Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (24 page)

“Oh
look!  You have something behind your ear,” said Cosmo to the little girl,
as he put his hand behind her ear and pulled out a quarter.  She began to
laugh and jump up and down in her high chair.

When
he took his seat again, grinning big and wide, Angie patted him on the shoulder
affectionately and said, “I didn't know we had a magician in the family.”

 “Yeah,”
he responded. “I guess I should be learning some more tricks now that there’s a
little one around.” 

Silvia
was so touched by the whole exchange and she thanked her big brother with
smiling eyes.  He reciprocated her graciousness by saying the very thing
that she had wanted to hear him say for the past month.  She just wished
that he had not said it from across the table so that everyone could hear.

“I
have been giving that Portland thing some more thought.  It does look like
a great place.  Maybe I will come out there with you and check it out.”

She
stared back at him with bewilderment.  She was happy to hear this, but not
overjoyed.  She told him that she was not sure that she would be going any
time soon; that she might start school here first; that Portland would always
be there; and that it might be a great thing for the two of them to move there
together one day, but that there was no rush.  For the first time in a
very long time, there was no rush to get to some place new.  She did not
need to continue to search for the perfect place.  She felt that she had
found it right where she was.  She felt that it would come with her
wherever she went, whether that place was Portland, New Jersey or on the
moon. 

The
magic continued throughout the delicious dinner that included homemade
raviolis, chicken cacciatore, and spaghetti with clams. The laughter and the
conversation blurred together into one big, gorgeous thing.  Through
Silvia’s hard work, the circle of fighting that went on and on, in their family
and the families that
preceded
them, had been broken.
 Most likely it would be temporary, as someone would inevitably remember
something to be angry about.  But she did not have the future and she did
not have the past.  She only had now, and now was good.

It
was not until they had all started to walk out to the parking lot that Silvia
remembered the painting.  “I have something to show you all,” she said,
leading them over to her car.  She opened her trunk and took out the
painting.  At first, all of their voices simultaneously declared what a
great painting it was.  Then Angie squabbled a bit about how she did not
like the eyes that her sister had given her.  And Cosmo said that she made
him too lanky.  Frank said that he was much better looking in real life
than in the painting.  Vince and Donna just stood there admiring this
thing of beauty.  And then a great silence overtook them all, and their
voices melted in the air.  It was the kind of silence that was bigger than
any sounds that could be heard.  It was the same sound that Silvia had
heard in the Cape May sunset.  It was the sound of togetherness.  
The sound of six becoming one.
 
The
sound that rises above it all.
 
The sound of
peace.

           
THE
END