So Antonia has thrown her whole self into motherhood, and in her efforts to be unlike Lina, unlike Sofia, she is there the instant Robbie wakes and she soothes him to sleep, a hand on his back every night. She tries to spare him any pain, any fear, any loss, and so she is constantly telling him she loves him, telling him to be careful, to look both ways, but rather than any common sense, Robbie develops a powerful need to have Antonia near him at all times, so they are rarely seen apart, except when Julia is there: Julia, in whose presence Robbie lights up, grows six inches taller; Julia, who sparks in Robbie something courageous and mischievous that draws him away from Antonia, that allows Antonia to rest, to come to terms with the toll her obsessive parenting is taking on her body, on her mind. Antonia would not call this the independence she once dreamed of but she had been unable, as a teenager, to imagine what loving two children would do to her, how completely she would want to give of herself, how difficult it would be to find balance. She is scared of her own need; she is exhausted; she wouldn’t change it for the world but a small sense of self-preservation rears up in Antonia and reminds her of the months after Robbie was born, when she needed to walk alone, to clear her head, to come back to herself.
Antonia listens to Paolo when he complains that his post-war job has become droll and tedious, that the craft of falsified documents and the tedium of bookkeeping are incomparable, incompatible. She does not tell him how relieved she is that he is out of the line of fire, or as far away from it as he can be. She takes careful stock of her life and decides that each of its challenges is worth it, that each of its joys is indispensable, and in this way she reasons away Paolo’s new sullenness and Sofia’s new flightiness and the gnawing feeling that she is putting herself last, letting herself go unfinished. Most of the time she manages to feel full, full, full of love.
Soon 1946 is over. Sofia throws a party for New Year’s Eve. She dresses in sequins and Antonia feels like they are teenagers, sneaking out to a dance. Rosa and Joey beg out after midnight and take Julia and Robbie to sleep in their apartment but Sofia and Antonia and Saul and Paolo and a couple of guys Saul and Paolo work with climb up onto the roof and watch their breath puff in frozen clouds up into the starless city sky, up into the fresh new year.
* * *
—
In March, Antonia is watching Robbie and Julia. They are napping: faces utterly slack; hair plastered against their foreheads. Robbie is as enamored of Julia as Antonia was of Sofia but he is messier than Antonia was; he is more sensitive; he bruises easily. And Julia, too, seems messier than her mother, less focused, but just as big, just as loud, just as hot. She digs her hands into every patch of dirt she finds. Antonia is thankful they are sleeping.
Earlier that day Antonia had walked in on a wrestling match on the floor of her bedroom. What exactly is happening in here? She had hissed. I’m a Fianzo! Robbie had said to her. His face had been bright and upturned; he loved to tell her things, to bring her into his world. His arms were always reaching out for her. A what? Antonia had asked. Cold dread. Robbie drew himself up to his full height and raised his arms. Wooooouuurrrghhh! he growled. I’ll get you, Fianzo, shouted Julia. She tackled him. Legs went everywhere. A water glass fell off of a bedside table and shattered. Enough, enough! said Antonia. She lifted Robbie and Julia away from the glass one by one. Go, now! And Robbie had gone: dejected, worried. He never wants Antonia to be upset.
Antonia had breathed a shaky exhale and shut the door. She lives in constant fear of becoming her own mother—they killed your grandfather! she imagines saying in a moment of panic—but then she wouldn’t be the parent anymore; she would be making decisions for her own self-satisfaction. Antonia has made her peace with the mother her mother is able to be. But she does not want to become her.
She thinks, also, of the Fianzos themselves: their putrid cigars; the slick of their shoes and hair. She is grateful that her son thinks of them as monsters, and she is deeply disappointed: since he was born, Antonia has done her best to shelter him from the tragedy and terror in her own childhood. You’ve failed, she thinks.
Antonia is rarely surprised, any longer, by the depth and fierceness of her love for Julia. It’s not true what they say about blood being thicker than water. So she is grateful to have Julia sleeping soundly in her son’s bedroom, and she tries not to dwell on Sofia, who showed up earlier and begged Antonia to take Julia, just for a couple hours. And Antonia always opens the door. She always kisses Sofia’s cheeks and tells her to go, and she puts a hand on Julia’s hair, and she tries to focus on the absolute ocean of her love for both of them, rather than on Julia’s face, which crumples just slightly as Sofia leaves, like the top of a cake falling as it cools.
As she watches Julia and Robbie sleep, Antonia feels an internal keening: a primal, physical tug from her low belly that turns to quick tears before she is conscious of the feeling. She would like to cover their bodies with her body. She would like to cut off her arms and legs one by one and feed herself to the children sleeping in her apartment. She has just turned twenty-four.
Antonia misses Carlo. The mourning comes in waves. Robbie has Carlo’s nose, the set of his eyes. As she sees him more and more often in her son, Antonia finally understands that something has been stolen from her. Something irreplaceable. She does not know what to do with this feeling, so she cleans her home, reminding herself of Lina, scrubbing at wooden floors that were stained long before their family lived in the apartment. There is nothing to be done about this. So she stays awake and dreams, or sleeps dreamlessly, restlessly, wondering about the alternate possible versions of her own life. What she has control over, what she’s missed her chance at, and what will happen regardless of anything she decides.
She imagines being able to melt into molten anger like Sofia. How comforting, to direct a stream of fire in every direction. How final, to condense what is desperation and love and nostalgia into rage. Antonia imagines that rage would feel like action. It would feel like forward motion.
She feels so still.
* * *
—
Now if they stand shoulder to shoulder with other Family men, Paolo and Saul are indistinguishable from the old hands around them. This time four years ago they were so green they leaked sap; they were bright and awkward; a half-step behind. But fatherhood has added gravity to both of their silhouettes; experience has written lines on their faces, and as 1947 passes, Paolo and Saul find themselves steeped in routine.
When the war ended, the job changed. Somehow, and against all of his intention, Paolo has ended up in a mostly-for-show office on Nevins Street, where he spends his days tapping pen against paper and coming up with business ideas that range from dog grooming for aging Upper East Side socialites to intercepting ocean liners and hustling the passengers out of a few bucks in return for a tour of the city. For an hour a day, he alters the books that let the Family pay taxes without disclosing where their money comes from; Luigio Travel does a hefty business. At the end of the week, he turns his notebooks over to Joey and says, I think I’ve got some good ones here, boss. And Joey, out of pity or generosity, continues to pay Paolo the same as he did when Paolo was an indispensable forger during the war. And so Paolo fights a never-ending and vicious battle between the part of himself who is comforted and relieved to sink into the same set of tasks week after week, and the part of himself who dreamed of something bigger. Who thought it, whatever it was, would feel like more, when he got there.
* * *
—