal shrug, his indifference belied by the fact that he took a few steps forward, stopping just shy of the bed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
When at last he looked up, his words were bold. “How come you’re alone?”
“I’m not alone,” replied Honey. “You’re here. And your grandfather’s here.”
The boy pursed his lips, unsatisfied. “But I mean, who else is saying goodbye to you?”
Corrado suddenly looked embarrassed, almost stricken; no doubt he’d said something to Vittorio about coming to the hospital to say goodbye. “Don’t be rude,” he told the kid.
“No, it’s fine,” said Honey. “It’s a perfectly legitimate question.” She looked at Vittorio and told him that she had other friends who’d stopped by. “But now it’s your turn.”
The child glanced toward Corrado, and then back at Honey. Surely, this was his first encounter with death, and she wanted to make it easy on him. She had no intention of making declamatory speeches, or pressing tidbits of wisdom into the little boy’s fist. Their last conversation should be jovial—and it should be about him, not her.
“How are things in school?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. “I wrote a story.”
“Did you?”
“It won a prize.”
“Really? What was it about?”
“Cows,” he replied, as if talking to someone slightly dim—as if there could be no other subject suitable for a story. And now that he’d exposed this literary vein, his words began to flow more easily. “It was the longest story of anyone in my class. It was, like, twenty sentences.”
“Very impressive,” said Honey.
He shrugged again—at which point Corrado came over and put his hand on Vittorio’s shoulder. It gave Honey pleasure to see how kindly her nephew treated the boy. It caused her heart to ache, as well. Strangely, the two feelings were not that different.
As Honey continued to chat with the kid about cows, she noted the positions of the bodies in the room—how Vittorio stood almost exactly equidistant between Corrado and herself. It seemed to illustrate something she’d sensed over the last few years, but had never really articulated. Which was that the child was a kind of bridge. All the complicated feelings she had about Corrado, and which no doubt he had about her, moved back and forth across Vittorio’s tiny body. Moved through it, to be precise—more of a tunnel than a bridge, and inside of which there occurred a mysterious translation. It was almost as if, without the boy, communication between her and her nephew wouldn’t be possible.
In some ways, they were using him. Well, not exactly using. Both of them adored the boy and would never do anything to harm him. Still, they relied on the child to conduct the secret business of their agonized affection.
Vittorio seemed vaguely aware of this, evidenced by the way he kept glancing back and forth, from one adult to the other. Honey wondered if the silent negotiations between her and Corrado caused the boy any pain, if he could feel the strain of their heavy hearts shuttling through him, that dark and weary traffic.
Despite these worries, she was glad the boy was here, and felt quite ready to ask him a thousand questions about his fictional bovines. But, before she could get back to the prizewinning story, Vittorio abruptly changed the subject.
“Are you going to stay in the little house?” he asked her.
Honey assumed he was talking about the fort, the one he’d made in his grandparents’ backyard last summer. Sticks and leaves and worn-out sheets. He’d done a bang-up job. Honey recalled how proud he’d been of his accomplishment, and how he’d encouraged her to crawl inside. But her knee had been acting up that day, so she’d only admired the fort from the outside. Vittorio had been disappointed.
“Well, I’d like to stay there,” she said now, in answer to his question. “But I’m not sure it’s big enough for me.”
The boy narrowed his eyes, as if confused. “It’s small,” he said, “but it’s not that small. There’s room for twelve people.”
Honey was confused now, too. She asked Vittorio if he’d made a bigger one.
“I didn’t make it,” he said. “It was made before I was born.”
The lights in the room seemed to blink, and Honey wondered if the drugs were kicking in. For the life of her, she couldn’t make heads or tails of this conversation.
“You’re talking about your fort in the backyard?” she asked.
“No,” he said, sounding almost annoyed. “I’m talking about where we go to see my great-grandpa.”
Honey wondered if the boy was referring to her brother.
Corrado appeared flustered. “We took him to the cemetery, and now he’s obsessed with it.”
“I’m not obsessed,” he said to his grandfather—and then, looking back at Honey: “I was just interested because the house has our name on it.”
The boy, it seemed, was talking about the mausoleum. What a peculiar creature. “No, dear,” she told him. “I don’t believe I’ll be staying there.”
