The Patron Saint of Ugly (15 page)

Then he reach to tug up-a my nightgown, but I can’t do it, and I can’t do it, because all I see is his brother’s face. “Angelo! Oh, Angelo!”

That’s when Dominick clamped his hand over my mouth and chanted his own rosary into my ear. “It’s Dominick. Dominick-Dominick-Dominick-Dominick!” he say over and over as he takes from me that thing I was saving for Angelo.

Later that night I stand on the ship’s deck and consider the choice-a before me: jump into the ocean and let it swallow me or make a life with Dominick until the day my real husband and I could be reunited. I looked at the waves for an answer and suddenly a school of dolphins rise from the water and swim right below me beside-a the boat. They chirp and whistle but I no understand why they are so happy when I am-a so, so sad. As I watch them breach over and over I see something bright in the middle of-a the pod, a giant silver fishtail glinting in the moonlight, the Pining Nereid swimming with the dolphins offering me safe-a passage across the Atlantic. I no see her arms or a-head because of the blackness, but in-a my heart I’m sure it is the creature who turned half into a fish to survive. Then I know what I have to do: turn into a dutiful wife so I can-a survive this marriage. From that moment on, for the rest of the voyage and then when we land in New York, whenever Dominick wanna sleep with-a me, I close my eyes and pretend it’s Angelo’s hand on the small of-a my back. It’s Angelo’s lips on that spot on my neck that make-a me crazy. It’s Angelo’s lunch I fix and laundry I scrub, and eventually my secret life is not-a so bad, since Dominick thinks I’m doing all of this-a for him. But in-a my head I am hiding inside the shell of a dutiful wife, and it is Angelo wearing his brother’s a-skin.

Over the years, with all that pretending, I forget about my trouble with the electric back in Sicilia until Garney is-a born and then it all comes back and the wiring in-a my house goes kaboom. It drive Dominick crazy since he cannot find-a the source. He rewire mostly the whole house but still can no find-a the prob. Good for me we already had the piped-in gas. After Garney move away from Sweetwater, a dozen years ago, my electric return, and I think that is-a the end of that, but I was-a wrong. Maybe she no tell-a you yet about why she left Sweetwater. I was-a so sad because I know our separation is all-a my fault. My heart hurt so much since from the minute I hold her in-a my arms when she was a bambina, we had a bond that I didn’t have with her brother, though he was our male heir and a beautiful one at-a that. But with her, there was that humming in-a our heads. Plus there was something about the way Garney look at a-me that had nothing to do with Saint Garnet or
miracoli
. Whenever I hold her it felt like I was hugging myself, or the sister I always wanted. Impossible, I know, but maybe that was a
miracolo
too.

And here is one-a more thing I must speech about. I hear Garney tell-a you the big fib. She say she no longer make
miracolo
once she get to school, but that is-a no true. I don’t know why she lie about this, because many Sundays when I go to Saint Brigida, when Mass-a end, before I even shuffle out, some nonna or mamma would-a pull me aside.

“Nonna Ferrari. Little Carlo is home with the measles. Here’s his teddy bear for Garnet to pray over.” Or “Baby Linda has the mumps. Here’s her favorite blankie.” Sometimes they brought the actual child. “Nonna, Carmella has a wart on her finger. Look! Look! Please ask Garnet to pray over a-her.”

Who could-a refuse such-a pleading? I would go find Garney and tug her behind the statue of Saint Brigida (the real one). She would take the stuffed toy or the favorite blanket or the child and hold it in her hands. She burn so hot with a-fever when she perform the
miracolo
that it runs up-a my arm too. The healing no happen right then. It take a few hours, maybe a day.

Okay, so to confess all of-a the truth, not everyone believe in her. We get the snub from some
famiglie
who think she make it all up, but who need-a them anyway? Garney no make-a this up. I have a-proof from parents of the children she heal who send me letters and thank-you cards with pineapple upside-down cakes or no-bake cookies. Some send me the pictures to show me the healing, which I send to you now. Look on the back and you see where I write the name of the healed and the date. Sometimes I write-a the ailment, like a-scabies or heat rash, all now gone. Listen as I read this-a one from Mrs. O’Greenie down in the village. It was not easy for her to cross the Saint Brigida aisle and ask for Garney’s help, so you know I no make-a the fib.

