Chapter Twelve
“What kind of a woman are you?”
“Barbara, I apologize again. I’m so sorry you had to see this. But you must realize, you absolutely must, that Chezzo and I would never have—”
“Chezzo? What kind of a woman are you?”
“Oh, here we go.”
“Here we go? Are you saying, this is some kind of dance?”
“A dance indeed. Patently a dance. We’ve all known from Day One that it was only a matter of time before you cleared the floor and called me out for the big finale.”
“The finale? Aurora, a finale would be the answer to my prayers. Don’t you know how you stick in my craw? Can’t you imagine how many times I’ve wanted to tell you off once and for all?”
Aurora heaved a showy sigh, a movement that called attention to how small she was. Barefoot, in a flimsy kimono, the old playgirl barely came to Barbara’s chin. She wouldn’t get into a staring contest either. Instead the grandmother looked to Cesare, still flat on the sofa. One of the boys had covered the priest with a summer bedspread. Light cotton, powder blue, the blanket set off the man’s long face, its flush of color showing the good that Paul had done.
“That’s right,” Barbara said, “look at the poor guy. And he’s only the latest victim. He’s practically got holes in his neck.”
“Barb,” Jay said.
The in-law’s painted face seemed smaller, doll-like. Her hair might’ve been a kid’s, rumpled and glossy, jittering under the ceiling fan. She must’ve turned the thing on to help her and Cesare get comfortable.
“This isn’t the time,” the husband said.
“Oh, Jay. Are you saying there is a good time? There’s some better time for our kids, for instance? The father was dying, here, till Paul stepped in! So Jaybird, tell me. When’s a good time for them to at last understand what a, what a monster they’ve got living in their own—”
“Barbara, excuse me. If I may interrupt.” Aurora finger-combed one of her unruly patches of hair. “Am I correct in assuming that you had some reason for rushing everyone home like this?”
“Mother of God.” Barb suffered the whipsaw too, jam and recoil across the ribcage. “You’ve got no respect, no — no limits. Now you want to tell me how I should run my family?”
“Owl, hey. Think about it.”
“Your family, precisely. Would one be correct in assuming that it was some pressing new crisis for the family, that had you so suddenly rushing home?”
“Mom, you too. Easy.”
Barb looked to her husband, but he was checking down the hallway — the older boys and the twins had scurried off into the girls’ room. When the Jaybird swung round again, he glowered at his mother. “Look at you. Hardly any bigger than Paul, here. Plus, what, seventy-five years old, now? Hey. It’s lucky we didn’t find you and the father both having heart attacks.”
“Oh, John.” The grandmother fingered her kimono together at the throat, drawing in her bantam frame. “Really now, do I seem so frail?”
“You,” Barbara began, “you’re seventy-five years old. You’re a mother!”
“Easy there, Owl Girl. Think about it.”
Barbara dropped her head and tugged at an armpit. She hadn’t been wrenched around so badly since the museum.
“John has a point, Barbara. Think about the things I’ve learned, living under your roof these last ten days or so.”
What the mother thought of, seeing Aurora square her flinty shoulders, was of Roebuck and all the Alpha Moms before her.
“I mean to say, the children have been talking to me. They’ve told me a thing or two, you know. For that matter, so has Cesare here.”
“Him? Cesare?” The words came out quietly, surprising her. “What kind of a woman are you, getting a priest to talk?”
“Oh, here we go — you’re calling me a witch. It was inevitable, I suppose.”
“When I visited with the father, it was a sacrament.”
“I suppose I’m that witch Ulysses had the problem with. The woman who turned men into swine.” Her bright mouth crooked up smartly. “You know, Barbara, whenever I was lucky enough to enjoy a private moment with my Chezzo, the last thing I was interested in talking about was you and your secrets.”
Barbara tried to get her bearings. The space around her might still have been that first morning downtown. She might’ve come across Cesare in the niche of a catacomb, the tunnels of Napoli Sotterraneo, The only person who’d taken a chair, normal living-room activity, was the miraculous eleven-year-old. Meantime the grandmother was pressing her point, arguing that if she’d wanted “to start playing the bull in the china shop, around here, I could’ve found a far less humiliating way than this.” Today, the last thing Aurora and the fallen priest had expected was to have the rest of the family burst in on them.
“On the contrary, we had a more than reasonable expectation of privacy. And do you mean to tell me that you and Jay have never made love on a couch?”
Barb didn’t trust herself to respond.
“Really, I’ve been the soul of discretion, around here. It’s hardly as if I’ve gone looking for dirt about you and Jay. It’s hardly as if, in order to learn that you two have been squabbling, I needed to bewitch a priest.”
Behind Barbara, from the room down the hall, came the small sounds of sneakers and toys. “Aurora,” she asked, “what do you know about it?” She kept her voice under control. “What goes on in a family, what commitment even means, what do you know? Twenty years ago I took a vow in front of God—”
“Hey,” Jay said. “Both of you. Down off the high horse.”
“Precisely, John. How many apologies does your wife require? Why won’t she admit the least responsibility? Rushing everyone home without so much as a phone call.”
“Mother of God! You monster, weren’t you just saying you don’t want some kind of big, apocalyptic dance?”
“All I’ve ever said to you, Barbara, is stop pretending you’re a saint. Telling me you stood up in front of God, now really. The truth is, you’re blundering around having emotions like the rest of us.”
“I’m — I’m a wife and a mother. I took a vow.”
“And I was there, in case you’ve forgotten. Then more recently I was out on Capri, and even my carriage-driver was talking about trouble between you and my son.”
At some point the grandmother had slipped on pants. Balloony Arabian velveteen, she’d pulled them on while Paul was still over Cesare, a hand at each of the old man’s breaking points. In those same swarming moments — while Barb had stood dumbstruck, unable to manage more than a silent prayer for her priest — Chris and JJ had hustled the twins down the hall to their room. Jay had done what he could, using his upper body as a screen. As near as Mama could tell, the girls hadn’t seen anything.
But even now with Cesare breathing normally under his blanket, with the girls out of harm’s way and Mr. Paul parked in a chair, she had so much turning over within her that she might still have been praying. Turning over like the beads on a rosary. She grabbed the mother-in-law by the lapels.