I am going to marry that man, Connie thought as she watched his bowlegged strut. I am going to marry that man and move to Connecticut and never ever come back here again.
She smiled, sat at her desk, lifted her fingers above the typewriter keys, and typed.
“THE BACCALA,” CONNIE’S MOTHER SAYS, “needs to be soaked three times.” She holds up her thumb and the two fingers beside it. “For the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Davy nods solemnly.
Even though one of the many changes Connie has made in her life includes not going to church, Davy holds a fascination for religion, and Jesus in particular. Vincent does the obligatory Catholic duties: Palm Sunday, Easter Mass, and—until this year—midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. But enough of the kids at the St. Alphonsus kindergarten practice their faith that Davy has gleaned some of the details.
“Is the Holy Spirit related to the Holy Ghost?” he asks his grandmother as she begins to flour the smelts.
“They’re all God,” she answers.
Davy looks confused but doesn’t pursue it.
Connie, thick tongued and fuzzy headed, joins them at the table. Silently, she counts the fish spread out there in various stages of preparation. Baccala, smelts, snail salad, octopus, marinated eel, anchovies.
“Six,” she says, after she’s counted again. “There’s only six.”
“I’ve got shrimps in the icebox,” her mother says primly.
Connie supposes that her mother will never forgive her for moving away and not coming home to visit. Until now. To her mother, it is probably too late. But to Connie, she has come only out of desperation. The flush of joy over a new grandchild has already faded as her mother remembers the disrespect Connie has shown her.
“Why do we need six fishes?” Davy asks. He has put his hand over his nose and mouth to block out the strong fish smell.
His grandmother shakes her head sadly. “This one, he knows nothing.”
“We eat seven fishes on Christmas Eve,” Connie explains. “One for . . .” She hesitates. “I almost said one for each apostle, but that’s wrong.”
For the first time since she’s arrived, her mother looks right at Connie, her face so full of disappointment and disapproval that Connie has to catch her breath.
“So,” her mother says evenly, “you follow a man to some fancy job and buy some fancy house and pretend you’re American, and you actually turn into an American?”
“Ma, I am American,” Connie says. She can feel Davy’s eyes on her. “Italian-American,” she adds.
Her mother takes hold of the rubbery white octopus and splays it on the table, slicing it with quick knife strokes.
The slap of the octopus against the enamel cuts through the silence.
“You know Vincent lost that job, Ma,” Connie says quietly.
“Daddy is unemployed,” Davy says with pride.
Connie’s mother hesitates, the knife in midair.
“I thought he got a job with—”
“That didn’t work out either,” Connie says.
“And this is the time you decide to get pregnant?” her mother says. “Is that what they taught you at that fancy secretarial school I paid for? I used to have to borrow from the other kids’ lunch money for your bus fare to Providence.”
“I didn’t decide,” Connie mumbles.
She wants to tell her mother that this is why she has not come home. Her own disappointment with her life is big enough for all of them. She wants to tell her how sometimes, when she watches Vincent feed his fat bullfrog face, she prays that he will choke. How when she finds him asleep on the sofa late in the afternoon, she watches to see if he is still breathing, and is always angry when his chest rises and falls in perfect rhythm.
“Mommy works for Dr. DiMarco,” Davy says through his fingers.
Her mother’s head snaps to attention.
“You work? I’m glad your grandmother is spending Christmas with Sister Chiara this year. What would she think?”
“In the doctor’s office,” Connie says, trying to sound casual. “A few days a week while Davy’s at school.”
“Vincent stays home, and you work?”
Connie’s glance flits to Davy, and then back to her mother. But her mother doesn’t take the hint.
“What kind of wife . . . what kind of mother . . . works?” her mother says.
“Dr. DiMarco looks like Montgomery Clift,” Davy says.
She frowns, but doesn’t look away. Connie can feel her cheeks turn red.
Connie picks up the bowl of smelts that still need to be fried and takes them over to the stove, where a pot of hot oil waits. Through the window, she can see her husband drinking homemade wine with Angie’s husband, Pat, and Gloria’s husband, Rocky. The men have cigars clenched in their fingers and Vincent is holding court, talking and gesturing, happy to have an audience. She wonders what he is bragging about. His woody? Her pregnancy? The car they can’t afford payments on?
She drops a handful of smelts into the bubbling oil. It splatters, burning her hands and arms.
“Montgomery Clift is a famous actor,” Davy is saying. “Mommy’s favorite actor, right, Mommy?”