The bed is now covered in boxes. I look for the extension cord with the foot pedal for turning the tree lights on and off. I can’t find it. “Gram?” I holler from the top of the stairs.
“What is it?” She appears on the landing a flight below.
“Where are the extension cords?”
“Look in my room. Check my dresser. It’s got to be in one of those drawers,” she says, heading into the kitchen.
I flip on the light in Gram’s room. Her perfume lingers in the air, freesia and lilies, the same scent that you catch when Gram pulls off her scarf or hangs up her coat.
I pull open her dresser drawer and search for the extension cords. Gram is a pack rat, like me. Her drawers are well-organized but are filled with stuff. The top drawer holds stacks of her lingerie anchored by stockings still in their packages. I lift them carefully, looking for the cords.
An unopened bottle of Youth Dew perfume sits on top of a stack of pressed antique handkerchiefs, which she still uses in evening bags on special occasions. I lift out a box of lightbulbs in their flimsy carton. Searching under it, I find a shoe box of receipts, which I carefully place back where I found it.
I look in the second drawer. Her wool cardigans are folded neatly. In an open plastic bin, there’s a flashlight, a bottle of holy water from Lourdes, and an envelope marked “Mike’s report cards.”
I open the last drawer. Gram’s purses and evening bags are neatly stacked in felt bags. I lift a cigar box filled with small metal gizmos, wheels, latches, and hook replacements for repairing the machines in the shop. Under the box, there’s a black velvet pouch lying flat against the bottom of the drawer. I pull out a heavy gold picture frame.
Inside is a picture of Gram from about ten years ago. The background is unfamiliar and rural. Gram stands next to an olive tree with a man who is not my grandfather. She must be in the hills of Italy. The man has thick white hair brushed to the side, crackling slate blue eyes, and a wide smile. His skin is golden, as is hers, tawny with summer.
The hills behind them are in full bloom with sunflowers. The man has his arm around Gram’s waist, and she is looking down, smiling. I quickly shove the photograph into the pouch and bury it at the bottom of the drawer with the small box of machine parts on top of it. I see the cord for the Christmas lights hidden in the far corner. “I found it!” I call out to her. I close the drawer carefully and turn out the light.
“Maybe it’s one of her cousins,” Tess whispers as we wait for my parents to arrive in the vestibule of Our Lady of Pompeii Church on Carmine Street for Christmas Eve mass. Garlands of fresh greens hang from the columns leading to the altar, covered with gold-foil pots of red poinsettias. A series of small trees with tiny white lights forms a backdrop for the ornate gold tabernacle.
“He didn’t look like a cousin.”
Gram is seated inside, with the grandkids and Alfred, Pamela, Jaclyn, and Tom, while Tess and I wait for our parents while they park.
“Who could it be?”
“It looked romantic to me.”
“Oh, come on! You’re talking about our grandmother.”
“Older people have relationships.”
“Not Gram.”
“I don’t know. She gets a lot of phone calls from Italy, and remember what she said to Keely Smith about having a boyfriend.”
“She didn’t say she had one. She was just playing along for the show. Gram is not the type,” Tess insists.
“The picture is hidden in a velvet pouch in her dresser, like it matters.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. When we go back, you keep her busy in the kitchen and I’ll go up and check it out. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“It’s a mob scene out there,” Dad says as he and Mom enter the church.
Tess, Mom, and Dad follow me to the side aisle. We squeeze in next to Charlie and the girls. Gram sits on the far end of the pew, next to Alfred. She leans forward and checks to make sure every member of our family is in place. She smiles happily as she surveys the lot of us before turning her eyes back to the altar. Maybe Tess is right. Gram is not the type to have a life outside of the family she loves. She’s eighty years old. That ship has definitely sailed.
Gram’s kitchen was designed with holidays and the preparation of big meals in mind, so there is no such thing as too many chefs in this kitchen. The long marble counter is a crack workstation, while the fully loaded galley kitchen can accommodate several of us as we reheat and arrange the platters. Christmas Eve dinner is exactly as it was when we were kids, except now, instead of Gram doing all the cooking, we pot-luck the food.
Gram made her traditional wedding soup with spinach and mini meatballs made of veal, Tess brought her homemade manicotti, Mom roasted a loin of pork with sweet potatoes, and prepared a second entrée of breaded chicken cutlets with steamed asparagus. Jaclyn made the salad. I’m in charge of the starters, which feature the traditional seven fishes: smelts, shrimp, sardines, oysters, baccala, lobster, and scungilli.
“What did Clickety Click bring for dessert?” Tess asks after looking around and making sure Pamela is out of earshot.
“They went to DeRoberti’s,” I tell her. Pamela brought cookies, cannolis, and mini cheesecakes, but we don’t mind the store-boughts, because at least she goes to a great Italian bakery.
“It’s Christmas and I want peace in the valley,” Mom says firmly.
“Sorry, Mom,” Tess apologizes.
“Never mind you. Look at my chicken cutlets,” Mom says proudly as she arranges them on a platter. “I pound them until they are as thin as paper. Before I bread them, you can see right through them. Jaclyn, your salad looks delish.”
“It’s from my Nigella Lawson cookbook,” Jaclyn says. “I figure with the name Nigella, she’s got to have some Italian in her, right? We got her entire collection at our wedding.”
“Her entire collection? Is that all?” Gram asks as she joins us in the kitchen. “When I got married, there was only one cookbook given to brides.”
“And now I have it. Ada Boni’s The Talisman.” Mom garnishes the cutlets with spikes of fresh parsley.
“It’s the best. Whenever I make Charlie meatballs, recipe number two, out of that book, he’ll do whatever I want. I made them last month and he retiled the half bath.”
“Well, at least you know what motivates him,” I tell Tess.
“You know, I try to do what Ma did when we were growing up. A fresh, home-cooked meal every night and dinner with the family. Not easy to pull off these days.”
“Thank you for acknowledging my contribution. I hoped my children would appreciate the little things I did and the big meals I prepared. I think Saint Teresa of the Little Flower said it best, ‘Do small things in a big way,’ or was it ‘Do big things in a small way’? I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. I worked hard all of my life”-Mom lifts the steamer full of asparagus off the stove, removes the lid, and lifts the asparagus out with tongs-“inside my home. I don’t like the delineation of career in the office versus homemaking. Work is work. And I worked for my family, to the exclusion of my own goals. You four children were my job. My performance evaluation came when each of you graduated from college and fled the nest able to take care of yourself. I gave up my own life, but I’m not complaining. It’s just the way it was. And by the way, it was fabulous!” Mom places the platter on the table.
When we were growing up, my friends would tell me that their moms would threaten them into behaving by saying things like, “I hope your children ruin your life the way you’ve ruined mine!” or “If you don’t shape up, I’ll kill myself and then what will you do, you little bastards!” or “This time next year I’ll be dead, so you can go ahead and have your pot parties!” Mom never said anything of the like to us. She would never threaten suicide because she’s a genuine life junkie.