Most Precious Blood (16 page)

Six, Val thought. You have six stubborn kids.

“Sorry,” Carmela said. “Leaving you out like that. Of course I don't know if you're stubborn or not. But if you take after Charley, you must be. The man was a mule. It's just … after I gave you away, I told everybody you died. The older kids knew different, but I didn't have much trouble convincing everybody else. I was crying all the time anyway, from missing Charley and being so scared, so they all thought I was crying because the baby died too. And my parents were dead, and so were Charley's, and suddenly Charley's brothers and sisters and my brothers and sisters were nowhere to be seen. I don't know how much Rick told you about Charley dying, but there was a mixup, and Charley was blamed for a lot of it. He might have even been to blame. Charley was a great one for playing the odds and ending up with a losing hand. Anyway, the Primos chose to forget Charley was a Primo, and the Rinaldis chose to forget I was a Rinaldi, and there I was with six young kids, and I wasn't even thirty, so I cried a lot. But I could never make myself tell people the truth about you. I guess I was too ashamed, that I'd actually let one of my babies go like that.”

“Why did you?” Val asked. It wasn't an accusation, she was too grateful she'd been adopted to accuse. But she still had to know.

Carmela scratched her chin. “You cried a lot,” she said. “No, that's the truth. Out of the six of them, you were the screamingest. Maybe you sensed what was going on. I always thought you were smart. You used to look at things different from the other kids. From the very first, I was afraid there was something wrong with you.”

“Is that why?” Val asked. “You thought I wasn't good enough?”

“It wasn't a question of good. It was just different,” Carmela said. “But if Charley had lived, nothing else would have happened. Maybe you wouldn't even have cried so much. It was just after he died, we had nothing, no money, and a mortgage on this house so big you could choke a horse, and kids gotta have food and shoes and heat in the winter. I didn't know what I was going to do. Usually in a situation like that, the widow's given some kind of settlement, but because of the mixup and everything, I figured I was lucky nobody was shooting at me. If Louie Castaladi hadn't shown up on my doorstep the way he did, I don't know what would have become of us.”

“But you didn't want to give me up,” Val said. “My father said you had to be persuaded.”

Carmela laughed. “Louie Castaladi was a very persuasive man,” she declared. “He had a lot of different ways of persuading.”

“Did he threaten you?” Val asked.

“You sure you're not thirsty or something?” Carmela asked. “I bought soda for you. I don't drink much soda myself, and now with the kids all gone, I almost never have it in the house, so I bought three different kinds. I didn't know what you liked best.”

“No, thank you,” Val said. “Maybe later.”

“I've only been on a plane once,” Carmela said. “It sure made me thirsty.”

“How did he persuade you?” Val asked.

Carmela laughed again. “You are Charley's daughter,” she said. “He never let anything go. I remember once, I paid seventeen dollars for a dress and he thought it was way too much, I should've only paid ten, and he threw that in my face for years. I bet you're just like that, never forget a thing.”

“Are you scared to tell me?” Val whispered. Maybe it was having Bruno, or even Terry, in the house that was keeping Carmela from admitting what actually had happened.

Carmela shook her head. “Not the way you think,” she said. “You want to know the truth, fine, here's the truth. First I get some phone calls from people saying they represent Louie Castaladi. Now Louie is not exactly a stranger to me. He's godfather to our boy Vince. But we don't exactly travel in the same circles. So I start getting these phone calls, and the people say Louie's heard all about Charley, and what a shame it is, and me with six young kids, and the littlest one they hear is just a baby, a girl right? Like this makes a difference. So I'm crying, and the kids are screaming, and the baby's giving me these weird looks and refusing to nurse, like my milk's poison or something, and I don't know what the hell these guys are getting at. If Louie wants to give me some money, help out, fine. I'll take anything at that point. But they're not saying that. They're asking if the baby's okay. So I say sure. I mean, she was. She was strange maybe, but okay.”

“You didn't suspect?” Val asked.