Dear Nonna Ferrari: Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph bless your family for the healing your granddaughter has brought to our Dickey. Since she prayed over his diapers and ointment his rash has completely disappeared. May your home always be too small to hold all your friends. God is good, but never dance in a small boat.

I no understand the small-boat part, but I think it’s a-sound advice. Anyway, why Garney resist her gift I do not know. She could a-heal so many more people if she wanted. She even heal people when she don’t even know about it. I tell-a you the truth because I saw it one time with my own-a eyeballs. It was when she was wearing that pillowcase that embarrass her father to no end. I make-a the speech to him, but he no want to hear that his daughter was a
santa
, something I never understood.

There was a little girl who just move-a to Sweetwater and none of the other kids liked her. Her name was Potty, but I think that was a bad name the children called her because she make-a the pee-pee down her leg all the time. Not only did she always smell like the pee, but she pick-a the boogidies. Every time I see her she has a finger rammed up her nose digging for the boogidies. One day she ram the finger in too far I guess and get a bloody nose that drip and drip for months. Her parents were a-poor so they no take her to the doctor, and from then on that kid always had a bloody handkerchief stuck up her nose like a plug. It was a Friday morning when Garney and I walk down the hill to the village for the sausage casings. Little girls follow her like chicks after the mama duck asking her to touch-a the stuffed bunny or torn paper doll. Except for Potty, who leap from bush to bush and squeeze skinny-skinny behind the telephone poles so none of the kids see her and start pelting her with rocks, even Garney, I hate to say, but I saw her do this a few times, and yell, “Snotty Potty! Snotty Potty, go home!”

We reach the bottom of the hill and several village kids surround Garney too, begging for a healing. They all stop and then I see Snotty Potty behind the corner mailbox. She tiptoe over so that nobody see her, and I no make-a the fuss because I think she need the healing more than these toys do, especially since the handkerchief that plug her nose hole had fallen out and blood trickles down her lip. She sees me and starts to run away, but I nod for her to come forward. I even shield-a her with my body as she crawl up behind the crowd and reach her hand between the kids and touch Garney’s veil. The minute she stroke it I feel-a the spark and when I look down at Snotty Potty, her nose no bleed-a no more! She look at me and grin and I see her bad teeth, but that no matter because she is one happy little girl who skip away shouting “Wheeeee!” I scoop up Snotty Potty’s handkerchief and when I open it, the blood smears look just like-a Mount Etna. I fold it up and tuck it in-a my purse as-a proof. Garney never knew a thing and I hold that secret to my chest until now.

You see? There is too much God working through my granddaughter,
my
granddaughter, which is why Walleye and me take matters into our own-a hands. We collect Garney’s holy relics—especially her toothbrush, so we can pluck out every bristle—and dole them out to the pilgrims outside. But no tell-a Garney. It’s-a no right for her to keep her holy art to herself.

I will say the rosary for my penance today, Padre, and make a real confess at Saint Brigida’s next First Friday. I promise, and you rest a-for sure I would never lie to a archbishop.

Okay, so. Amen.

(Betty! Come and turn off this-a machine [you green-hearted
jettatura
who no deserve the last Mallo Cup].)

Make-a that two rosaries, Padre. In-a Latin.

TAPE EIGHT

Doll versus Doll

Padre:

It’s Wednesday afternoon and I’m in the library unpacking the newest
World Book
encyclopedias—a smorgasbord of illustrated knowledge. Nicky would have flipped out over the pictures of the recently unearthed terra-cotta army in Xi’an. I think he wished he could have been protected by a bevy of bodyguards too.

You already know about the ambivalence roiling around Sweetwater regarding me—sainted or stained, especially since I was out of the miracle business—but Nicky also elicited varied sentiments. Hill parents adored him for his beauty, the epitome of everything their russet-tinted offspring were not. Schoolgirls adored him for the same reasons. They hid gifts in his desk: Woody Woodpecker key chains and Pluto (the dog) erasers, candy cigarettes and licorice pipes. The boys, however, despised him. In addition to siphoning away the love of
their
secret crushes, Nicky was a delicately boned, pink-cheeked sweet pea. Plus he had me for a little sister.

If Nicky couldn’t hire a clay army, he could stay sequestered in his room soaking up knowledge. By the time he was eleven he had read all of Grandfather Postscript’s reference books and had begun badgering Dad to buy him the newest
Britannica
s for Christmas.

