Mama G is driving them to Vermont. They will sleep in motels with beds that shake if you put a coin in them. There will be swimming pools too, and real maple syrup for their pancakes. Aunt Jemima, Roger’s father told him, she’s nothing but a fake.
Everyone stands around Mama G’s dark-green Valiant, waiting for Roger’s mother to come out and say good-bye. But Roger knows she won’t. She isn’t speaking to Mama Jo. Right after the Army men came, Mama Jo arrived. I know what it’s like to lose a child, figlia mia, she’d said, wrapping her arms around his mother. But his mother pulled away. How dare you? she’d said. You have no idea. None. Then his mother slapped Mama Jo across the face and went back into her bedroom. All the aunts screamed and yelled, but Mama Jo just said, Let her go. I understand. For days afterward his mother would blurt, How could she say such a thing?
When it becomes clear that Roger’s mother isn’t coming out, Roger and Mama Jo climb into the backseat and Mama G takes her place behind the wheel and they back out of the driveway. The car smells like Christmas trees from the tree-shaped air freshener that hangs off the rearview mirror. The front seats have strange beaded covers over them, adding to Roger’s feeling that he has entered an exotic magical world. He doesn’t even wave good-bye or look at his father standing there. He is so filled with relief that he is leaving that all he can do is pinch the skin on Mama Jo’s hand and watch it stay there a moment before settling back down.
EVEN THOUGH MAMA JO can’t speak very good English, somehow Roger understands her. He knows when she is tired or hungry or when something strikes her as funny. It has always been this way. Most of the family ignores her, or treats her like she is a nuisance, when all she does really is cook for them and crochet afghans that everyone thinks are hideous. Except Roger. He loves them, loves the clashing colors and wavy pattern. Mama Jo gives him coffee with lots of milk and sugar in a chipped bowl. He’s too young for coffee! his mother scolds her, but Mama Jo pretends she doesn’t hear her.
Sometimes Roger wishes he could crawl inside Mama Jo’s head and see the world through her eyes. Once he told his mother this and she looked at him horrified. His mother doesn’t like most of the things Mama Jo cooks, like veal and peas or polenta with kale. But Roger does. On the rare visits they make from Connecticut to Rhode Island, to see Mama Jo and the rest of the family, he eats so much that he has to take an Alka-Seltzer before bed. Too much oil, his mother says, grimacing in disgust. Mama Jo gives him a tiny glass of apricot brandy for his stomachache. During the night, she comes in to check him. He can smell Black Jack gum and Milk of Magnesia on her breath as she leans over to touch his forehead. Her hands are not soft like his mother’s, They’re calloused and rough and smell like garlic. Mama Jo whispers something in Italian, and even though Roger doesn’t know what it means, he understands that she is telling him she loves him.
On the ride to Vermont, Mama Jo keeps surprising him with treats that she pulls from her big black bag.
“Mama Jo,” Roger says in the car as he leans his head against her arm, “will you teach me how to cook someday?”
Mama Jo pats his head.
“Do you think Davy’s dead?” Roger asks her.
“Morto,” Mama Jo says.
MIA is better, Roger knows that. MIA means living with buffoonish officers like on Hogan’s Heroes. Even though his father explained that Hogan isn’t MIA, he’s a POW, a prisoner of war, Roger still pictures Davy performing zany antics at a camp.
But when Mama Jo says “morto” with such decisiveness, Roger sits up straight.
“He’s dead?” he asks her.
“Eh,” she says, raising her hands in defeat.
IT IS ALREADY DARK when they get to Vermont. Mama G puts a quarter in the coin slot on his bed and Roger lies there as the bed rocks back and forth. In the morning they will let him swim in the pool before they continue north to Sister Sebastian’s convent. For now, Mama Jo and Mama G are tired. They climb into the bed across from his, both of them in long white nightgowns. Mama G has three pink curlers on the top of her head, and Mama Jo has taken all of the bobby pins out of her hair to reveal a long white braid. In no time, they are both asleep.
But Roger can’t sleep. The room is too dark and it smells strange. He wishes he had Mike Nesmith with him. The dummy is not cuddly, but it would be nice to feel its weight beside him on the bed, to maybe see its white teeth in the dark. Every time Roger closes his eyes, he thinks about Davy being dead instead of playing tricks on a group of Ho Chi Minhs. That thought makes him so scared he calls Mama Jo’s name out loud.