“Why should I?” Carmela asked. “Nobody's been calling me over the years saying Barbara Castaladi can't have kids. Not that it surprises me once I learn. My mother's cousin married into that family, and all you ever heard about them was how sick they all were. Anyway, I keep thanking these representatives of Louie Castaladi for their phone calls, and nothing really seems to be getting said. Then one evening, the doorbell rings, and there's Louie himself. Looking very handsome. And he strolls in like he's always in this part of Buffalo, it's practically his second home, and his bodyguard hands me a bag of groceries that Louie says he just picked up in case I need anything. I don't even have food for breakfast the next day, and there's milk and bacon and eggs all in this bag. So I start crying. I think Louie's come to save me. Now we won't starve. Now the welfare people won't start sniffing at my heels. Now I won't have to pick which kids should end up in foster care, which kids can I keep. Louie Castaladi has arrived with groceries. It's all going to be all right.”

“You were thinking about foster care?” Val asked.

“I have six kids, no money,” Carmela replied. “Charley Junior is twelve, already he's getting into trouble. I was thinking maybe if I put two, even three, kids into foster care, I'll be able to take care of the rest. It wasn't what I wanted. I hated the idea of my kids being shuffled around like that. But nobody was offering me a lot of choices.”

Val looked around the living room. She could hear Bruno and Terry in the kitchen. Bruno must have finished with the storm windows, and she hadn't even noticed. All these kids Carmela was talking about, Charley Junior and Marcie and Vince, were her brothers and sisters. She didn't know any of them, and yet she could imagine their pain at being torn away from their home, their mother, to go to live with strangers.

“So Louie sits down,” Carmela said. “The kids take one look at him, at his bodyguard, they all run to their rooms. The baby, for a change, is not screaming. I'm crying, but it's more from gratitude than anything else. Louie Castaladi remembers our connection. He remembers Charley is part Castaladi, they share blood. He's our savior. I would have kissed his ring if he'd asked me.”

“But he asked for the baby instead,” Val said.

Carmela nodded. “He starts out with a lot of questions,” she declared. “How am I doing, do we have enough. We don't, so I tell him so. He asks after the health of all the kids. He even remembers their names. Finally he comes to the baby, says he loves babies, would I mind if he had a look at her. I'm not going to turn this man down anything, so we go to the girls' room, and there you are, looking so peaceful and innocent, it had to be an act. Only Louie doesn't know this. He thinks you're always like this. ‘An angel,' he says, and I don't say otherwise. Maybe if he thinks you're an angel, he'll bring us more groceries next week. So we go back downstairs, and he offers me some sympathy. How rough it must be, losing Charley that way, especially with all the misunderstandings going on, and he's talked to the head of the Petrollis to see what can be done, only they spit at the name of Charley Primo. So he doesn't think I can look for help from them. And I open my heart to him, tell him how the Primos and the Rinaldis all have forgotten I even exist, and what am I going to do, six kids to feed, and a mortgage to pay off, and Louie's sitting there listening and nodding his head like this is the worst problem he's ever heard, and it's going to take a lot of thinking for him to come up with an answer, but he's going to try if it kills him. I even stop crying. The kids are quiet for the first time in their lives, and there's a kind of a peace all around, and Louie is nodding.”

Terry laughed suddenly in the kitchen. Both Val and Carmela stopped for a moment, startled by the sound. “She's a nice woman,” Carmela said. “Coming all this way to be with you.”

“She was my mother's best friend,” Val said. “She made a vow to look after me, when my mother was dying.”

“That's good,” Carmela said. “To have people who love you. You're a lucky girl.”

“I know,” Val said. “I really do.”

“It all worked out then,” Carmela said.

Val nodded. “I know that,” she said. “But I need to know how.”