“Why not? It’s your name, too.”
“Yes, it is—you’re right. But . . .” What could she tell him? She explained that she’d made other plans.
“What plans?”
“Victor!” Corrado scolded—“Basta with the questions!” And then to Honey: “He gets like this, sorry.”
Why was the man apologizing? Honey wasn’t troubled in the least by the child’s morbidity. In fact, she found it refreshing. No one else had had the guts to speak of such things.
What was also delightful was Vittorio’s willfulness, how comfortable he seemed resisting his grandfather. The gods had fun, didn’t they? Putting Mica’s delicate features and pale coloring into the boy, while also giving him the classic Fazzinga swagger.
When, after a moment, Vittorio spoke again, insisting that his questions were important, Corrado told him it wasn’t the time or the place. “Just ignore him,” he said to Honey.
“Actually,” she said, “I’d like to speak to him honestly, if I may.”
“You may,” the boy said, taking matters into his own hands. At which point, Corrado rolled his eyes in capitulation.
“The reason I’m not going to stay in the little house,” Honey explained to Vittorio, “is because I’m going to be cremated.”
Corrado winced, clearly uncomfortable with such specifics, but the boy remained doggedly curious.
“What’s cremated?”
“It’s a kind of magic,” Honey said. “It’s taking one thing and turning it into another. I’ll become a kind of dust, and then some people I know—the friends I mentioned to you earlier—will scatter me over a very pretty place.”
“Where?”
“California. On a particular beach I’m very fond of.”
“There are beaches in New Jersey,” the boy said.
“Yes, that’s true,” agreed Honey, unexpectedly laughing.
“Like, have you ever been to Lavallette?” the boy asked. “We have a house there, right on the beach. If you wanted, we could scatter you.”
When Honey glanced at Corrado, she saw that he was crying. Vittorio noticed it, too.
“What’s wrong, Grandpa?”
He shook his head, pulled himself together. “Why don’t you give Aunt Honey a kiss, all right? And then go wait for me outside, in the hall.”
“Why?” the boy asked—“Are you having secrets?”
“None of your business, buster.”
Vittorio sighed, accepting his fate. He moved closer to the bed, then leaned forward, placing his entire upper body against Honey’s. She could feel the shocking warmth bleeding through the sheet. He offered no kiss, only lay there, as if trying to leave an impression, or take one of her.
Honey placed her hand lightly on Vittorio’s head, though what she wanted was to grab him, drag him away to where she was going.
“Lavallette,” he whispered, as if trying to hypnotize her. And then he lifted his body, said, “Bye, Aunt Honey,” and left the room.
After he was gone, Corrado closed the door slightly. “I don’t think he understands.”
Honey wiped her eyes. “Children understand more than we give them credit for.”
Corrado’s face was aflush, strangely burning, as if there were something he wished to confess. But now that they were alone, he seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Honey, too, struggled to find more words. She clutched her fists against the void.
Finally, when her nephew sat beside the bed, she remembered some things she needed to discuss with him. For instance, she needed to explain why she was leaving the house to Jocelyn. It wasn’t beyond reason that the Fazzingas would try to contest her wishes. As it stood, the only Fazzingas named in her will were Mica and Vittorio.
The most important thing, though, was to make sure Corrado understood that she had nothing to do with his father’s death. She’d never been disloyal, only disheartened; she needed to make that clear.
But she only sat in the bed, propped up like a doll, and said nothing. The room was unbearably white, as if designed to erase all meaning. Corrado took her hand, but the gesture failed to bind her. A buzzing filled her ears. The light grew stranger. Honey found herself thinking about the little house. Was it too late to change her mind? What would it mean to join her parents and brother in that pink marble monstrosity? Something about Corrado’s hand suggested she consider it.
She closed her eyes, to get her thoughts in order, and when she looked back at Corrado, he was crying again. Tears of love, of accusation. Honey felt the same.
“It doesn’t matter where I’m going,” she finally said. “Wherever I go, I won’t forget.” How could she? They were family, for heaven’s sake. She squeezed her nephew’s hand and told him, as kindly as possible, that she’d never forget anything.