“My set is over twenty years old!” Nicky wailed at the dinner table for the tenth night in a row. “It doesn’t even mention Hiroshima” (bringing this up was a wise tactic, given our veteran father). “There are gaps in my knowledge. Wide gaps!”

“We just can’t afford it,” Dad said. It must have been excruciating for him to deny his son. “However,” he added, making us all look up as if he were going to pull an erudite rabbit from his hat. “I think we can swing one volume a year. The salesman said you don’t even have to buy them in order, so pick any letter you want, Nicky. Even
Z
.”

Mom and I thought it was a brilliant compromise, but Nicky bawled, “One at a time? There are twenty-three volumes; it’ll take twenty-three years. Twenty-four if I get the index too. And by then they’ll be out of date!”

I understood his urgency; the ratio of kid time to adult time is roughly one kid week for every adult day, which is why Christmas is always so long in coming for kids.

“I want them all now!” His cheeks flushed as he stormed, as much as his lithe frame could storm, down the hall.

Dad’s chin sank, but Mom proposed a solution none of us had ever expected to hear. “I suppose I can ask my mother.”

Ever since Grandma Iris had tried to kidnap my brother, she had been banned from our home. Mom refused Grandma’s phone calls, so she resorted to letters, the first containing a check so obscene that Mom, understanding the strings attached to all those zeros, tore it into pieces. She also refused deliveries of additional home furnishings, though I’m sure waving ta-ta to the window air conditioner was brutal. Sometimes I wanted to shake Mom and say,
What the hell are you thinking?

Over the years Mom softened a bit, as did Grandma. She stopped sending appliances and started sending reasonable amounts of cash. She probably asked her accountant to calculate the appropriate exchange rate for lower-middle-class birthdays. Like kid time and adult time, currency had to be converted from wealthy to poor.

The night Nicky stomped to his room, Mom made the difficult phone call to Charlottesville. Of
course
Grandma would buy the
Britannica
s, with one caveat: she wanted to deliver them herself. Remarkably, Mother agreed.

On Christmas Eve Nicky and I gazed out the front window as snowflakes drifted through the streetlights’ funneled beams. We were on guard duty, watching not for Santa or even the mighty Christ Child but for Grandma, a woman we didn’t remember but whose name prompted shudders from our folks. At the first glint of chrome we yelled, “She’s here!” This was followed by a collective tightening of orifices. We watched her sleigh of a Cadillac pull into our steep driveway, tailpipe sparking against the cement. Dad came up from the basement, shoulders slumped inside his work shirt. Mom wore her perpetual skinny pants and sweater set, hair in a ponytail, but more makeup than usual. She and Dad shrugged on their coats and went outside, Nicky and I close on their heels.

Grandma, encased in mink, emerged from the car. “Darling” —she clasped Mom’s face in her hands—“I see someone has been neglecting her skin care.” Mother picked at her eyebrow as Grandma held her gloved hand toward my father. We expected him to kiss it, but he just gave it a pump. Grandma looked beyond Mom and Dad in search of Nicky. “There he is!” She engulfed him in a furry embrace. Initially he squirmed, but he relaxed as Grandma crooned, “My beautiful, darling boy. My handsome, perfect grandson.” If Nonna were there, she would have dowsed us in a
ptt-ptt-ptt
shower. Remarkably, Nicky closed his eyes, perhaps pretending it was Mom.

Eventually Grandma’s gaze landed on me and circumnavigated the globe. “It’s even worse than I imagined.” Mom socked her in the arm. “And there’s Garnet,” Grandma said, aggrieved at having to look at my face.
Out, damned spot, out!

When I was younger, and much more gullible, I had asked Mom when she was going to tell Grandma about my sainted lineage. I had pitifully dredged the lore from my pancreas just that morning while Mom scrubbed the scum ring from the tub. “Does she know I’m Saint Garnet?” I fingered the glass locket beneath my shirt. “Does she know I’m special too?” Mom wiped her forearm across her brow. “Garnet, some people will never believe, no matter how many miracles they see.”

There was also a time when I thought Grandma might be the
jettatura
toying with my geography, electrifying me, folding her hexes in with her letters, but ultimately I understood that she wouldn’t have bothered.