“Just like Charley and that dress,” Carmela said. “All right. Louie's being Mr. Sympathy, and I'm eating it up. And then like he's just had this thought, he says to me have I thought about giving the baby up for adoption? So I say no. I guess I scream it, and it's a miracle the baby doesn't wake up and start screaming the way she always did. I mean foster care is bad enough, but at least you can get the kids back when you can afford them, sort of like a pawnshop. Adoption, the kid's gone forever. I'm never doing that to any of my own. Which I tell him, in no uncertain terms. And Louie's nodding again, like he's really listening, but then he says what if the baby goes to a home so wonderful, so perfect, it's got to be the best thing that ever happened to her. And I still say no, not one of mine, I could never do that to one of mine. And Louie's looking at me really intently now, and he says what if the baby's brought up by family, not by strangers you have no control over, but by blood. So I ask him what blood. I'm still not sure just what's going on, but all of a sudden, I'm beginning to worry the baby's going to start screaming, and Louie'll leave.”

“I screamed that much?” Val asked.

“All the time,” Carmela replied. “You only stopped screaming when you'd want to give me one of those funny looks of yours. And I started thinking about that then, about what a funny baby you were, and you never seemed to warm up to me the way all my other babies had, and how you wouldn't nurse unless I practically forced you. And Louie's offering me blood. So I figure I'd better hear him out. And he says his son Ricky, fine boy, in business for himself, construction, strictly legitimate, married for years to a lovely girl, Barbara Salvati, but they can't have kids, and they've been to all the doctors, and it's breaking their hearts. And here I am with six healthy children, the youngest an angel, and all Barbara wants is just one baby to call her own, and Charley is part Castaladi after all, so even though I don't know Rick and Barbara, it isn't like I'd be handing the baby over to a stranger. And I start getting mad.”

“Why?” Val asked, half-convinced herself that Carmela should give the baby away on the spot.

“I'm not going to sell no baby of mine for a bag of groceries and a little sympathy,” Carmela declared. “Not with five others to feed and a mortgage to pay. And I tell him that. I tell Louie Castaladi, who owns all of Jersey and half of New York, that no matter how fine his son Ricky might be, and no matter how sad Barbara is, my children do not come cheap. And Louie agrees. He snaps his fingers and his bodyguard shows up with a briefcase, which Louie opens. He takes out an envelope, hands it over to me, and inside is ten thousand dollars. And suddenly I'm scared, because I've never seen that kind of money before in my life, and it'll buy a lot of bacon and eggs for the kids.”

“You sold me?” Val asked.

“I did what I had to,” Carmela said. “I thought about the other five kids, the ones I really knew, and what ten thousand could do for them. Keep them out of foster care for one thing. But I still had some pride. I am a Rinaldi, after all, so I said to Louie ten thousand was nice, but I needed a lot more than that, and he says how much, and I realize I have him. He'll give me anything so his son's wife can have a baby for her own. And I say I'm giving up my own baby, the last child I could ever have with Charley, and how do I know she'll be all right? Louie says he's giving me his word and isn't that enough, and I say usually yes, but in this case he should understand I need more. So Louie asks how about if we stay in touch. He'll make sure Rick understands and he'll send me pictures so I can see you growing up, and I can let him know if the baby's brothers and sisters ever need for anything. Which I take to be a pretty generous offer. It's like you'd be supporting them, which was more than I could do, or Charley Junior, him being only twelve. And I'm thinking I'd better say yes fast before the baby starts squalling, so I shake Louie's hand and he snaps his fingers again, and there's the bodyguard with everything you need to move a baby. And Louie himself goes upstairs, and takes the baby out of her crib, and tells me I'll never be sorry, and I'm crying, and the other kids are up now, asking what's going on, but the baby keeps sleeping, which I regard as a sign from God that I'm doing the right thing, and Louie and the bodyguard leave the house and leave Buffalo, and that's the last I see of you until an hour ago today. Except for pictures. So now you know everything, just the way you wanted, and I hope you're satisfied because these haven't been easy memories for me, and it's a story I don't want to have to tell again.”

Val nodded. She was too stunned to cry, and then she felt like a fool for being so startled. Of course money had changed hands. That was how Rick Castaladi did things, on a cash basis.

Carmela Primo looked at her daughter. “You turned out real pretty,” she said. “You look more like Vince than any of the others. I guess now you want to see some pictures? I pulled them out when I heard you were coming. I didn't tell the boys, or Marcie for that matter, about you. Most of them think you died anyway.”